Five to Ponder: Coast-to-coast soccer, and competing compelling football games

Every week, Five to Ponder will highlight five upcoming games that might be worth your attention. After the weekend, Five for Pondering will recap the five games that were actually worth our attention. Hopefully the games we encourage you to watch end up being the interesting ones, but sometimes teams lose 46-1 and we look rather silly.

1. Concordia Presents Our Lady of Grass Artificial Turf
Football: Montreal at Concordia, Saturday, 1:00pm ET

Be sure to tune in tomorrow, since we'll be liveblogging this game between two top 10 teams who have yet to lose this season, and are chosen by a few QUFL followers as the second- and third-best teams in the country's toughest football conference. Jared was down on the Stingers in his preview, though.

What to watch for? Well, Andrew will be happy that the two fans at AllezLesBleus.ca suggest a wildcat approach for Rotrand Sene to counter Concordia's large linemen (Maurice Forbes and Alexandre Turp).

Expect lots of fans of les Bleus to be in the stands for this one, too. Although...how do you even get from the Montreal campus to Concordia's stadium out in NDG? The 51 bus?

2. Lower Scores in the Lower Mainland
Men's soccer: Trinity Western at UBC, Friday, 7:15pm PT

This should be a good one. (Much better than my second-straight pun about UBC's being located at sea level.) One team is ranked 3rd in the latest poll; the other, 9th.

The T-Birds return nearly everyone from a first-place team last year, whereas Trinity loses Paul Hamilton and Nathan Pogue from a lineup that finished third at nationals.

3. The Best Game We Won't Liveblog This Week
Football: McMaster at Western, Saturday, 1:00pm ET

It's another pair of top 10 teams playing each other in what might go a long way toward deciding who gets a bye in the OUA this year. Mac has played two close games, at least one which they were extremely lucky to lose, and Western lost in the last 30 seconds to Ottawa. It should be an excellent and important part of the OUA schedule.

Why aren't we liveblogging this, then? Mostly because we've already done a McMaster game and we plan to do some UWO games later on. (And does this blog really need more Saturday fall afternoons devoted to Western or Queen's?) Besides, we'll probably have another Mac-Western showdown later in the year.

4. Nikki Wright's Stuff
Women's soccer: Trinity Western at Calgary, Sunday, 12:00pm MT

It seemed a no-brainer to pick the defending national champions as our fourth game to ponder. However, since their opener is against Lethbridge (who have a record of 10-25-8 in the last three years, if I'm adding correctly), the Calgary game got the nod (a more respectable 17-21-5).

5. Charlottetown's Revenge: November 9, 2009 Edition
Men's soccer: UPEI at Cape Breton, Saturday, 7:15pm AT

It's not often that the Panthers tag is busted out here at cisblog.ca, and it's rare to use "Capers" unless we also use "Basketball." But here's another top-10 opening soccer matchup that's worth keeping an eye on. These two teams played for last year's conference championship, and the game went to extra time after UPEI's leading scorer, Jimmie Mayaleh, was sent off following his tying goal. You can guess how well that went for the Panthers.

And perhaps giving more attention to AUS soccer will inspire them to include more statistics from last year's season than just goals scored.
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