When the smoke finally cleared on last night’s 18-17 win over the Waterloo Warriors, the University of Toronto Varsity Blues and their 2,562 fans got to celebrate something they haven’t witnessed in the past six years: a football victory.

It was a pretty good first impression for new coach Greg DeLaval - this was his first game as the “leader of Canadian men”. DeLaval took over for Steve Howlett who, as you’ll recall, was offered a raise after leading the team to an 0-40 start. Guess the school figured out that wasn’t such a great plan.

The last time the Blues won was on October 13th, 2001. To give you a sense of how long a 49-game losing streak like that actually is, on that date President Bush’s approval rating was 90%. Right now, it’s hovering around 30%.

In fact, let’s play a game of What Else Happened in October, 2001!

• The Yankees’ dynasty officially came to an end.
• Hillary Duff just turned 14.
• K-Pax was released in theaters, officially ending Kevin Spacey’s run as the Hot New Actor.
• The average price of a gallon of gas was about $1.20.
• Michael Lewis’ Moneyball was still 2 years away from being released and making a whole generation of stat-obsessed baseball nerds.
• The iPod was officially released!

Geez, that’s a long time. Hopefully this new victory will not be the start of another 49-game losing streak. We can’t take putting together another one of these lists.