RSS
Home | Sports League | CIS football
|
|
|
Twenty-six universities across Canada compete in football under the auspices of Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS). The teams are divided into four conferences, drawing from the four regional associations of the CIS: Canada West Universities Athletic Association, Ontario University Athletics, Quebec Student Sports Federation, and Atlantic University Sport. At the end of every season, the champions of each conference advance to semifinal bowl games; the winners of these meet in the Vanier Cup national championship. In 2010, Waterloo University suspended its CIS football team because they had a drug test failed by 5 out of 62 players. The CIS reorganized the calendar of the OUA with 9 teams instead of 10. The program has been reinstated for the 2011 season. CIS football is the highest level of amateur play in Canadian football. The origins of North American football lie here. The first documented game was played at University College at the University of Toronto in 1861. A number of CIS programs have been in existence since the origins of the sport. It is from these Canadian universities that the game we now know as Canadian football, and its offshoot, American football, sprang. In 1874, McGill University (Montreal, Quebec) challenged Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) to a series of games. American football traces its roots to this varsity play. The Grey Cup, the championship trophy of the professional Canadian Football League since its founding in the 1950s, was originally contested by teams from the University of Toronto and Queen's University and other amateur teams in the early 1900s. Many CIS players have gone on to professional careers in the Canadian Football League and elsewhere; a number are drafted annually in the Canadian College Draft. In 2007, there were a record 120 CIS alumni on Canadian Football League rosters. |
