Toronto rivals teaming up to face World Juniors

[11111]

With the World Junior camp taking place in Toronto this year, their annual game vs. a group of CIS all-stars will be against a team made up of players from three Toronto archrivals - the Ryerson Rams, U of T Varsity Blues and York Lions. As well, Coaches Graham Wise, Darren Lowe and Jim Wells will run the bench together.

Games between these teams often get quite heated so to see them teaming up for this will make for a very interesting game against Drouin, McDavid and co.

http://oua.ca/news/2013/12/6/MHOCKEY_1206132839.aspx

Click to read more...

 

[AUS Fan]

It will be a change from previous years when the CIS team used the Team Canada goalies, most of whom were 3rd string of worse. As per other years, the CIS team will not have played or perhaps even skated much for 2 weeks prior to the game.

 

[SnipeShow91]

Game should be fun, but its a game for the juniors to tune up and should have no bearing on CIS hockey

 

[Dutch]

Last year, the Golden Bears won it against Team Canada. But since this is a made-up team and not a team that's used to work together, I don't see the Torontonians having a chance.

 

[HockeyLover123]

Happy to join HFBoards! Here is a few comments regarding the Toronto/Team Canada game:
1. Why only these 3 schools...and not a real OUA All-Stars?
2. Ryerson giving real bad press with their US drinking incident, forfeit 2 league games and now players and staff getting rewarded?!?!?

 

[MiamiHockey]

Happy to join HFBoards! Here is a few comments regarding the Toronto/Team Canada game:
1. Why only these 3 schools...and not a real OUA All-Stars?
2. Ryerson giving real bad press with their US drinking incident, forfeit 2 league games and now players and staff getting rewarded?!?!?

OUA "All-Star" teams have been used in the past, but in recent years have not fared well. There were come management / coaching issues with those teams (e.g., teams not sending their best players, coaches having bag skates the day before the game), and it made the OUA look terrible.

I can see the logic for picking from a couple of teams rather than the whole league, as it means the team will not struggle as much to gel.

But I can't see the logic for choosing Toronto, Ryerson, and York, which are all middle-of-the-pack teams. If they wanted teams close together, it should have been Western + Waterloo + Guelph or better yet McGill + Carleton + Ottawa.

I have watched both Ryerson and Toronto play this year, and they both lack the high-end players needed to compete against the Junior. York is not very strong either. This game is likely to be extremely one-sided in favour of the Juniors.

 

[11111]

OUA "All-Star" teams have been used in the past, but in recent years have not fared well. There were come management / coaching issues with those teams (e.g., teams not sending their best players, coaches having bag skates the day before the game), and it made the OUA look terrible.

I can see the logic for picking from a couple of teams rather than the whole league, as it means the team will not struggle as much to gel.

But I can't see the logic for choosing Toronto, Ryerson, and York, which are all middle-of-the-pack teams. If they wanted teams close together, it should have been Western + Waterloo + Guelph or better yet McGill + Carleton + Ottawa.

I have watched both Ryerson and Toronto play this year, and they both lack the high-end players needed to compete against the Junior. York is not very strong either. This game is likely to be extremely one-sided in favour of the Juniors.

Have you even taken a look at the OUA scoring leaders? Wait, forget that - how about the CIS scoring leaders? At the top of both lists, you'll find Ryerson's Domenic Alberga and Jamie Wise tied with 27 points each in just 13 games.

As for the selecting of teams - the main reason Ryerson, Toronto and York were chosen is because the camp is in Toronto. Simple as that. It's been like this the last few years, where the local schools make up the opposition. It wouldn't make any sense to put together a team from other schools from out of town, especially in exam season.

 

[Hollywood3]

Happy to join HFBoards! Here is a few comments regarding the Toronto/Team Canada game:
1. Why only these 3 schools...and not a real OUA All-Stars?
2. Ryerson giving real bad press with their US drinking incident, forfeit 2 league games and now players and staff getting rewarded?!?!?

To pile on here, Hockey Canada bills these games as "CIS All-Stars" as a face-saving measure in the event of a loss. A combined Lethbridge-Calgary team and a combined Sask-Regina team have played in recent years.

Many players also have final or mid-year exams the first 2-3 weeks of December. Therefore there is no time to train and not all players are available. So, the theory goes that they are better off playing with team-mates rather than total strangers.

As for Ryerson, if drinking on a road trip led to sanctions, I wonder how many junior or pro teams would be left in existence. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ryerson needs to have Rob Ford in charge!

 

[MiamiHockey]

Have you even taken a look at the OUA scoring leaders? Wait, forget that - how about the CIS scoring leaders? At the top of both lists, you'll find Ryerson's Domenic Alberga and Jamie Wise tied with 27 points each in just 13 games.

As for the selecting of teams - the main reason Ryerson, Toronto and York were chosen is because the camp is in Toronto. Simple as that. It's been like this the last few years, where the local schools make up the opposition. It wouldn't make any sense to put together a team from other schools from out of town, especially in exam season.

Points don't tell the entire story. Ryerson plays a wide-open, unstructured game. So yes, they put up a lot of points, but they also give up a lot too. Piling up points against the likes of RMC, Nipissing, and Concordia is very different than playing against the best juniors in the world.

 

[AUS Fan]

As Snipe stated, this is just a tune-up for the Juniors. I'm sure the CIS guys would like to win, but this is all for the kids. Let`s not make too much of it unless the Juniors get walloped by the Uni-bombers. Then we can question the make-up of Team Canada.

 

[11111]

For all those interested in how the game went down:

Team Canada angle: http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/story/?id=438995
CIS angle: http://english.cis-sic.ca/sports/mice/2013-14/releases/20131214-mice