Erica Roberts
CIS-SIC.ca Staff
OTTAWA — The start of the 2013 CIS football regular season is today. A grand total of 124 games will be played across the country over the next three months, culminating with the TELUS Vanier Cup on November 23 at TELUS-Université Laval Stadium in Quebec City.
League play got under way on Sunday with five contests in the OUA conference. The Canada West and RSEQ regular schedules kick off the following weekend, while AUS teams join the action on Sept. 6-7.
A number of pre-season matches are also scheduled over the next week, including reigning national champion Laval hosting the five-time defending Canada West champ Calgary Dinos in Quebec City, on Saturday.
The Rouge et Or set an all-time record last November when they defeated McMaster 37-14 in Toronto to capture the seventh Vanier Cup title in program history, one more than Western. The CIS championship game was played in front of Vanier Cup-record crowd of 37,098 at Rogers Centre and attracted an average television audience of 910,000, also an all-time mark.
Leading up to the 49th Vanier Cup final on Nov. 23, this year’s national semifinals – both set for Nov. 16 – will see the RSEQ and AUS champions battle in the Maritimes (Uteck Bowl), while the OUA champs visit the Canada West titlists (Mitchell Bowl).
Team previews of all 27 CIS football programs as well as profiles of 27 star players are available on the CIS website at cis-sic.ca. All the information on the TELUS Vanier Cup (including ticket info) can be found at vaniercup.com.
Once again this year, members of Football Reporters of Canada will vote for the weekly national Top 10 ranking, which will be released every Tuesday starting on Aug. 27. The CIS football players of the week – also selected by a panel of FRC members – will be announced each Wednesday, starting on Aug. 28.
NOTES: After playing nine regular season games for the past three campaigns (one more than in the other conferences), RSEQ teams return to an eight-game schedule this fall…The Carleton Ravens return to CIS football – in the OUA – for the first time since 1998, when they were part of the now defunct OQIFC.
