OTTAWA (CIS) – A foursome of Canada West teams, including the reigning national champion Calgary Dinos and the tournament host Trinity Western Spartans, will be looking to resume their conference’s domination of Canadian Interuniversity Sport men’s volleyball this weekend in Langley, B.C.
The 2011 CIS championship, hosted for the first time by Trinity Western University, kicks off Friday with the quarter-final round and culminates Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time with the gold-medal final. SSN Canada will have live webcasts of all 11 matches from the eight-team tournament.
The Dinos, fresh off a pair of dramatic five-set wins over the Spartans (semifinal) and the Brandon Bobcats (final) at the Canada West Final Four, earned the No. 1 seed for the CIS tourney, while Brandon and TWU landed the No. 3 and No. 4 spots, respectively.
Rounding out the seeding are the No. 2 Laval Rouge et Or (Quebec champions), No. 5 Alberta Golden Bears (Canada West fourth-place finishers), No. 6 McMaster Marauders (OUA champions), No. 7 New Brunswick Varsity Reds (AUS champions), and No. 8 Sherbrooke Vert & Or (Quebec finalists).
The Canada West domination of CIS men’s volleyball is well-documented.
Since Laval claimed its third Tantramar Trophy in five seasons back in 1994, teams currently competing in the CWUAA (including schools from the now defunct Great Plains conference) have won 16 consecutive national titles. In fact, since Sherbrooke captured its lone banner in 1975, the Tantramar Trophy has been hoisted by Western teams 32 times in 35 years.
Eight of the last nine CIS finals have been contested between Canada West schools, with the exception being a straight-set Alberta win over Laval in 2009. Over the same period, the CWUAA has swept the national podium eight times and has even taken the top four spots in the final standings on four occasions.
“The historical results speak for themselves. You can’t argue with what this conference has been able to do over the past several years,” says Calgary head coach Rod Durrant. “The Canada West conference prepares teams to play at a high level every weekend, and that helps us when we get to the national championship.”
Third-seeded Brandon, in only its sixth year of CIS men’s volleyball, made the most of its lone previous appearance at the Nationals in 2009 with a bronze-medal finish. The Bobcats placed fourth in the CWUAA this season with a 10-8 record but upset first-place Alberta in the first-round of the Final Four before giving Calgary a scare in the final.
Fourth-ranked Trinity Western hopes home field will be an advantage this weekend. A year ago, when they were also the No. 4 seed, the Spartans returned to the national final for the first time since their lone Tantramar Trophy victory in 2006.
Only five teams have hoisted the Tantramar on home court over the years including Alberta in 2009 and 2002, Calgary in 1989, Winnipeg in 1987 and UBC in 1983.
The six-time national champion Golden Bears saw their amazing streak of eight consecutive appearances in the CIS final come to an end last year in Kamloops but still reached the podium for a ninth straight season thanks to a third-place finish.
About Canadian Interuniversity Sport
Canadian Interuniversity Sport is the national governing body of university sport in Canada. Fifty-one universities, 10,000 student-athletes and 550 coaches vie for 21 national championships in 12 different sports. CIS also provides high performance international opportunities for Canadian student-athletes at Winter and Summer Universiades, as well as numerous world university championships. For further information, visit www.cis-sic.ca.