Football: Can West sked; Dinos have tough opener

The Canada West football schedule was released this afternoon. A few quick highlights, week by week:
  • Week 1: Simon Fraser at UBC. The two B.C. schools get the honour of starting before the rest of the country, on the Aug. 28-29 weekend.

  • Week 2: Calgary at Saskatchewan. Blake Nill's team, likely with a new quarterback, Erik Glavic, get a tough matchup right out of the gate.

  • Week 3: Regina at Saskatchewan. Who knows what the Rams will be like without graduated QB Teale Orban, but their games vs. the green dogs are often good.

  • Week 4: Alberta at Simon Fraser. A good test for the Golden Bears, going on the road vs. a team that plays good defence.

  • Week 5: Simon Fraser at Calgary. Coach Dave Johnson's Clan visit McMahon Stadium for the first time since the Hardy Cup game.

    UBC is also home to Regina this weekend. Remember what happened to the T-Birds the last time the Rams visited?

  • Week 6: Saskatchewan at Simon Fraser. Remember what happened to the Huskies when they made this trip last year. They lost 27-17 after being up by 15 points at halftime.

  • Week 7: Manitoba at Calgary. The only scheduled matchup of the past two Canada West champions. It's kind of a bummer it was put on Thanksgiving weekend.

  • Week 8: UBC at Simon Fraser. Presumably, this will be the Shrum Bowl game.

  • Week 9: Regina at Calgary. The Rams didn't get in the end zone the last time they went into McMahon Stadium.

  • Week 10: Saskatchewan at Regina and Calgary at Alberta. Two rivalry games to cap off the regular season, on Halloween weekend.
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4 comments:

  1. We notice there are are more CIS Friday night games this year. Personally, we like the opportunity to travel on Sat. to see a number of CIS games. Friday night games may increase student support at games? this change may help the CFL schedule?

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  2. Night games are for the most part not great in my opinion. It's cold enough some afternoons let alone a night game. Friday night games will not benefit student attendance a great deal. Students won't change their weekend routines in order to see a football game unless they were going to go to a weekend afternoon game anyways. Not going to see a great deal of increased attendance this season and if anything the large number of Friday night games may hurt what student attendance there is in certain cities. Any sort of attendance increase would be a great surprise to me.

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  3. Anon #2 has a good point. Those students who leave town on weekends usually do so right after class on Friday. So they're just as likely to miss a Saturday 1:00 start as they are a Friday 7:00 start.

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  4. This year, we have a night game for opener at Montreal September 4th (Thursday). Every 2 years, our opening game is a night game. We think it's a good idea, it changes a bit the "routine" and maybe give the chance for people who couldn't be there on w-ends to see their local team.

    However, I must admit that for Québec, September is pretty much the only month that can handle night games. October would be way too cold (not even thinking about November)...

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