Less than two months after Lisa Jordan took the job at Ryerson, the SMU Huskies have a new women's hockey coach:

Saint Mary’s athletic director Steve Sarty confirmed Wednesday afternoon that Chris Larade has been hired as the Huskies’ bench boss to replace long-time coach Lisa Jordan, who left the position in early April.

Sarty said last week that the list of candidates had been narrowed down to two and an announcement was expected to be made on May 18. But the SMU AD said "the process through human resources took a lot longer than what we expected."

"We had to wait until everything was finalized," Sarty added.

It's a three-year contract for Larade. No word on whether that includes a clause encouraging people to shop at Canadian Tire for all their home renovation needs.
It all started, as many good things do, with Showron Glover.

Well, sort of. After the Saskatchewan Huskies won a national championship with Glover (a juco transfer) and a core of players from Canadian colleges (Mike Linklater, Troy Gottselig, and Michael Lieffers), I started wondering who else in the CCAA could make the same jump. And, more importantly, if there was any way to figure out who these players were without scouting them all. (Have you seen the cost of air travel in this country lately?)

What I did was find every player, going back as far as I could, who played in CCAA one year and CIS the next. The differences in their performance year-to-year then served as a rough approximation for the differences in level of play between the two leagues. It's the same logic behind the NHL projections that Gabe Desjardins has done (though he had a much larger sample size). We can then project this year's college stats as if they were next year's CIS stats, and see who could contribute at the next level.

We'll start today with the women's players.

Just as a sidebar note: if we had started last year instead, Anne Mercer (then with Lethbridge College) would absolutely have topped the list of players who could contribute at the CIS level. And who transferred to the University of Regina this year and ended up as a top-100 player in this league? Exactly.

Methodology notes

Since most non-Alberta conferences don't provide complete stats (my favourite: the OCAA, which publishes shots made but not shots taken), these conversions are mostly, in effect, ACAC-to-CIS, not CCAA-to-CIS. We do have an Atlantic player below, and the projection may not necessarily be right for her league if that league is at a lower level than Alberta, but it's the best we have.

Please note that I am also ignoring all the off-court factors, notably one's academics. I don't claim to know anything about these players' school careers, or in fact anything about them beyond a stat line and a roster bio. This is not a substitute for recruiting insight.

I tried to strike a balance between simple and informative for the statistics presented, but if you're a regular reader of mine you know which way that balance went. For each player we have points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals — all per-game — and then I've added per-40-minute averages for points and rebounds to give a better idea of the player's rates. As well, we have effective field-goal percentage (eFG%) and usage rate, a measure of how many of her team's possessions she used. At some level, it's silly to project anything, because the year-to-year performance is so volatile, especially when basing the projections on a few hundred minutes of college play, so keep that in mind too. The projections are more like a guess and a possibility rather than the median expected outcome. And "projected PER ranking" refers to all players with at least 300 minutes played last year; in other words, where this player's PER would have ranked among last year's players.

Finally, the stats below are "real" except for 2011-12 (obviously...) which is projected as noted. All players have at least two years of eligibility left.

Let's get into it ...

**

Andria Carlyon
6-2 forward, 3rd year, Grande Prairie Regional College
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
Percentages
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREBeFG%USG%
2009-10ACAC1st64213.59.50.70.91.921.915.445.2%17.6%
2010-11ACAC2nd70121.912.92.51.12.030.017.650.5%32.9%
2011-12CIS3rdN/A17.510.01.20.70.624.013.749.0%28.6%
Projected PER: 24.6, 42nd in CIS.

This might be a bit of an overprojection. Her stats are great — monstrous, in some cases — but that's at one level and we're more interested in what she would do at a higher level. The scoring projection puts her in Jessica Clémençon territory. So ... yeah, an overprojection, because as uncertain as all of this is, I'm confident Carlyon will not be named the CIS athlete of the year. (Though she is no stranger to being named player of the year.)

Regardless of how often she's used, or her point-per-game totals, Carlyon's still a 6-2 post capable of shooting in the mid-to-high-40s. She may not average a double-double but do you know how many posts in CIS had an above-average PER in at least 500 minutes last year? I count about 17. So just talking in pure basketballese, two dozen teams could certainly find Carlyon some floor time, especially if the turnovers are brought down.

**

Rachel Caputo
5-7 guard, 4th year, SAIT
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
Percentages
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREBeFG%USG%
2008-09ACAC1st41411.73.62.80.03.425.68.058.5%15.5%
2009-10ACAC2nd58614.83.02.60.02.624.86.041.0%15.2%
2010-11ACAC3rd54318.13.61.50.12.330.76.141.8%19.6%
2011-12CIS4thN/A14.52.80.80.11.221.84.740.6%17.1%

Projected PER: 21.8, 62nd in CIS.

Had we done this study last year, Caputo wouldn't have made the cut. She was third on her team in shots taken, and wasn't really scoring at the levels one needs for one's stats to translate well. But her third year saw her role in the SAIT offence increase — her possessions used went up nearly 30% — and she topped 30 points per 40 minutes for the first time.

Having not seen her play (I've actually never seen any of these players before), I'm guessing she could move up. However, guards probably have an harder time making the leap to CIS than forwards do, so I'm honestly not sure what to expect from Caputo, should she transfer. Having only two years left works against her. As does the lack of a three-point game, if the stats don't lie on that front. But these aren't huge barriers, otherwise she wouldn't be on this list.

Anyway, she had a PER of 30.5 last year, on a good team. Let's not overcomplicate this.

**

Melanie Hogue
Forward, 2nd year, Holland College
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
Percentages
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREBeFG%USG%
2010-11ACAA1st41312.112.30.70.81.722.222.740.6%15.1%
2011-12CIS2ndN/A9.69.60.30.50.217.617.639.5%13.1%

Projected PER: 19.0, 97th in CIS.

Not to take anything away from the remaining players on the list, but there is a gap between the Killer Cs and the next three. In Hogue's case, she was named an ACAC second-team all-star in her rookie year, theoretically meaning there were at least five players in the conference who were better than her, and who knows how many others across the country. Yet here I have her as the only Atlantic representative.

Couple of reasons for that. One, we don't really have complete stats for the ACAA. I could very well be missing out on some better players, either completely or partially (if some games are missing). This type of sports league is often garbage-in, garbage-out situations when it comes to player statistics. Two, I skip over players in their fourth or fifth year, since this is The CIS Blog after all, and we're concerned more with who can make the jump.

Putting those aside, I can say the other reason Hogue's listed here is she was simply better than her conference-mates at those things that translate well into CIS play. Low turnovers, high rebounds — a good low-post player. I think she has the size to play the next level up, and a 28.1 PER in one's rookie year is hard to ignore. Still, if this were the MLB draft, she would probably be what used to be called a draft-and-follow. In other words, wait a year.

**

Bayan Kurd
5-9 guard, 3rd year, Grant MacEwan University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
Percentages
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREBeFG%USG%
2009-10ACAC1st6399.35.02.60.12.915.78.439.5%15.8%
2010-11ACAC2nd51511.14.11.40.11.920.77.750.4%13.7%
2011-12CIS3rdN/A9.13.20.70.10.516.96.048.9%11.9%

Projected PER: 17.0, 121st in CIS.

Kurd seems more like a wing than a guard, but whatever she plays, she sure can fill out a statsheet. PER of 23.7. Multiple steals per game. And look, 50 for 127 on three-pointers last year ... maybe Scott Morrison should be reading this.

**

Kristen Monasterski
6-1 forward, 3rd year, Grant MacEwan University
Season
Conf
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
Percentages
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREBeFG%USG%
2009-10ACAC1st2424.93.40.20.20.520.313.952.3%5.7%
2010-11ACAC2nd55411.96.70.90.80.820.611.654.7%13.6%
2011-12CIS3rdN/A9.65.20.50.50.216.69.153.1%11.8%

Projected PER: 18.6, 104th in CIS.

Another MacEwan player. Monasterski also provides yet another example of why you don't rely on per-game numbers, especially when someone gets so much more playing time from year to year. She more than doubled her PPG (that's good!), but her points per 40 minutes stayed the same, at 20-plus (that's...well, that's also good!). Her PER was 25.4.

As for her projection, the 53.1% effective field-goal percentage is quite high, but her projection assumes some three-pointers. Keep her in the paint and that drops to 50%, which may be more realistic.
We'll have more on these players later, but for now we should quickly note a pair of transfers involving some big names in CIS ball:

After four seasons at Ryerson University in Toronto, 6-foot-8 forward Boris Bakovic has committed to the Dinos for 2011-12. He will be eligible to play for the Dinos immediately, having sat out the entire 2010-11 season.

Trinity Western University head coach Cheryl Jean-Paul is happy to announce that three-time CIS champion and Canadian National team member Laurelle Weigl will be suiting up for the Spartans for the 2011-12 season.


Wayne Thomas has more on Bakovic (and Calgary's two other recruits, Daryus Sconiers and Josh Owen-Thomas). The Dinos' release points out that Bakovic was the nation's leading scorer in each of his last three seasons with Ryerson; and in his last two, he was No. 1 in our PER-based rankings.

Weigl may not have been atop those rankings, but she was right close (for example, sixth in 2008-09) and she has those three championships in four years at SFU anyway.
News out of St. Catharines today is the Brock Badgers have named Rob Hilson their new Director of Athletics. The decision came after a year with Chris Critelli stepping in as interim AD for previous boss Lorne Adams, who stepped down last summer.

To many in the OUA community, this is a bit of a surprise. Hilson, who spent 12 years as Director of Marketing and Media Relations with McMaster Athletics before being let go last spring, had just taken a post at the University of Western Ontario as a Communications Specialist (with his old boss, former Mac AD Therése Quigley).

It's also a bit of a surprise, however, given that Hilson is moving up from a somewhat limited background in communications to the pretty big role of AD. He also worked at McMaster's department of University Advancement as well as Basketball Ontario and as a communications co-ordinator at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Now, a bit of disclosure: I worked with Hilson a lot in my first year as Sports Editor of the McMaster Silhouette and he was great to me. Whenever I needed photos or contact info for a coach or player, Rob was the guy to call, and he was without a doubt a big help. Still, it's a bit of a wild card selection for the Badgers to go with Hilson in what was (from what I'm told) a pretty competitive race.

One of the biggest implications of Hilson's selection is another job search: that of the Brock men's basketball coach. After Ken Murray stepped down last year, former point guard and assistant coach Brad Rootes stepped in as interim bench boss. But now, the search has been re-opened and with Hilson at the helm (that sounds like a badass book title or something), one has to figure that the door is wide open for former Mac coach Joe Raso.

Hilson and Raso, who is one of the frontrunners for the Brock job, obviously worked together a lot at Mac, and it's not hard to imagine the two working together again (albeit in different roles). Raso has got as decorated a resumé as any available coach, and you've got to think this would make for a pretty fun Brock-Mac rivalry. This, of course, is entirely speculative, but will nonetheless be an interesting storyline that plays out over the summer.

With Hilson, the face of Brock Athletics has changed. We'll see soon just how drastic that change is.
The news broke a couple of days ago, and I'll quote liberally from the CCES release:

The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport announced that two Université Laval football players have received sanctions for the use of performance enhancing substances.

On February 7, at Laval’s PEPS complex, the Centre for Ethics in Sport conducted 33 doping control tests on Laval football players during a morning training session. A second year linebacker, Michaël Abraham had his urine sample return an adverse analytical finding for the presence of 19-norandrosterone. Abraham waived his right to a hearing and acknowledged the commission of an anti-doping rule violation. He received a sanction of a two-year period of ineligibility.

On March 6, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport conducted further doping control tests on 25 Laval football players during a spring training camp in Orlando, Florida. Steeve Vachon, a first year offensive line player, had his urine sample return an adverse analytical finding for the presence of methandienone. Vachon waived his right to a hearing and received a sanction of a two-year period of ineligibility.

From this perspective, there hasn't been the sturm und drang that we saw with the Waterloo players last year, though obviously that involved a criminal investigation and, eventually, a suspension for the entire team. It also may be less of a story down here in Upper Canada because, well, these guys play all the way up there. Allan Maki rewrote a few press releases, and everyone called it a day.

In fact, one of the few value-add pieces I could find was by friends of the blog Deux Fans (who also include the always-subtle Sun Media front pages). As is often the case, and as they point out, the players involved are not superstars. Neither played in the Vanier Cup this year, though Abraham was set to become the long snapper in 2011, apparently.

For the more cynical among us, it was less an exercise in "catching cheaters" and more an enjoyable game of "which line of defence will we hear?" (I make no assertions about the truth, or truthiness, behind anyone's claims.) Abraham went with the popular "I bought it over-the-counter and didn't know." Or maybe that was Vachon. The Laval release doesn't properly attribute the statement, but everyone seems to think it was Abraham, and who I am to disagree with Mark Masters? (Or should I say with Mark Masters' soulful mug shot?). Whoever it was, he seems to be the only player among those who were tested who used this supplement.

Come September, this will certainly lead to some jokes, taunting, and (if we are lucky) creative French-language puns on "methandienone."

Well, with the Vancouver Canucks finally putting the Nashville Predators away last night we no longer get to watch not-overnight-success Joel Ward continue to be the unlikely hero in Music City. As much as folks might be breathing easier on the west coast, I would have preferred to watch another game with Ward on the biggest stage of his life. Now the last of the CIS alum are off the ice in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and I have one less reason to stay up past my bedtime and watch the playoffs.

Joel Ward is one of my favourite hockey players to watch, and not just because he developed in the AUS/CIS. He was a humble star with the UPEI Panthers, always playing with that never-say-quit work ethic that got him to the NHL and almost always with that big smile on his face. The national sports media didn’t know about him, or care much about him (despite dominating Team Canada players in the two-game exhibition series between the AUS and Team Canada in the lead-up to the 2003 WJC in Halifax) until he managed to crack the Minnesota Wild line-up out of training camp in 2006. He didn’t stick, and fell off the radar when he was sent back down and stayed in the AHL with Houston for another two years before signing with super-frugal Nashville for the 2008-09 season. He ground his way anonymously through three seasons in the NHL with the Predators (and just try to catch him playing on TV when you live in the Maritimes …), but this playoffs the Preds get banged up, Ward steps up, and the rest is history.

This has been a good season for CIS exposure in the NHL. Former UNB Varsity Red star Darryl Boyce was called up by the Toronto Maple Leafs after Christmas, and made the most of his second opportunity in the hockey media centre of the world. That photogenic (!) nose injury didn’t hurt his exposure either. Boyce, who left the V-Reds after two seasons, is back in Fredericton now taking courses at UNB towards finishing his degree (and tweeting this morning that he just got 84% on a midterm -- he’s @dboyce47 on Twitter).

Former McGill Redman star Mathieu Darche has had an even longer path to the NHL than Ward’s or Boyce’s, but when you play for the Montréal Canadiens and have a good playoffs you get noticed (and we do get to see a LOT of Habs games on TV out here).

Jody Shelley of the Philadelphia Flyers was NOT a star his one season with the Dalhousie Tigers. Big and tough but too slow, and that fighting prowess wasn’t much use in the CIS. His fists however have given a long career in the pros, but he’s not a guy who gets a lot of ice time in the playoffs.

Speaking of tough guys, P. J. Stock was a one-year wonder at StFX, a skilled star with the X-Men who got to the NHL through his tenacity and hard-to-play-againstness. Now we have to watch him yap on CBC, so I guess we have an idea of what his opponents used to put up with, or not, on the ice.

If you are a new fan of Joel Ward, the University of Prince Edward Island has created a bit of a fan page with links here.

(Joel Ward photo by George Walker IV / The Tennessean)
Canada West will be adding another set of Cougars to the mix for the 2012-13 season when Mount Royal University in Calgary joins the conference. The Cougars - who share the same name as the University of Regina's squads - will join the conference as a probationary member starting this September and will have teams competing in men's and women's basketball, hockey, soccer and volleyball starting in the fall of 2012.

Mount Royal will become the 15th member of the conference with Calgary joining Winnipeg - home of the University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba - as the only other city in the conference featuring two competing institutions.

The Cougars will become the 10th team in men's soccer, the 11th in women's soccer, the 12th team in men's and women's volleyball, and the 15th team in both men's and women's basketball. Mount Royal will also give both men's and women's hockey an eighth team.

UBC Okanagan in Kelowna is also moving into the Canada West fold after a year as a probationary member, and will compete in both basketball and volleyball starting this fall. Of course all this expansion talk - especially when we're talking about basketball - gets to the issue of tiering, or divisions. Whatever you want to call it, the issue of forming divisions is only going to continue to heat up in the coming months and years.
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