Kick at the Darkness

There are a few viable ways for the CIS to become relevant again. No matter the method we choose, there are some non-negotiables:

• Scholarships. We need them. The OUA can continue being irrelevant if it wants.
• Development. We need to develop athletes for higher levels. This is not happening nearly enough right now, and not in the high profile sports. All the suggestions must lead to "With the 1st selection in the entry draft, the TEAM X's, select PLAYER X from the University of Calgary Dinosaurs. That HAS to be the goal here.

2005 could see a lot happen. A federal election is first among them. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, both BC and Quebec could implement their electoral reform packages.

Of course, electoral and democratic reform will be the most important elements of the Canadian political landscape. Hopefully, BC and Quebec will push the envelope sufficiently to get things moving on the federal level.

I am not a fan of proportional representation, but it is better than what we have now. The US system of the House and Senate would likely work fairly well in Canada, but only if we had more provinces (don't just write that off, I will cover it later).

PR creates the atrocious one-issue candidate. A geographical area could have one no-abortions-ever candidate and another abortions-for-everyone candidate, and have them both get elected. What will be their respective positions on the environment, on national defense? Who knows! They don't have a real platform, so unless their issue is on the table they are a shell of an MP. Andrew Coyne likes PR, and that is a good reason to be suspicious.

Here's the plan for the next election:

• The next election should take place on June 9th, 2008. (The one after that should be the 2nd monday of June in 2012)
• Every province will elect 5 senators
• Every riding will elect one MP
• Every province will elect another 50% (minimum of 1) members to parliament. How they are selected will be entirely up to the province. If they want to appoint...... appoint, if they want an election with PR, go right ahead. This creates 10 labratories to help all of us figure out the best way to do this. If a province gets it wrong, they will have to answer in their own election for the bad choice.

Maybe there is another way......

Since the NCAA is so freakin' great, why don't we just join?

There are a few good reasons not to join the NCAA. Here they are:

• Congressional Oversight. This would be a problem, since many of the NCAA constructs are overseen by the US congress, this would be tough. If we mirrored the US laws here in Canada (as they pertain ONLY to college sports) it might work.
• Title IX. We do most of Title IX on our own, but not all of it. We would have to get in line with the act to make a level playing field with the US counterparts.
• Scholarships. This one is easy. Start giving them, and we have no problem here.
• TV Coverage. We don't bring a US TV audience with us. We have to show off the Canadian TV audience we would bring, and we would have to be a part of the US TV deals. Tough with the CRTC in the way, but doable.
• Repeated and savage ass-kickings. In football and basketball, it would be ugly to start out. If, say, UBC joined the Pac 10, they would be losing by margins of 70 or more for a while. To overcome that would be awfully difficult.

Why do this? Check out Paul Wells opinion on the topic of enhancing Canadian post secondary education.

Collegiate sports in Canada are a mess. Here is the first idea on solving it.

Division I and Division II

No one expects that the Memorial of Newfoundland and the University of Alberta will compete on an equal footing. The NCAA has addressed this by creating divisions. We should do this to. No one in the NCAA thinks that Penn-State, Altoona will go up against Penn State. That only makes sense.

Here is my collegiate conferences for the new and improved CIS:

Rupert's Land Conference (Division I):

UBC
Victoria
Simon Fraser
Calgary
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Regina
Manitoba
Winnipeg

Big West Conference (Division II):

Trinity Western
UNBC
UBC-Okanagan
Lethbridge
Augustana
Grant MacEwan College
Red Deer College
Mount Royal College

Canadian Shield Conference (Division II):

Brandon
Laurentian
Lakehead
Nipissing
St. Boniface
First Nations College
St. Thomas More
University of Sudbury

Golden Horseshoe Conference (Division I):

Toronto
York
Western
Guelph
Laurier
Windsor
Brock
McMaster
Waterloo

Confederation Conference (Division I):

RMC
Queen's
Ottawa
Carleton
McGill
Montreal
Laval
Concordia
Trois Rivieres
Sherbrooke
Bishop's

North Atlantic Conference (Division I):

Acadia
Mount Allison
New Brunswick
Moncton
St. Mary's
St. FX
Dalhousie
Memorial
UPEI

It is incredible how we in Canada have missed the boat on this one. Today (Jan 1) thousands of people across the US are thinking about the major educational institutions in their areas. Ideally they would be doing this because of research or library acquisitions, but instead it is for football. Either way, they are thinking about universities, something that is NEVER done in Canada. We are missing out.

People think that the NCAA is just a machine to push out players for the NFL, NBA etc. In some cases this is true, in many more it is not. Most players in the NCAA don't go on to the pros, but do get an education. The fact that we deny this to our own athletes is incredible.

We need better collegiate sports. What is the answer? Email me (hab_in_exile@yahoo.com) if you have any ideas.