guys
do u keep any other teams participation stats?
like in last 18 years what other teams have participated say 10 or more times.
ok so this bob guys know everything about the bears and it is pretty impressive but if it is the same 6 or 7 every time.....what does that say about any of the CIS Mens hockey or probably any Men's or Women's CIS leagues? i would guess that this trend of only a few good teams is the same in every sport? sad actually! speaks to the cash needed to compete i guess. OR a athletic programs head in the sand approach to competitiveness(manitoba!! and most recently UBC??)
I only ask because this 8 team format is really not going to change the landscape in my personal opinion.
rarely anyone other than the same 7 0r 8 have a chance go to this championship? and then only a couple capable of really winning it barring a fluke!?
i wasn't there the last few years ( was in TBAY) but a second place AUS team seemed week( and I mean Acadia this year)? 2 years in a row.As did all of OUA... and now the CIS is making sure three from OUA are there all the time? AB could win 20 in a row given that bob guys math.
unless of course a goalie has a weird night and stops 64 in a 2-1 win (which is apparently the only way AB loses).
and the one and done format referred to ...do the CIS people really think this will catch on like the basketball brackets in the NCAA. surely these people watch too much TSN and read too many cartoons.
The reason Bob Stauffer knows so much about Alberta is that he was the Alberta SID for many years. I would say he's one of the most knowledgeable posters when it comes to the inner workings of the CIS.
Now to your point about the same few being competitive in each sport. Yes this is true to an extent, Laval, McMaster, Calgary, Saint Mary's and Saskatchewan in football, Alberta, and the AUS in hockey, Carleton in men's basketball, UBC in women's volleyball etc. Why is this? Most Universities have finite funds and can either be mediocre in all sports or pour money into one and be hugely competitive. The reason in some cases you have multiple teams at one school who are national calibre like Saskatchewan in both football and hockey, is that one team has a wealthy booster backing it.
But is this an issue for the CIS? I would say no as the NCAA has the same issues so to speak. The top football programs typically are not the top basketball programs and vice versa. Florida seems to be one of the few schools who are typically national title contenders in both every year.
Due to the popularity of March Madness and the Bowl games, it appears that lots of schools are top teams. But in football you need to be .500, I believe to be Bowl eligible. Thus, a middle of the pack Big Ten school (comparable to Manitoba's general rankings) gets invited to the Beef O'Bradys Bowl and appears to be a good team. In reality, there are so many Bowl games, there was a concern a few years ago about not having enough teams eligible to fill the spots. As for March Madness, every conference gets an automatic bid. This is why teams like Mount St. Mary's get in. They get killed in the first round, but they won the NEC to get in. So really, the NCAA and CIS are not so different in this regard.
As for the new format, I see no problems either. Realistically, how many University Cup finalists are 1-1? Not too many, so really the current format sees 4 teams essentially lose one game and are out. Yes, they get a second game to play, but really in most cases the result ends up causing the game to be academic anyhow. So they have removed the formality from the tournament. It wouldn't surprise me if they moved to a Consolation format like basketball has, played a second rink elsewhere. So nobody is truly one and done. The only issue I potentially see with this format is the host team cannot predict where it will play and ticket sales will suffer. For instance this year the U of S decided well in advance of the playoffs that it would play Friday/Saturday. Thus, it was easy for Huskies fans like myself to purchase advance tickets knowing when they were playing. The new format removes that formality.
As for participation, since 1997-98, the Huskies have been in 11 University Cups. Granted, 5 of those were because they were hosts.
