Dave Grohl’s claim that Canadians invested American football put to the test

Earlier this month your good mate Dave Grohl rocked up during the Super Bowl in an advert for Canadian whisky brand Crown Royal in which the Foo Fighters frontman spent 60 seconds thanking Canada for all its many contributions to the world.Although, quite how Canadian those Canadian contributions really are is possibly up for debate, or at least so concludes Canadian YouTuber JJ McCullough, who often delves into the history of Canadian and wider North American culture in his videos.Alongside some definitely Canadian musicians and comedians, the list of things which – Grohl declared – his fellow Americans should be thanking their Canadian neighbours for included: peanut butter, paint rollers, poutine, the replay, walkie talkies, batteries, egg cartons, ironing boards, electric wheelchairs, Hawaiian pizza, instant mashed potatoes, canola oil, trash bags, whoopee cushions, hockey, basketball and even American football itself.Now some of those things were definitely invented by Canadians. I mean, I don’t think any one else is claiming to have come up with the idea of adding cheese curds to chips and gravy.

But some of those things were invented by Canadians who actually spent most of their lives living in the USA, while others have much more ambiguous origin stories than Grohl’s list suggested.And that’s certainly true when it comes to his boldest claim: that the Canadians invented American football. “Yeah, look it up!”, Grohl declared in the ad.McCullough did, and concludes: “In reality, most sport historians generally agree that no one person invented football per se.

It is simply a unique game that evolved out of British rugby in a vague and experimental way during the mid-nineteenth century. It’s not even widely agreed