Jim Mitchener played junior football in Vancouver with the Vancouver Blue Bombers and then joined the Calgary Stampeders for one year in 1948.  That was the year the Stamps went undefeated on the way to the famous Grey Cup win in 1948.   The Stampeder fans, along with the horses they rode into the Royal York Hotel lobby in Toronto, helped to transform the Grey Cup into a national party.  It was also the year of the Spaith to Hill sleeper play in the game itself.  What do you do after winning a Grey Cup?  Well for Mitchener anyway, it meant going back to school.  Mitchener played three years of college ball at McGill where he was a three time All-Star.  Mitchener returned to the CFL in 1952, playing three seasons with Montreal from 1952 to 1954.  Mitchener played one more year in the CFL, starring for the BC (then Vancouver) Lions in 1956.  The stats are a bit sparse for those years, but Mitchener recorded three interceptions for the Lions in his final season.

Individual stats were not kept in the West until 1950 and in the East until 1954.