U Sports (stylized as U SPORTS) is the national
sport governing body of university sport in Canada, comprising the majority of degree-granting universities in the country. Its equivalent body for organized sports at
college
A college ( Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
s in Canada is the
Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). Some institutions are members of both bodies for different sports.
Its name until October 20, 2016, was Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS; french: Sport interuniversitaire canadien, SIC, links=no).
On that date, the organization rebranded as "U Sports" in both
official languages
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
.
The original Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (CIAU) Central was founded in 1906 and existed until 1955, composed only of universities from
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
and
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...
. With the collapse of the CIAU Central in the mid-1950s, calls for a new, national governing body for university sport accelerated. Once the
Royal Military College of Canada became a degree granting institution, Major W. J. (Danny) McLeod, athletic director at the RMC directed the establishment of the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (CIAU) in 1961. Major McLeod ran the CIAU from his office at RMC as the first CIAU Secretary-Treasurer. In the 1960s the CIAU functioned as a voluntary, autonomous, educational sport organization which represented by the various universities from coast to coast. In 1978, the Canadian Women's Interuniversity Athletic Union (CWIAU), which had formed in 1970, merged with the CIAU; the expanded CIAU reinforced its university focus by adjusting its name to the Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union. It changed its name to Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) in June 2001 due to growing misconceptions about the name of the organization since the term "athletics" was associated with track and field and "union" with labour movements.
According to the organization, the name change to "U Sports" came about in part due to a desire for a brand that was "instantly recognizable and identical in both French and English."
[ The rebrand was accompanied by a new approach to presentation of Canadian University sports, its teams, and its players. The new, singular logo and name came with a new website to better present stories taking place throughout the athletics programs U Sports governs, bolstered by a new approach to social media.
]
Sanctioned sports
Source:
* Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
* Cross country
* Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...
* Field hockey
Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shootin ...
(women's only)
* Football (men's only)
* Ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...
* Rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...
(women's only)
* Soccer
* Swimming
* Track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...
* Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
* Wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
2016 rebrand
On October 20, 2016, CIS announced that it would be changing its name to U Sports, accompanied by a new logo and approach to Canadian University sports. The name was chosen in part to better represent Canada as a bilingual nation with a united name as opposed to separate acronyms. The new name and look are also intended to increase the marketability of Canadian University sports.
Signifying a major shift in the presentation of Canadian University sports, U Sports aims to better engage with Canadian sports fans and present the athletes it governs. To do so, U Sports aims to promote the stories of its key athletes through a new approach to social media as well as a new website in order to "create a massive change in the way Canadians see university sports in the digital era".
Athletic funding
The U Sports member institutions offer athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...
s known as Athletic Financial Awards (AFA); subject to minimum academic requirements. The AFA's are capped and may not exceed the value of the tuition and compulsory fees for the student-athlete. Universities also may provide additional non-athletic awards including academic scholarships and needs-based grants for athletes in addition to this cap, provided the additional awards do not include athletic criteria. In 2008/2009 one in two U Sports athletes was receiving an athletic scholarship.
Increasingly, U Sports schools are offering booster-support programs, where alumni, parents and/or corporations can donate money to a targeted fund especially designed to off-set a student-athlete's tuition and living costs. The University of Windsor
, mottoeng = Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge
, established =
, academic_affiliations = CARL, COU, Universities Canada
, former_names = Assumption College (1857-1956)Assumption University of Windsor (1956-1963)
, type = Public univers ...
has an ''Adopt-A-Lancer'' program, for example. U Sports has no regulations regarding how much each school can provide to teams through private support. The Université Laval
Université Laval is a public research university in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The university was founded by royal charter issued by Queen Victoria in 1852, with roots in the founding of the Séminaire de Québec in 1663 by François de Mont ...
's Rouge et Or football team, winner of seven of the last 12 Vanier Cups, is so successful with fund raising that the team trains in Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
during the spring.
Canadian Hockey League teams offer financial support for their graduates – who attend school within two years of playing major junior – who choose to play for a U Sports school after graduating from major junior hockey based on a model where the league will give scholarships commensurate with the seasons they played in the CHL.
Hockey players who play in the CHL are ineligible for NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...
athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...
s, although many attend a CHL training camp: however, they can only stay a maximum of 48 hours, and can not dress in any games.
Championships
Source:
Members
There are 56 member universities in U Sports. These 56 member universities are currently organized into the four following regional associations. In some of these sports, these associations are sometimes referred to as ''conferences''.
* Atlantic University Sport (AUS)
* Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CW)
*Ontario University Athletics
Ontario University Athletics (OUA; french: Sports universitaires de l'Ontario) is a regional membership association for Canadian universities which assists in co-ordinating competition between their university level athletic programs and providin ...
(OUA)
* Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ)
;Notes
Basketball
As of the 2019–2020 U Sports season, 48 of the 56 member institutions have both men's and women's basketball teams. In sports with heavy university participation, like basketball, some of the conferences have had divisions. The OUA previously had four divisions from 2014–15 to 2016–17, but reduced them back to two for the 2017–18 season. With the addition of Ontario Tech for the 2019–20 season, OUA moved to three six-team divisions. Canada West had two divisions, but reverted to a one conference format for the 2016–17 season with 17 teams. The AUS conference has eight teams while the RSEQ conference has five.
The U Sports men's and women's basketball teams are organized in the following way:
Football
27 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019 U Sports football season
The 2019 U Sports football season began on August 23, 2019 with the Concordia Stingers hosting the Montreal Carabins in Montreal, Quebec. The Atlantic University Sport conference started play the following day and the Ontario University Athletics ...
. As of the 2017–18 academic year, the two U Sports members in Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional cou ...
compete in separate leagues in football only. Bishop's football moved from RSEQ to AUS, and Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional cou ...
remains in RSEQ football.
Men's ice hockey
35 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019–20 Men's Ice Hockey season.
Women's ice hockey
34 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019–20 Women's Ice Hockey season. The Bishop's Gaiters will join the RSEQ and start play in 2020–21 and the Trinity Western Spartans
The Trinity Western Spartans are the athletic teams that represent Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. The university's teams are members of U Sports, and compete in the Canada West Universities Athletics Association, and w ...
and MacEwan Griffins will join Canada West.
Men's soccer
48 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019 Men's soccer season.
Women's soccer
53 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019 Women's soccer season.
Men's volleyball
30 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019–20 Men's volleyball season. After Memorial disbanded their team following the 2016–17 season, two teams competed in the AUS with three competing in the RSEQ, before Dalhousie and UNB moved to the RSEQ with the AUS dropping men's volleyball as a varsity sport.
Women's volleyball
39 of the 56 member schools participated in the 2019–20 Women's volleyball season. Six teams compete in the AUS and six in the RSEQ. Another 14 compete in the OUA, split between an East and a West division, and the Canada West conference has 13 women's volleyball teams.
See also
* National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athlete, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic sports, ...
(NCAA), the American equivalent of U Sports.
* List of colleges in Canada
This is a list of colleges in Canada. Colleges are distinct from universities in Canada as they are typically not degree-granting institutions, though some may be enabled by provincial legislation to grant degrees using joint programs with univer ...
* List of universities in Canada
* Athletics Canada
* Canada Basketball
* College basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
* Canadian Soccer Association
* College soccer
College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and Philippines, the Philippines. Th ...
* Football Canada
Football Canada is the governing body for amateur gridiron football in Canada headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Football Canada focuses primarily its own Canadian form of the sport, and is currently the world's only national governing body for ...
* College football
* Hockey Canada
Hockey Canada (which merged with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association in 1994) is the national governing body of ice hockey and ice sledge hockey in Canada. It is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation and controls the majority ...
* College hockey
College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America.
In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...
* Royal Canadian Golf Association
* Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association
* International University Sports Federation
The Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU, en, International University Sports Federation) is responsible for the organization and governance of worldwide sports competitions for student-athletes between the ages of 17 and 25. ...
* Universiade
The Universiade is an international multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation (FISU). The name is a portmanteau of the words "University" and " Olympiad".
The Universiade is referr ...
Notes and references
*
External links
*
{{U Sports volleyball
1906 establishments in Canada
College and university associations and consortia in Canada
Sports governing bodies in Canada
College sports governing bodies in Canada
Sports organizations established in 1906
Student sports governing bodies