OUA schedule released

[11111]

It's finally out:

http://www.leaguestat.com/oua/MEN/e...am_id=-1&season_id=87&home_away=&division_id=

Looks exactly as was reported with the realignment: Home and home within your division and a full cross-over. The one major exception is half the eastern teams play a doubleheader weekend against Lakehead, and no games against Windsor, while the other half gets the reverse.

Going to be interesting with just about every team playing at least once against the rest of the league.

Also, have to hand it to the OUA for the opening game - the expansion Laurentian Voyageurs against their northern rivals from Nipissing (with no other games that day).

Click to read more...

 

[northvanman]

This is a dramatically different schedule for the OUA - there has never been one quite like this and you have to go back to the 80's for something close when there were no divisions (and only 13 teams) and every team played a home and home.

On the one hand, I'm not happy about seeing divisional rivals only twice. On the other hand, the schedule is much more balanced for all but 2 teams and there should be much less debate about who the best teams are in the OUA with full crossovers (for most) now in play.

The comment above about the East crossovers with Lakehead and Windsor is significant. Last year, some noted that Lakehead had the the toughest schedule in the OUA because of the way the crossovers and the unbalanced divisional schedule worked out for them. Well, they get payback this year (assuming team records from last year are indicative of the upcoming season). Because of double headers, they will only see 5 of the 10 east teams. Who are they?

RMC (3-22-3 last year)
Concordia (8-15-5)
UOIT (11-16-1)
Ottawa (16-8-4)
Laurentian (no record)

Lakehead's gain is Windsor's loss as they play the 5 teams from the East that Lakehead does not. Windsor has aguably the toughest schedule in the league (based on last season's records). Their draw from the East:

UQTR (21-6-1)
Carleton (19-7-2)
McGill (17-7-4)
Nipissing (14-12-2)
Queen's (10-11-7)

The other noteworthy change is more travel for many teams. Just a couple of years back when there were four divisions, worst case travel scenario for Western was one trip to Thunder Bay and one trip to Kingston...and the trip to Kingston only happened every other year. In the new schedule, Western misses Thunder Bay this year, but travels to North Bay/Sudbury; Kingston/Ottawa; and Ottawa/Montreal. Windsor has trips to North Bay, Kingston, and Montreal.

Another thing I see is that there has been a channeling of games to Friday and Saturday, like in the other conferences. Correspondingly, there has been a substantial reduction in the number of mid-week games as well as Sunday afternoon games - I did a quick count and it looks like there are a total of 5 Sunday games the entire season - in the past there seemed to be at least 1 game, if not more, each week on a Sunday which was great for online viewing in the dead of winter.

 

[Drummer]

Lakehead's gain is Windsor's loss as they play the 5 teams from the East that Lakehead does not. Windsor has aguably the toughest schedule in the league (based on last season's records). Their draw from the East:

UQTR (21-6-1)
Carleton (19-7-2)
McGill (17-7-4)
Nipissing (14-12-2)
Queen's (10-11-7)

Yes - that's a tough schedule with 4 of the top 5 teams in the East (2 of which are always top contenders) compared to what Lakehead gets to play. A tougher road may lead to a better seasoned team come playoff time.

 

[AdamMcg83]

The comment above about the East crossovers with Lakehead and Windsor is significant. Last year, some noted that Lakehead had the the toughest schedule in the OUA because of the way the crossovers and the unbalanced divisional schedule worked out for them. Well, they get payback this year (assuming team records from last year are indicative of the upcoming season). Because of double headers, they will only see 5 of the 10 east teams. Who are they?

RMC (3-22-3 last year)
Concordia (8-15-5)
UOIT (11-16-1)
Ottawa (16-8-4)
Laurentian (no record)

Agreed that Lakehead gets the easier East draw, by far - but I think the league did a decent job trying to balance that with the home/away splits - All six of their games vs last year's West top-4 are road games (Western, Windsor, Guelph). The Lancers get the tougher East opponents, but they get to host two-game sets against the east's #1 and #2 teams from last year (UQTR, Carleton).

I'd hate to be the schedule maker, but I think the OUA did a decent job covering all its bases.

 

[thook]

Looks like lakehead realized they had a light schedule and set up non conference games with UPEI, Alberta and the minisota Duluth bulldogs. Can't wait!