Ah, the old "CW level of play" comment aimed at the OUA. Never fails to entertain.
Let's neglect, for a minute, the fact that no CW team other than Alberta and Saskatchewan has been in the UCup finals more than once.
As I've said many, many times, the CWUAA has Alberta, and any and all arguments about its relative merit as a conference revolve around the Golden Bears' complete and utter domination of the league. Sask jumps in once in a while to stir things up, and there's always Manitoba and Calgary close behind ... but when one team routinely wins 90% of its Conference games enroute to the University Cup, there's not much of an argument to be made ... one dominant team does not a strong conference make.
Ah, you say, but surely there is some evidence of Lethbridge's ability to beat OUA squads?
In the past two seasons, Lethbridge and RMC have each played Western twice. RMC is 2-0 against Western, whereas Lethbridge is 1-1. Discuss.
Lots of stuff here.
RMC has had a funny season. They started 0-8-1 then beat UQTR 3 straight times, and followed that shortly thereafter with a win over UWO. During their turn-around period they were 5-0-2. That was followed by a 0-6-0 run leading up to their loss to the US Army team. All of this makes RMC a poor measuring stick.
Lethbridge is 7-14-3 in the CW and UWO is 11-9-3 in the OUA. That the teams would split is consistent with the history of results between the two conferences. OUA teams who would not have home ice advantage in the playoffs are typically not playoff calibre CW teams.
This makes total sense. Every team in the CW has at least 20 WHL scholarship grads on campus (though not necessarily on the hockey team). Even Regina is a combination of major junior and junior A grads. In the OUA, they typically have a handful of major junior grads, a lot of junior A, and most teams even dip into junior B.
From my observation (I seldom miss Bison games), a mid-rank OUA team is like seeing Regina come to town for pre-season. The Bisons have sometimes lost (to Regina and OUA teams) in such circumstances but usually the result was at least somewhat contrary to the flow of play.
There have been inter-conference games between the west and Ontario dating back to 1946. (See
Toronto Varsity Blues at Wikia.) Toronto came west and played two games (a 2-2 tie and 8-4 loss) against Manitoba, then stopped off in Port Arthur to get beaten two more times by the Bearcats.
I have checked out my personal archives and (allowing for a missed game here and there), these are the results since 2010:
2010-11
Sep 24 Brock 2 Manitoba 6
Sep 25 Brock 1 Manitoba 8
2011-12
Sep 16 Brock 5 Saskatchewan 3
Sep 17 Brock 1 Regina 6
Dec 02 Calgary 2 Lakehead 4
Dec 03 Calgary 4 Lakehead 5 (ot)
2012-13
no games
2013-14
Sep 28 Toronto 4 Manitoba 1
Sep 29 Toronto 2 Manitoba 4
Nov 01 Alberta 7 Lakehead 5
Nov 02 Alberta 7 Lakehead 2
2014-15
Sep 19 Manitoba 4 Toronto 0
Sep 19 Mount Royal 2 Lakehead 0
Sep 20 Manitoba 4 Toronto 0
Sep 20 Mount Royal 5 Lakehead 4 (ot)
Sep 21 Manitoba 5 Ryerson 4
2015-16
Sep 25 Manitoba 3 Lakehead 4
Sep 26 Manitoba 6 Lakehead 2
2016-17
Sep 23 Ryerson 1 U.B.C. 4
Sep 24 Ryerson 6 U.B.C. 3
Sep 30 Lethbridge 4 Lakehead 2
Oct 01 Lethbridge 5 Lakehead 4
Oct 07 Manitoba 6 Lakehead 3
Oct 08 Manitoba 5 Lakehead 4
In total, the CW teams are 16-6-1 before this season.
At the University Cup, the Wikia table (see
List of University Cup Playoffs at Wikia) gives the CW a 24-11 lead.
So Lethbridge (likely to miss this year's playoffs) is on par with an OUA team which could, with two mild upsets, be in the OUA's final 4 from which 3 teams qualify for the U-Cup. To be fair, the prospects of Lethbridge a year from now are no worse than the odds of the Windsor and Waterloo type of teams we have seen lately.
