AUS Fan knows the crowd too well ...
For instance (and for the sake of argument), Player So-and-So wants to leave the University of Manitoba and transfer to the University of Alberta and play for the Golden Bears so that he can get more playing time. (I'm just using an example here)
Or....
say that Manitoba dismissed him for some team rule violations and he opts to transfer.
What is involved when a CIS player does that? How does that affect the college credits that he's already accumulated, if it does? How will it affect his ability to be able to play for another CIS team, should he chose to transfer?
Most of your answer is in that CIS FAQ. For transferring credits, it just like any other student -- your new school may accept some or all of your credits depending what program you transfer into. If you leave Manitoba in your example before you the end of the academic term/semester you're obviously not going to get credits for quitting courses. However, if our example student at Manitoba is a Business Admin/Commerce student and gets good grades and transfers to Business Admin/Commerce at Alberta at the end of a term he'll probably be able to transfer most of his earned credits.
If you transfer you're going to have to red-shirt for a year anyways, so if you were kicked off the team in Manitoba say on the 1st of October you could stay in classes in Winnipeg, and apply and transfer to Alberta at Christmas (doesn't happen often) or finish the academic year and transfer to Alberta for the following September (more common). As long as you are academically eligible, our student athlete could start playing for the Golden Bears 365 days after his last game with the Bisons.
There are a few exceptions to the one-year red-shirting not detailed in that FAQ. Sometimes you can be allowed to transfer without penalty on "compassionate grounds" if you are having personal or family issues. This happens once in a while in the CIS. The "first professional degree" exception includes programs like Education, Law, Pharmacy, Medicine, etc. that don't allow entry direct from high school, as well as graduate programs like MBA. Some years we see several hockey players opting to use their 5th year of eligibility to take their MBA; effectively they are free agents. It works if you have the grades to do that.
These same transfer rules apply to student-athletes transferring from the NCAA to the CIS. UNB for example this year added Stefan Salituro who left Robert Morris for some reason last fall. Salituro stayed on campus to finish the term and started played for Junior A Pembroke in January. Since he didn't appear in an NCAA game last season Salituro is eligible to play for the Varsity Reds this season (although he's only dressed for a couple of games courtesy of UNB's depth).
One key is that you have to successfully complete 18 credit hours in the academic year at your previous institution. Jeff Lee left Alaska midway through his second season and opted to play Major Junior. Even though it had been several years since playing in the NCAA, he had to become academically eligible since he had quit Alaska without finishing his final semester there. Lee had to take a number of online courses and pass them in a compressed time in order to get the needed credits, and even then only got to play at UNB in late November that year.
Similarly, if you flunk out of a school (or are "asked to withdraw") you will need to become academically eligible again (pass 18 credit hours) BEFORE you will be allowed to play for your new school.
I should also add that you have to be considered a full-time student at your CIS school in order to participate in varsity athletics. Most of us think of this as a minimum of four courses in a term, but in actual fact it is usually three. However student loans and scholarships usually require a course-load of four classes.