The CIS 2013 University Cup

[wolf13]

True the streaming could be better. Granted, the person doing it is likely used to Rutherford Arena and the PAC at the U of S. In both cases you aren't that far removed from the action. The company used is the same as the streaming for canadawest.tv. I appreciate being able to see road games (and the home games I cannot get to), but they aren't top notch. Next year, if the organizing committee has the cash to do it, they should hire the Shaw technical crews that do the Canada West Football Game of the Week.

My other problem with the streaming is that they omitted the intermissions. Now granted, I only watched the two Huskies games through the streaming, but both games went silent instead of carrying the CJWW intermission. I muted the streams and listened to CJWW's stream.

I felt bad for the people listening on the radio as they would go to commercial, but play didn't stop. They need to follow the WHL timing format with breaks for radio coverage. If the game isn't on the radio or TV, then no breaks are needed.

Darren Dupont was good, but I would have preferred Les Lazaruk doing the games. Obviously, with the schedule coinciding with Blades road games this was impossible, but I found Darren Dupont wasn't as excited as Les gets. That said, considering I thought of his play by play as the Huskies' radio broadcast as opposed to an objective "national" broadcast, he can't be a Huskies cheerleader the whole way through.

I see in this morning's Star-Phoenix the organizing committee tried to get the format changed to a longer tournament (timewise) and true semi-finals and the CIS said no. It looked like the organizing committee wanted to have a Memorial Cup style tournament where the schedule is known beforehand. I understand the whole business of preserving the education of the players. But I have a suspicion that only the U of S Huskies went to class Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the other teams were all in Saskatoon that whole time.

I'd take that suspicion a bit further as I doubt any of them were in class last week, which I have no problem with. Having a memorial cup style tournament would be much better for tournament organization and promotion. You could go Spengler Cup style keep the 2 game round robin and send the winner of each pool to the semi-finals and have QFs. It creates 2 maybe 3 extra days.

 

[Rob]

Over on the CIS Blog I read that Dave Adolph wants to see changes in the tournament for next year.

 

[Shootmaster_44]

I'd take that suspicion a bit further as I doubt any of them were in class last week, which I have no problem with. Having a memorial cup style tournament would be much better for tournament organization and promotion. You could go Spengler Cup style keep the 2 game round robin and send the winner of each pool to the semi-finals and have QFs. It creates 2 maybe 3 extra days.

You definitely could do that. I guess the one problem from a CIS standpoint is if you do this for hockey, then why not basketball or volleyball? I really have no issues with any of this, but the CIS seems to try hard and not be the NCAA. What I mean is that the CIS is education first, sports second, whereas the NCAA is the other way around.

I assume all Universities in Canada follow the same schedule? What I mean is that the second semester ends the end of March/beginning of April and finals are finished by the end of April? The only other issue I could foresee with an expanded schedule is that it could impact finals. I know when I was in University I typically "lucked out" and had one final at the beginning of the finals period.

 

[wolf13]

You definitely could do that. I guess the one problem from a CIS standpoint is if you do this for hockey, then why not basketball or volleyball? I really have no issues with any of this, but the CIS seems to try hard and not be the NCAA. What I mean is that the CIS is education first, sports second, whereas the NCAA is the other way around.

I assume all Universities in Canada follow the same schedule? What I mean is that the second semester ends the end of March/beginning of April and finals are finished by the end of April? The only other issue I could foresee with an expanded schedule is that it could impact finals. I know when I was in University I typically "lucked out" and had one final at the beginning of the finals period.

Start the season a week earlier and playing a few less exhibition games would eliminate that problem. I think if the CIS thinks they can substantially increase revenue by changing the tournament format I think they will. With Rogers rumored to be nearing a deal to acquire the rights to all of the CIS hockey, football, and basketball championships I would not be surprised to see them either move to 8 teams or create semi-finals with the current 6 team format. I am sure tournament formats would be a part of any deal with Rogers and they have been Memorial Cup broadcasters for quite some time. Going down to 4 teams isn't an opinion. It decreases inventory and leagues never agree to do that, no matter how many times people suggest it.

 

[Hollywood3]

True the streaming could be better. Granted, the person doing it is likely used to Rutherford Arena and the PAC at the U of S. In both cases you aren't that far removed from the action. The company used is the same as the streaming for canadawest.tv. I appreciate being able to see road games (and the home games I cannot get to), but they aren't top notch. Next year, if the organizing committee has the cash to do it, they should hire the Shaw technical crews that do the Canada West Football Game of the Week.

My other problem with the streaming is that they omitted the intermissions. Now granted, I only watched the two Huskies games through the streaming, but both games went silent instead of carrying the CJWW intermission. I muted the streams and listened to CJWW's stream.

I felt bad for the people listening on the radio as they would go to commercial, but play didn't stop. They need to follow the WHL timing format with breaks for radio coverage. If the game isn't on the radio or TV, then no breaks are needed.

Darren Dupont was good, but I would have preferred Les Lazaruk doing the games. Obviously, with the schedule coinciding with Blades road games this was impossible, but I found Darren Dupont wasn't as excited as Les gets. That said, considering I thought of his play by play as the Huskies' radio broadcast as opposed to an objective "national" broadcast, he can't be a Huskies cheerleader the whole way through.

I see in this morning's Star-Phoenix the organizing committee tried to get the format changed to a longer tournament (timewise) and true semi-finals and the CIS said no. It looked like the organizing committee wanted to have a Memorial Cup style tournament where the schedule is known beforehand. I understand the whole business of preserving the education of the players. But I have a suspicion that only the U of S Huskies went to class Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the other teams were all in Saskatoon that whole time.

If the tournament starts on Tuesday then teams will start coming on the weekend.

 

[Hollywood3]

Start the season a week earlier and playing a few less exhibition games would eliminate that problem. I think if the CIS thinks they can substantially increase revenue by changing the tournament format I think they will. With Rogers rumored to be nearing a deal to acquire the rights to all of the CIS hockey, football, and basketball championships I would not be surprised to see them either move to 8 teams or create semi-finals with the current 6 team format. I am sure tournament formats would be a part of any deal with Rogers and they have been Memorial Cup broadcasters for quite some time. Going down to 4 teams isn't an opinion. It decreases inventory and leagues never agree to do that, no matter how many times people suggest it.

If Rogers can make money on hockey then that increases the likelihood of a final four with regionals, a la the Frozen Four.

ITM there should be an 8-team tournament. If the AUS wild-card (SMU) made sense this year, then why not every year? Same for OUA and CW. The added teams would have been Windsor or Carleton (from the OUA) and Manitoba or Calgary (from the CW). That adds two significant markets either way.

It likely would have looked like this:

Alberta v Carleton
Saskatchewan v Saint Mary's
New Brunswick v Waterloo
UQTR v Manitoba

To me, that looks quite marketable.

And it requires the same number of games (7) as the present format so could be played in the same footprint.

I would not be surprised to see Rogers add CIS nationals to sub for their regional NHL games. For example, in Winnipeg we don't see the Edmonton or Calgary games (even though those are in the listings) on Sportsnet West. Vancouver and Ottawa games are blacked out on Sportsnet Pacific and Sportsnet Ontario, even if you subscribe to those channels. (Jets, Leafs, and Habs have their regional games on TSN.) Therefore CIS games make an easy substitute for the blacked out games, and would give games a quasi-national audience. In spring I would assume that Sportsnet One would be devoted to Blue Jays and/or other MLB games more often than not.

If Rogers throws their weight behind the CIS in a big way then this could change things. Why couldn't CIS hockey and basketball equal the Brier and Scotty?

Hockey fans may not like it, but conference playoffs could be in tournament rather than series format just to provide a guaranteed championship game.

Example:

West:
Friday: Alberta v Calgary
Saturday: Sask v Manitoba
Sunday: final

OUA-W:
Thursday: Western Ontario v Guelph
Friday: Windsor v Lakehead
Saturday: final

OUA-E:
Saturday afternoon: UQTR v Ottawa
Saturday evening: Carleton v McGill
Sunday: final

Atlantic:
Friday: UNB v StFX
Saturday: SMU v Acadia
Sunday: final

I jumbled the different regional schedules just for illustration purposes. The point is they could have a game Thursday night, three games with different start times on Friday, five games going all day Saturday, and then three on Sunday, all of which could be shown on a regional basis.

 

[rethinking]

It's certainly nice to see UNB, a team without one CIS major award or one CIS All Star earn their recognition as the BEST TEAM in the CIS.

Unfortunately, the CIS Rankings, Awards and RULES leave a lot to be desired!

 

[Drummer]

Tournament MVPs

MVP (Major W.J. ‘Danny’ McLeod Award):
Tyler Carroll, UNB

All-Tournament Team:
Goaltender: Dan LaCosta, UNB
Defenceman: Marc-Antoine Desnoyers, UNB
Defenceman: Jesse Craige, Alberta
Forward: Tyler Carroll, UNB
Forward: Nick MacNeil, UNB
Forward: Cory Tanaka, Saint Mary’s

I like Desnoyers, but I would have voted for Todd.

 

[rethinking]

Daine Todd could have and maybe should have been MVP. Both he and Desnoyer had great tournaments.

 

[rethinking]

Hard to believe that Cam Critchlow got 5 games that included AUS playoff games and Nationals even though he received NO PENALTY on the play.

Lucas Bloodoff received 5 minute majors and game misconducts in back to back games at Nationals and was allowed to play in the championship final. Jeff Marchand's hit in the Alberta game was worse because he appeared to leave his feet and received 2 and a 10.
All 3 hits were very predatory!

A lot of people look bad as a result of these events. CIS apparently has no common sense rules and is not concerned about their student athletes?

 

[AdamMcg83]

MVP (Major W.J. ‘Danny’ McLeod Award):
Tyler Carroll, UNB

All-Tournament Team:
Goaltender: Dan LaCosta, UNB
Defenceman: Marc-Antoine Desnoyers, UNB
Defenceman: Jesse Craige, Alberta
Forward: Tyler Carroll, UNB
Forward: Nick MacNeil, UNB
Forward: Cory Tanaka, Saint Mary’s

I like Desnoyers, but I would have voted for Todd.

*BIAS ALERT*

With all due respect to LaCosta, how is Hartigan not the tourney all-star goaltender? I know he didnt make the final, but neither did Craige, so that couldn't have been a prereq to be on the all tourney team.
If you wanted to give it to a finalist, I'd even argue that Peters was better (or, at least more responsible for his team's success) than Lacosta. UNB was so good, they could have won with Mucha in net (too soon?)

Consider this: Lacosta made 59 saves in 3 games. Hartigan made 87 in two.

 

[Drummer]

*BIAS ALERT*

With all due respect to LaCosta, how is Hartigan not the tourney all-star goaltender? I know he didnt make the final, but neither did Craige, so that couldn't have been a prereq to be on the all tourney team.
If you wanted to give it to a finalist, I'd even argue that Peters was better (or, at least more responsible for his team's success) than Lacosta. UNB was so good, they could have won with Mucha in net (too soon?)

Consider this: Lacosta made 59 saves in 3 games. Hartigan made 87 in two.

I agree - Hartigan had a great tournament and if you look at the MVP team as 'who is most valuable at that position for their team', then Hartigan should have been the goalie.

I thought last year Unice should have been Tournament MVP despite the loss - without him UWO wouldn't have been there. I also thought Eric Faille, from UdeM, should have been on last year's tournament MVP team.

When they say 'media selected' it doesn't mean they asked everyone to vote, could have been just 2 guys.

 

[AdamMcg83]

I agree - Hartigan had a great tournament and if you look at the MVP team as 'who is most valuable at that position for their team', then Hartigan should have been the goalie.

I thought last year Unice should have been Tournament MVP despite the loss - without him UWO wouldn't have been there. I also thought Eric Faille, from UdeM, should have been on last year's tournament MVP team.

When they say 'media selected' it doesn't mean they asked everyone to vote, could have been just 2 guys.

Understood. And re: Unice, you're right - he's one of those hot/cold guys, and he got hot last year, especially in the round robin. When he's cold, he's ice cold - he was like that in Jr hockey, and he was like that this year in the Western-Waterloo series.

 

[Drummer]

Hard to believe that Cam Critchlow got 5 games that included AUS playoff games and Nationals even though he received NO PENALTY on the play.

Lucas Bloodoff received 5 minute majors and game misconducts in back to back games at Nationals and was allowed to play in the championship final. Jeff Marchand's hit in the Alberta game was worse because he appeared to leave his feet and received 2 and a 10.
All 3 hits were very predatory!

A lot of people look bad as a result of these events. CIS apparently has no common sense rules and is not concerned about their student athletes?

It's interesting to note that had Cam received a penalty, there is no review of the play as the league is unlikely to undress/counter an on-ice official. If a review had been done - I don't see more than 1 or 2 game suspensions because it was called on the ice. The suspension would have been a result of being deemed a 'repeat offender' which is not outlined in the Hockey Canada Rules or the CIS Rules.

Had the Carroll hit to Wallingford occurred during a league game - I don't see any supplemental discipline to Carroll because he received a penalty on the play.

What you are saying would require an amendment to each of the Conf rules or CIS Hockey rules as the do not address majors in consecutive games or automatic suspensions for second offenders. It's a 5 and GM, which means you can do it again and again. The referee can award a Match Penalty which is a more serious call but they must feel the hit was intent to injure.

(I couldn't find the AUS Hockey rules, so I apologize if they have repeat offender verbiage).

The leagues have addressed Fighting, Checking from Behind and Hits to the Head - now it's time to address repeat offenders. It's not going to be easy - trying to define what 'repeat' means is tough.

 

[Rob]

So next year it is 3 from the West, 2 from OUA, and just the one from the AUS?

 

[Fuzzy Bunny]

I hope the people that traveled to Saskatoon enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately, the weather was poor - especially during the final - but I was able to meet some of the people involved with the visiting hockey clubs and all were extremely nice. It was great to see such a crowd travel with UNB and end up on the ice afterwards to enjoy their championship. Hope to see many of the same people again next year!

 

[FreddyFoyle]

So next year it is 3 from the West, 2 from OUA, and just the one from the AUS?

Next year is 2 from Canada West, 3 from OUA and one from the AUS. They made a change in the rotation schedule a few years ago so that the host conference can no longer also have the wildcard.

 

[FreddyFoyle]

It's interesting to note that had Cam received a penalty, there is no review of the play as the league is unlikely to undress/counter an on-ice official. If a review had been done - I don't see more than 1 or 2 game suspensions because it was called on the ice. The suspension would have been a result of being deemed a 'repeat offender' which is not outlined in the Hockey Canada Rules or the CIS Rules.

Had the Carroll hit to Wallingford occurred during a league game - I don't see any supplemental discipline to Carroll because he received a penalty on the play.

What you are saying would require an amendment to each of the Conf rules or CIS Hockey rules as the do not address majors in consecutive games or automatic suspensions for second offenders. It's a 5 and GM, which means you can do it again and again. The referee can award a Match Penalty which is a more serious call but they must feel the hit was intent to injure.

(I couldn't find the AUS Hockey rules, so I apologize if they have repeat offender verbiage).

The leagues have addressed Fighting, Checking from Behind and Hits to the Head - now it's time to address repeat offenders. It's not going to be easy - trying to define what 'repeat' means is tough.

I have been assured from someone involved in the rules committee that the "loopholes" for blow to the head majors will be corrected in the CIS regulations before the next University Cup, and that there will be an automatic game suspension added, similar to the rules in the conferences.

 

[cisno1fan]

Next year is 2 from Canada West, 3 from OUA and one from the AUS. They made a change in the rotation schedule a few years ago so that the host conference can no longer also have the wildcard.

Considering the 2 teams playing in the FINAL game were both from AUS, it will be disappointing to think only 1 AUS team will be represented next year.

Also knowing that other teams in the AUS like Acadia were very close to being in the top two in the AUS. I expect even Acadia could have done well this past weekend.

 

[Hollywood3]

Next year is 2 from Canada West, 3 from OUA and one from the AUS. They made a change in the rotation schedule a few years ago so that the host conference can no longer also have the wildcard.

This idea was good but was based on the assumption that hosting would be rotated. Somebody from the OUA has to come forward.

 

[Drummer]

This idea was good but was based on the assumption that hosting would be rotated. Somebody from the OUA has to come forward.

The hosting has been rotating so far. West, OUA, East, West, East, OUA, East, West - the OUA should be the next stop.

The bidding process may have to be re-started if they change the format at this stage (games Tue/Wed/Thu - Fri off, Semi-Sat, Final-Sun)? Don't know when the deadline is for submissions. This would likely move the banquet to Monday or Friday night with teams traveling on the weekend. It also means hotels for 2-3 more nights.

Tough format for the #3 and #4 seeds - they would play Wed-Thu & Sat-Sun = 4 in 5 nights to win gold .

In this format - you can't predict when you play on Saturday as the host is likely to request the night game regardless of their pool finish (unless they are 3rd and don't play),but they do have all day Friday to market and push the semis and potential final match-ups.

 

[FreddyFoyle]

They haven't even started the bidding for the next University Cup. With all of the recent organizational changes in the CIS they were doing their best to make sure all of the other sports championships had hosts for 2013-14.

If I remember correctly, the new format for the UCup (add one more day for true semi-final) was approved by coaches and CIS during UNB's hosting tenure. Saskatchewan had the option of using old format or new format, since they had bid under old format conditions. The only pushback I have heard about concerning adding a playing day (cross-over semi-final) is that you would also have to add a non-playing day between three-day round robin play and semi-finals as you don't want teams playing four games in four nights through to and including the final.

That rest day would have to be Friday, which is seen as being a big gate day. Other tournaments move their awards night to that Friday. I like that idea, but it would upset their tradition of having all the winners printed in the souvenir program, which is now released for the first game (after the awards ceremony on Wednesday).

 

[Drummer]

Bad call. That was a perfectly clean hit.

If you're referring to the Carrol hit on Wallingford, it was a forearm to the head. Other than that, it was clean.

Shoulder to the chin and forearm follow-through

Video of hit (not the best - video capture of a video stream)

 

[Rob]

I wouldn't mind seeing it a frozen four like in the NCAA.

 

[rantfather]

And completely UNBIASED comment!

I am agreeing with Freddyfoyles comments and would go so far as to suggest that UNB be given the responsibility of hosting the CIS Nationals for the forseeable future as they seem to be the ONLY venue to ensure capacity sell outs .

AND the comments of the TV commentators about the final being between two rivals that HATE each other is hardly the best way of presenting CIS men's hockey.

Congrats to UNB et all for delivering another championship for the AUS.

Rantfather.