CIS Soccer

[gwsmith63]

Some CIS games are streamed live on this site:

http://ssncanada.ca/

Past games can be found under the Schedule > Upcoming Live Events, down at the bottom of the page.

[sulfur]

Final Four tournaments this weekend. Here's my preview of the women's OUA one. Doing a men's one tomorrow.

http://supportlocalsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/oua-womens-final-four-preview.html

[gwsmith63]

To go along with sulfur's blog.

http://www.ssncanada.ca/media/smithonsoccer.html

Weekly look into CIS Soccer each Wednesday on SSN Canada. Previews, Reviews, exclusive interviews, the CIS Top Ten and CIS by the numbers.

This week's episode includes interviews from:

Kevin McConnell - Women's Head Coach - Montreal Carabins

Steve Johnson - Women's Head Coach - Ottawa GeeGees

Nationals preview show will be up next week before both Championships.

Also on the site are some interviews and reports on the ineligible player situation out of the Men's Division of the RSEQ involving three teams, game defaults and subsequent appeals.

Cheers

gws

[gwsmith63]

Confirmed teams at CIS Nationals after Friday's playoff games:

McGill

Trinity Western

Alberta

Final five spots to be determined Saturday and Sunday

[sulfur]

Queen's thumped McMaster 3-0 today and Laurier snuck by Ottawa 1-0. That puts those two back at CIS. It's also a rematch of last year's OUA and CIS finals between Queen's and Laurier tomorrow. Details on the game in my blog.

McMaster faces Ottawa at noon for the bronze and OUA third spot at the CIS Championships.

[sulfur]

Spots in the CIS confirmed so far:

McGill

Trinity Western

Alberta

Queen's

Laurier

Plus:

Ottawa (4-0 win over McMaster in OUA Bronze game)

Dalhousie (2-0 win over UPEI in AUS final)

Montreal (3-1 win over Sherbrooke in RSEQ final)

[Soccerpro]

Saint Mary's 6 UPEI 0 in the AUS final

Yet another trip to nationals for the best program to have never won a CIS championship(lost in a shootout in the 2000 final, didn't lose a single game in 2001 but were eliminated on goal differential, lost in the national final in extra time in the 2003, went out on goal differential in 2004 etc)

Sorry wrong forum: mens

[sulfur]

Men's? Dalhousie and UPEI are on the women's side. no? I think that they kicked off at 1pm ET (or so).

[sulfur]

Actually, the Ottawa v McMaster game isn't done -- we've had 20 minutes of stoppage since an injury to McMaster's Lindsay Hemrica, she's been down the whole time after a head-to-head collision. The ambulance just arrived, and there's still 2-3 minutes to play in the game. I expect that the ref will talk to the coaches to just call the game now and not play those last 2-3 minutes with the scoreline already 4-0, and now this huge injury.

And just as I type that, the referee blows the final whistle for the game as Hemrica is being loaded into the Ambulance.

[sulfur]

Radio Laurier just announced on the Queen's v Laurier game that Hemrica never lost consciousness and that they took her to the hospital for precautionary reasons since she was complaining of neck pain. That's good news.

[sulfur]

Dalhousie beat UPEI 2-0, so we have the final Women's team at the CIS.

McGill (host)

Trinity Western (CW champ)

Alberta (CW 2nd place)

Queen's (OUA champ)

Laurier (OUA 2nd place)

Ottawa (OUA 3rd place)

Dalhousie (AUS champ)

Montreal (RSEQ champ)

[sulfur]

I've put together a complete summary of the OUA weekend this morning, including highlight videos galore from the women's final four (all done by Laurier's Athletics department, kudos to them!):

http://supportlocalsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/weekend-roundup-nov-56-oua-final-fours.html

I'm planning on doing CIS previews in the next couple of days, which'll be fun and interesting, since I know almost nothing about non-OUA teams! Time to learn!

[sulfur]

I've put a preview of the women's championship teams online now. I didn't know too much about the non-OUA teams until working on this preview and I have to say:

I knew that Montreal was pretty good this year, but I didn't realize just how dominant they were. Wow. In terms of the routes Ontario teams have to travel, Laurier has the toughest by far. They start with Montreal (#1 in the country, essentially a home game for them) and then hit the winner of Trinity Western (#2 in CIS) and the host McGill. Yipe!

Preview is here: http://supportlocalsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/cis-womens-championship-preview.html

Oh, and best part? Every game is streamed live on SSNCanada!

[sulfur]

So, over the last couple of days I've fielded a bunch of questions as to how the hell the seedings work for the CIS Championships. I spent a bunch of time reading the policies and playing with a whiteboard, and I'm pretty sure I've sussed it out now. It's a bit complicated, but if the CIS office can figure it out, I certainly can too! Right?

Well, maybe.

I think that I got it though:

http://supportlocalsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/cis-championship-seedings-explained.html

[gwsmith63]

Little bit late but here is the SSN Women's Championship preview (apologies for the delay):

http://www.ssncanada.ca/media/11062011_cis_w-soccer.html

Cheers

gws

[sulfur]

Game #1 of the women's is in the book with Ottawa coming back from 1-0 at half to Dalhousie to score three in a row early in the second half (over 9 minutes no less!). Dal got one back with about 20 to go, but couldn't get the tying goal. Ottawa moves onto the semi-finals on Saturday, and Dalhousie is relegated to the consolation semi-final tomorrow.

Queen's v Alberta up next in an hour.

[sulfur]

Queen's downed Alberta 2-1 in the second game, setting up an all-OUA semi-final on Saturday.

Dalhousie faces Alberta in the first consolation semi-final.

We were very close to having all three OUA teams in the semi-finals, but the Carabins got back into the game in the last couple of minutes against Laurier and then won in penalties.

So, Montreal is into the second semi-final against the winner of McGill and Trinity Western.

[sulfur]

So, the McGill v Trinity Western game just finished, and it was a doozy too. McGill played an excellent game and kept it 0-0 right through extra time. McGill's GK came up with two huge saves and McGill won in PKs 4-1.

That means that the first semi-final is all-OUA East, and the second is all-RSEQ, guaranteeing that the championship final will be between Ontario and Quebec. Pretty cool.

A quick recap of the last two QF games (including video highlights from the Laurier game) is now on the blog. Link in sig (as usual).

[sulfur]

Two consolation games went yesterday. Laurier outplayed Trinity Western for 90 minutes, made one mistake, and lost 1-0. In the other, Alberta rolled over Dalhousie 2-0.

That means that AUS will be the fourth seed for next year's tournament, and CW the third seed.

http://supportlocalsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/cis-womens-championship-consolation.html

[sulfur]

Queen's wins in a shootout today 3-2. Two saves from each GK (1st and 3rd shooters for both!), and a miss from Ottawa's fourth shooter consigns them to the bronze game.

In the second game, McGill takes the early lead, gives up a stupid free kick late and Montreal equalizes. A goal at the start of the second half of extra time gives Montreal the win.

So, Sunday:

Bronze game: McGill v Ottawa

Championship: Queen's v Montreal

5th place game kicking off between Alberta and Trinity Western in about 15 mins.

[Trillium]

Ottawa U up by two to zero versus McGill with less then 20 minutes to go, McGill unable to break down Ottawa U defence after Ottawa U goes up by two in first half.

[sulfur]

Ottawa took the bronze with a 2-0 final.

Queen's repeated as champions against Montreal. The game went to penalties after a scoreless draw. Queen's GK Chantel Marson stopped the first, second, and fourth kicks to give Queen's a 3-1 win in penalties.

Marson took the tournament MVP for her performance in penalties on the last two days.

Montreal had four players named to the tournament all-star team, Queen's four, McGill one, and Ottawa two.

I found a couple of highlight videos from the men's and women's games and did a brief writeup of both (more attention paid to the women's, as it featured my hometown Queen's Gaels!).

http://supportlocalsoccer.blogspot.com/2011/11/cis-championships-finals.html

[Bouba Diop]

A little off topic but I thought I would ask here on the chance that people viewing this thread would have some insight. My daughter is a Canadian citizen who has grown up in the US and has played the game in the US system. She is a regional level player in the US (Region 1, east coast, VA to ME) and she wants to keep playing in University. She also wants to "return" home attending university in Canada. In the US college system, she would not make or play in a top D I program, e.g.,UNC, BC, Stanford, Notre Dame etc., etc. Below that standard she would draw/is drawing interest and could play.

So here are the questions -- what is the standard of play in the Canadain University womens system? How does the recruitment process work? Do Canadian University coaches host sessions or camps for prospects as is common in the US? Are there any meaningful showcase opportunities that Canadian coaches attend?

[navycyr]

A little off topic but I thought I would ask here on the chance that people viewing this thread would have some insight. My daughter is a Canadian citizen who has grown up in the US and has played the game in the US system. She is a regional level player in the US (Region 1, east coast, VA to ME) and she wants to keep playing in University. She also wants to "return" home attending university in Canada. In the US college system, she would not make or play in a top D I program, e.g.,UNC, BC, Stanford, Notre Dame etc., etc. Below that standard she would draw/is drawing interest and could play.

So here are the questions -- what is the standard of play in the Canadain University womens system? How does the recruitment process work? Do Canadian University coaches host sessions or camps for prospects as is common in the US? Are there any meaningful showcase opportunities that Canadian coaches attend?

I hope nobody will throw tomatoes at me but I would say that top canadian women SIC teams would rank around 100th team in NCAA division one ranking, teams in the middle between 150 and 250 and the rest at the very bottom.

For being recruited, you must identify universities you have interest in, go to the website and contact coaches. Here in Canada there are few full-time coaches (if any ?) and recruitment is less structured since they have less time available for that activity. Some teams held camps to evaluate prospective players, others don't. If your daughter is playing college in US this year, she will have to wait a full year before being eligible to play for a Canadian University. Other than that, I am not aware of any restrictions.

Good luck !

[Jacko]

A little off topic but I thought I would ask here on the chance that people viewing this thread would have some insight. My daughter is a Canadian citizen who has grown up in the US and has played the game in the US system. She is a regional level player in the US (Region 1, east coast, VA to ME) and she wants to keep playing in University. She also wants to "return" home attending university in Canada. In the US college system, she would not make or play in a top D I program, e.g.,UNC, BC, Stanford, Notre Dame etc., etc. Below that standard she would draw/is drawing interest and could play.

So here are the questions -- what is the standard of play in the Canadain University womens system? How does the recruitment process work? Do Canadian University coaches host sessions or camps for prospects as is common in the US? Are there any meaningful showcase opportunities that Canadian coaches attend?

I have a niece playing in a top 20 NCAA Div 1 school so perhaps I can shed some light on the subject. Having had the opportunity to watch many of her games either in person or streamed over the internet I can say that the level of Women's soccer is getting so good that these days it is very enjoyable to watch.

Firstly the standard of play in US College is quite high as you would expect but the way that manifests itself from team to team depends on the philosophy of the coach. Some teams such as Stanford, Portland, FSU, Notre Dame have coaches that attempt to play a possession oriented game. I say attempt because many teams have adopted the relentless high pressure style of defending that UNC has used for years to unprecedented success. So unless the team is highly skilled they generally buckle under the pressure and give up possession. Over all the level of skill of their top teams and our top teams is very similar. Where they differ significantly is their athleticism and speed of play. Every top US college team values speed, strength and toughness almost more than soccer skills. Its the same old story of most coaches thinking they can turn a good athlete into a good soccer player. Competition in the US is intense so its fairly normal for a coach to release a player during pre-season if they come to camp in poor shape. Most CIS teams would have a difficult time keeping up over 90 minutes in that department. In fact Trinity Western plays Portland every year during spring season and they always lose. Your daughter having played at the regional level is probably no stranger to 120s and Coopers and would likely have a leg up ( no pun intended : )

In Canada being recruited means being proactive. Canadian coaches don't have the luxury of leaning on a Top Drawer ranking system so you have to get her seen. By that I mean having your daughter attend as many showcase tournaments as possible such the Western Canada Soccer Showcase or Whitecaps Showcase in Western Canada and a couple in Eastern Canada. While in the US girls often commit by their Junior or Sophomore year of high school in Canada there does not seem to be the same rush. In fact many Canadian girls wait until the spring of their Senior year to commit. Although having an idea by Grade 11 is better. With that in mind its never too late or early to contact University coaches. In Canada the CIS is not as restrictive as to when contact can happen unlike the rigid NCAA rules.

In the US the most competitive conference with the most top 10 teams and therefore the most top ranked players is the ACC. Outside of that there are teams like Notre Dame, Stanford, Santa Clara, Portland etc that recruit top ranked players as well. Keep in mind that even recruited top ranked players in the US may not get a lot of quality minutes during their freshman year. So the possibility of playing more minutes, lower tuition, a competitive league with a high level of skill , good coaching, scholarship availability and of course top notch education makes Canadian Universities a great choice.

Whatever your daughter decides please look below for some important questions you should be asking. Good luck to her. Playing college soccer is exciting times. Dedicated players always find a home.

• How is scholarship money allocated?

• What is your policy on renewing athletic aid?

• How are athletic injuries handled (care, cost)?

• What is your coaching philosophy?

• What are the goals of the program?

• What kind of progress have you made toward these goals?

• What is the practice schedule? How many hours a week?

• How are academic conflicts handled?

• Are tutors available to athletes?

• How many players are you graduating?

• How many of your athletes graduate in four years?

• What are my chances of receiving a scholarship in the next four years?

• Where do you house your players? Do they live together? Do they live apart? Why?

• What are my chances of playing my first year?

• What does it mean to “red shirt”? What is your "red shirt" policy?

• What are your commitments during the off-season, or non- traditional season?

• How many practices?

• Will I get help in course selection?

• How many players do you carry on the team?

• How long are training sessions?

• What is the team GPA?

• How long do you, (the coach) plan on being at this university