Canadian Men’s College Volleyball 11/12/16

There actually are two components to Canadian men’s college volleyball – the CIS, or Canadian Interuniversity Sports for universities or large schools, and the CCAA, or the Canadian College Athletic Association, which represents colleges and small schools. Each division is a separate, distinct entity with its own championship tournament. CIS currently numbers 34 men’s volleyball programs while the CCAA has 51 programs.

We’ll start with the CCAA and its 51 men’s volleyball programs, which actually means CCAA has more men’s volleyball programs than NCAA DI and NCAA DII combined. So, let’s look at the five conferences which form the CCAA.

1. ACAA or ATLANTIC COLLEGES ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, which has four programs: Holland College (HC), St. Thomas University (STU), UNB – St. John (UNBSJ), and the Universite Sainte Anne (USA).

2. ACAC or ALBERTA COLLEGES ATHLETIC CONFERENCE, which has fourteen programs, split into a North Division and a South Division of seven teams each. The North Division consists of: Concordia University College, Grand Prairie Regional College (GPRC), Keyano College, Lakeland College, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), The King’s University College, and the University of Alberta-Augustana. The South Division consists of: Ambrose University College, Briercrest College, Lethbridge College, Medicine Hat College, Olds College, Red Deer College, and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).

3. OCAA or ONTARIO COLLEGES ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, which has twenty-one programs, split into two nearly equal divisions of east and West. The East Division consists of: Algonquin College, Canadore College, Centennial College, Durham College, Fleming College, George Brown, Georgian College, La Cite’ Collegiale, Loyalist College, Seneca College, and Trent University. The West Division consists of: Boreal College, Cambrian College, Conestoga College, Fanshawe College, Humber College, Mohawk College, Niagara College, Redeemer University College, Sheridan College, and St. Clair College.

4. PACWEST or PACIFIC WEST CONFERENCE, which has seven programs: Camosun College, Capilano University, College of the Rockies (COTR), Columbia Bible College (CBC), Douglas College, University of Fraser Valley (UFV), and Vancouver Island University (VIU).

5. RSEQ or RESEAU DU SPORT ETUDIANT QUEBEC – CCAA, which has five programs: Cegep de L’Outaouais, Cegep de Limoilou, Cegep de Saint-Jean, Cegep de Saint-Jérôme, and Cegep de Sherbrooke. And, yes, “cegep” translates roughly as “college” into English although there is much more than that to the term in the French-Canadian dialect.

Well, there’s our five conferences of the CCAA, complete with the members who sponsor men’s volleyball. And here’s the CCAA Poll for November 8, 2016.

CIS or Canadian interuniversity Sport, Men’s Volleyball has also ramped up and is fully active now. CIS is the sports organization that represents universities and larger schools in Canada and is the national governing body of university sport in Canada. CIS is roughly equivalent to Division I NCAA athletics in the USA and controls all 34 of the university level men’s Volleyball programs in Canada.

Now we’ll look at the CIS and its 34 men’s volleyball programs, which are divided into four conferences.

1. AUS or ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY SPORTS, which consists of three programs: Dalhousie University, Memorial University, and the University of New Brunswick.

2. CWUAA or CANADA WEST UNIVERSITIES ATHLETICS ASSOCIATION, which consists of thirteen programs: Alberta (University of Alberta), Manitoba (University of Manitoba), Calgary (University of Calgary), UBC (University of British Columbia), Brandon University, Mount Royal University, Saskatchewan (University of Saskatchewan), Trinity Western University (TWU), Winnipeg (University of Winnipeg), MacEwan University, Okanagan (UBC – Okanagan), Regina (University of Regina), and Thompson Rivers University (TRU).

3. OUA OR ONTARIO UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS, which consists of fourteen programs: Brock University, Guelph University, Laurier University (WLU), McMaster University, Nipissing University, Queen’s University, Royal Military College, Ryerson University, Toronto (U of Toronto), Trent University, Waterloo University, Western University, Windsor University, and York University.

4. RSEQ OR RÉSEAU DU SPORT ÉTUDIANT QUÉBEC – CIS, which consists of four programs: McGill University, University of Laval (Université Laval), University of Montreal (Université de Montreal), and the University of Sherbrooke (Université de Sherbrooke).

Well, there’s our four conferences of the CIS, complete with the members who sponsor men’s volleyball. And here’s the CIS Poll for November 8, 2016.

LET’S GROW VOLLEYBALL!