CSL to bring litigation against the CSA

CSL Chairman and President, Vincent Ursini appeared on Sunday morning's International Sports Report program on TSN 1050 this week to discuss the de-sanctioning of the Canadian Soccer League by the Canadian Soccer Association and their plans moving forward.

The interview came at the tail end of the program and was brief in nature, beginning at about the 1:23:00 mark. In it, Ursini briefly discussed the events of the CSA's expelling the CSL as a member and that the CSL has launched litigation against the CSA to appeal the situation, using the same legal firm as when they appealed the de-sanctioning in 2013.

Canadian Soccer League website back online, CSL response

Earlier this week, the website of the Canadian Soccer League went entirely offline and the domain became unavailable.

As of late yesterday afternoon, the Canadian Soccer League brought the site back online, though with a number of broken links, at a slightly altered address, canadiansoccerleague.ca

Stan Adamson, Director of Media and PR for the CSL, responded to my inquiries on the matter, laying out the plans for the future of the CSL online.

Canadian Soccer League website vanished? Sanctioning?

At some point on Monday morning, the Canadian Soccer League's website disappeared from the internet, domain name and all.

There were some technical glitches with the site last week as their news feed disappeared a couple of times and their database of news, press releases, and statistics vanished, but nothing as surprising as the domain name no longer existing.

FISU Kazan: Jackie Tessier in Poland, part 2

Jackie Tessier continues her travels overseas preparing for the FISU games in Kazan with a few more days spent in Poland and another game under the belts of the women's soccer team, this time against one of the top women's teams.

Read on for the second entry of Jackie's diary,  a special Canada Day edition, as the Confederations Cup wraps up in South America!

FISU Kazan: Jackie Tessier in Poland

The FISU Universiade games begin in Kazan, Russia at the start of next week. Ex-Queen's varsity striker and current KUSC OCSL Women's player Jackie Tessier is playing with the women's soccer team and has agreed to send in updates every few days, discussing her travels and experiences representing Canada on the international stage.

The Queen's Journal profiled her in this week's issue as a lead-up to her trip overseas.

Read on for her first blog entry.

Jackie Tessier trying out for FISU's Team Canada (Updated)

The 2013 FISU Summer Universiade takes place this July 6th through 17th in the city of Kazan, in the Republic of Tararstan, part of the Russian Federation. One of Kingston's top female soccer players is hoping to be part of the women's team that Canada is sending and headed off today for the final round of tryouts.

Jackie Tessier, fresh off her fourth season with the Queen's Golden Gaels, and a third national medal in a row, left today for Burnaby, BC for a chance to make the final roster of twenty players that will be heading to the games this summer. She is following in the footsteps of Brienna Shaw and Riley Filion who played with the women's team in Harbin, China in 2011.

OCAA and OUA response on student-athlete eligibility

As a followup to the recent stories about the CSA's de-sanctioning of the CSL David Rowaan of SoccerWire Ontario spent a fair bit of time recently talking with officials in the OUAA, OUA, and CIS trying to get a firm handle on their stances on student-athlete eligibility if they took part in the upcoming 2013 CSL season.

Bus trip from Kingston to see Canada's World Cup Qualifier June 12

This June, the Canadian Men's National Team continues their World Cup Qualifying run. Canada was drawn into a group with Cuba, Honduras, and Panama for the third round games, with the winners and second place teams moving onto the fourth round, commonly known as the "Hex".

Canada opens their schedule on Friday, June 8th in Havana and follows it up with a game at home in Toronto against Honduras. All of this follows the Centenary game against the United States on June 3rd.

The Voyageurs, Canada's supporters group, has organized a bus trip in conjunction with The Supporters Section for the first Canada home qualifier on June 12th.

World Cup Qualifying: Canada 7, St. Lucia 0

Tonight, Canada played in St. Lucia at the Beausejour Cricket Field. The game was not televised, but Canada took control of the game early, and the (approximately) 25 Canadians there outnumbered the 200 St. Lucian supporters.

The game was streamed over the internet with commentary by Max Bell and RedNation Online's Gavin Day. Due to a complete and utter lack of television highlights, I decided to interpret the commentary and present a brief highlight package using... puppets.

Yes. Puppets. So, read on for "Fables from Canada's trip to Fraggle Lucia."

World Cup Qualifying: Canada visits St. Lucia (Updated)

Tomorrow evening at 6pm ET, the Canadian men's national team (CMNT) will be playing their third game of the second round of CONCACAF qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The game is being played down in St. Lucia, and Canada beat them in Toronto on the 2nd of September by a 4-1 scoreline. Canada won both of their qualifiers to date by scores of 4-1 and 3-0 (at Puerto Rico) and can eliminate St. Lucia with a win.

Unfortunately, the game is not being televised due to a lack of broadcast facilities at the source, but Canada Soccer will be tweeting a commentary of the game for people to follow along with. Rogers Sportsnet has sent down a small camera crew to do interviews and collect highlights to be shown later.