The United Football League was a professional American football minor league that operated between 1961 and 1964. It had eight teams, primarily based in the Midwestern United States. The league was founded in 1961 as a minor league alternative to the National Football League, and American Football League. Based in the Midwest, it drew many of its players from the Big Ten college conference. Among its more notable feats, it became the first football league to operate teams in both the United States and Canada when it launched the Quebec Rifles in 1964, and it revived the names of the Cleveland/Canton Bulldogs and Akron Pros, two early-era NFL teams. On the field in 1963, the Wheeling Ironmen would take the Eastern Division with a league best 12-1 record. Meanwhile, the Toledo Tornadoes would easily take the Western Division with an impressive 10-3 record. Wheeling would go on to win the 1963 UFL Championship game over Toledo by a final score of 30-21, in front of a crowd of 5,586 at the Glass Bowl in Toledo, Ohio on December 8, 1963.