A blog about supporting local football (aka soccer) focusing on south eastern Ontario and the Kingston area, but wandering so far as to talk about Toronto and the Canadian national teams.
Sunday the thirteenth of November will be a day that a number of university athletes will long remember. Four teams played in the CIS Championship Final soccer games, games that would determine the university level champion of Canada in both men's and women's soccer. These games would also produce second place finishers.
The matchups for the 2011 edition of the Championships featured the host Victoria Vikes against the upstart Saint Mary's Huskies on the men's side and the defending champion Queen's Gaels up against the Montreal Carabins, looking for the first championship won by a Quebec team on the women's side.
Between the two games were featured a record-setting crowd, penalty drama, amazing defensive play, and some stunning goals. Who would lift the Gladys Bean Memorial Trophy for the women and the Sam Davidson Memorial Trophy for the men?
After Thursday's busy first day at the CIS men's soccer Championships, another busy day was to follow, with all eight teams seeing action again. The day began with the two consolation semi-finals and those led into the two semi-final matchups.
The consolation semi-finals featured the McGill Redman and the Toronto Varsity Blues in the first game and the McMaster Marauders and Montreal Carabins in the second. The semi-finals featured the Saint Mary's Huskies against the Alberta Golden Bears. That was followed up with the host Victoria Vikes playing against the Cape Breton Capers.
The winners of the consolation semi-finals will play in the 5th place game Saturday at 17:30ET, while the participants of the semi-final matchups play on Sunday in the Bronze and Gold medal matches.
After a busy first day at the CIS women's soccer Championships at McGill, the teams for the consolation bracket had been determined.
The first consolation semi-final featured the Alberta Pandas facing off against the Dalhousie Tigers. Both teams had been defeated by OUA teams in the opening games of the Championship, meaning that the best they could do would be fifth overall.
The second consolation final featured a matchup between the Laurier Golden Hawks and the Trinity Western Spartans, the number two team in the country. Both teams had been the better in their quarter-final matches, but both lost in kicks from the mark.
Thursday featured all four quarter-final matches at the CIS Men's Championships being help at Centennial Stadium at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
The opening match of the day featured AUS Champion Saint Mary's matching up against the RSEQ finalist McGill Redmen. This was followed by the Canada West Champion Alberta Golden Bears against the OUA finalist Toronto Varsity Blues. Cape Breton Capers, the AUS regular season winners matched up against the OUA Champion McMaster Marauders in the third game of the day, setting the stage for the RSEQ Champion Montreal Carabins to face the host Victoria Vikes.
Yesterday, the CIS Women's Championships began in Montreal at McGill University's Percival Molson Stadium. After the opening matches both finished in close games, the final two quarter-finals of the day were played.
The third match of the day featured the RSEQ Champion Montreal Carabins, top ranked in the country, against the OUA silver medal Laurier Golden Hawks. This was followed by the host McGill Martlets against the number two ranked and CW Champion Trinity Western Spartans.
The winners of these quarter-finals will be playing each other on Saturday afternoon at 16:30ET in the first semi-final, while the losers will face off Friday evening at 19:30ET.
Last weekend at the OUA Final Four, the Laurier Golden Hawks played the Queen's Gaels to a scoreless 120 minutes before dropping the game in kicks from the mark. Today, the Hawks played the top-ranked Carabins for another 120 minutes. Coming out of the starting gates, the Hawks were the stronger team, dominating the game with their offensively-minded lineup.
This weekend featured both the men's and women's OUA Final Four playoffs.
The men's Final Four was played in Ottawa at Carleton University's Keith Harris Stadium, and featured the host and OUA East champion Carleton Ravens, OUA West champion York Lions, University of Toronto Varsity Blues, and McMaster Marauders.
The women's Final Four was played in Waterloo at Laurier University. It featured the OUA West champions Laurier Golden Hawks, OUA East champions Queen's Gaels, McMaster Marauders, and Ottawa Gee Gees.
This coming weekend, the OUA is holding the Final Four round for both the women and men's soccer playoffs. The women's round is being played in Waterloo at Wilfrid Laurier's University Stadium while the men's is being played in Ottawa at Carleton University.
Today we will take a quick look at the four teams involved in the women's Final Four, and tomorrow we'll take a look at the men's Final Four.
On the women's side, the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks are the host team due to their first place finish in the OUA West. Joining them from the OUA West are the McMaster Marauders. Coming in from the OUA East are the first place Queen's Gaels and the second place Ottawa Gee-Gees.
There was only one game played by a Kingston team this weekend, the Queen's Gaels women faced off against the Carleton Ravens in an OUA quarter-final matchup. Queen's had received the bye due to their first place finish in the OUA East, and Carleton had to play a mid-week game against Laurentian.
Carleton came into the game on something of a high due to their defeat of Laurentian by a 5-0 scoreline. They may have been filled with confidence at the starting whistle, but it took just over ten minutes for Queen's striker Jacqueline Tessier to burst that confidence by putting a ball into the top corner of the net to give Queen's an early 1-0 lead. Queen's dominated the run of play, moving the ball around, and not letting the Ravens back into the game. Almost immediately after halftime, Kelli Chamberlain put a chipped cross in that Tessier touched into the back of the net for her second goal of the match. Riley Filion finished off the scoring in the 84th minute on a tap-in from a Breanna Burton cross.
Queen's now moves on to the OUA Final Four this coming weekend.
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."
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.
This is a new blog that I've decided to start on a total lark. I've been a big proponent of the recent resurgence of the "Support Local Football" movement. What began as a grassroots movement hit it big with discussions on the Canadian Soccer News site and eventually led to the "Support Local Football" video below. The video was filmed at The Football Factory in Toronto with a combination of supporters, media personalities, and players showing their support for the beautiful game at all levels:
The combination of these things, along with my recent last minute (bought my ticket the day before the match) trip down to Toronto to watch the Canadian Men's National Team play against St Lucia in a World Cup Qualifier led me to begin considering putting something like this together.
My initial focus will be on local games and events, including the local universities (Queen's University and RMC), the local college (St Lawrence College), and any local teams (whether local leagues or wider area), and I hope to expand from there, hopefully with other people writing about their local leagues, teams, or otherwise.
Any and all comments are welcome, and I'll try to respond to everything I can.
