OFA Evaluation Camp results

By CRFadmin | Published February 24, 2010

The Ontario Football Alliance recently completed its series of evaluation camps and have compiled the results.  A couple of Ottawa area players have made their way onto the top 10.

Sam Sabourin has not been hard to find.  He played with the varsity Myers Riders last spring, then with the Jr Riders in the fall.  An article about him from yourstittsville.com was recently copied into this blog.

Tunch Akkaya, meanwhile, is a running back who played with Mother Teresa high school last year.  He also participates in track and field events.

Sabourin’s fellow Myers defender, DE Ettore Lattanzio, also had a strong performance, coming in just outside the  Top 10 with a score of 35.82.

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U. of O. Recruits

By CRFadmin | Published February 22, 2010

Canada Football Chat lists the following recruits for the Gee-Gees.

Renaud Labrecque – REC – (Cégep Levi-Lauzon)
Jamie Stavropoulos – OL – (Donald A Wilson HS)
Jack Morrison – OL – (Ottawa Junior Riders)
Rob Shaheen – OL – (St.Peter’s HS)
Dimitri Aramouni – LB – (Concordia Transfer)
Pierre Yves Lavergne – LB – (Cégep de l’Outaouais)
Marc-Andre Laurin – DT – (Sherbrooke Transfer)
Fabien Kalala – DE – (Ottawa Junior Riders)
Pier-Luc Tremblay – QB – (Cégep de l’Outaouais)
Maxime Hupe – FB – (Cégep de l’Outaouais)
Nick Lecour – LB – (St. Peter’s HS)
Alexis Patenaude – DT – (Ottawa Sooners)
Max Namgung – FB – (Frontenac SS)
Harry Short – REC – (Sir Wilfrid Laurier HS)
Shawn Barriault – LB – (Ajax Notre Dame)
Kasey Cuffy – DB – (Ajax Notre Dame)

Labrecque was mentioned here earlier, as has Lecour, but I’ll  dig up more information about the others throughout the day.

Concordia transfer Dimitri Aramouni stands out as I’ve been seeing his name for some time now.   He was with the 2004 Eastern Ontario Canada Cup  champion team and a Midget all-star the following year with the Canterbury Mustangs.   He led the OVFL Panthers in sacks in 2007 (with 11) and was named that team’s best linebacker, then joined the Sooners that fall and came in third in tackles for the junior club.

Pier-Luc Tremblay was a two-year starter for the Cegep de l’Outaouais Griffons.  Over those two seasons, he completed 231 of 460 pass attempts including 34 touchdowns.

Here’s a good story about Stravropoulos, providing details about his playing background.

Linebacker Pierre Yves Lavergne is credited with 16 solo tackles and 10 assists for the Griffons in 2009.

Marc-André Laurin played with the Cegep de l’Outaouais as well prior to going to Sherbrooke.

Fabien Kalala played with the Jr Riders in 2009, and is credited with 13 tackles and three sacks.  He was with the Sooners in 2007 and 2008.

While Maxime Hupe (Labelle) is listed as a fullback, he made the 2007 all-star team with the Griffons in 2007 as an offensive lineman.

Kasey Cuffy added two interceptions to go with his 27 tackles and 17 assists for the OVFL’s Pickering Dolphins last spring.

In addition to playing for Sir Wil, Harry Short has also played for the Cumberland Panthers varsity team and was named an all-star at the 2008 CanadaCup for team East Ontario (U17).

Posted in University | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Piché steps down as U of O football coach

By CRFadmin | Published February 10, 2010

Press release from the University of Ottawa:

Ottawa, February 10, 2010 – Denis Piché has decided to step down as the head coach of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees football team after eight seasons at the helm of the program.

The 43 year old from Montreal, Quebec made the announcement earlier today after a team practice.

Piché told his team and the University’s sport services department that family commitments and the desire to spend more quality time with his wife and two young girls was the reason for his departure.

“Leaving the program is gut-wrenching, said Piché. Football has been a big part of my life for 35 years but I found that trying to make this team a contender every season and having a family life was becoming impossible.”

Piché leaves the uOttawa head coaching position with a regular season record of 44-20 and 8 straight OUA play-off berths, including the 2006 Yates Cup title and a second appearance in the 2008 Yates Cup.

Piché won the 2006 Frank Tindall Trophy as the CIS Coach of the Year after guiding the Gee-Gees to a 7-1 regular season record and an appearance in the Mitchell Bowl.

Piché spent a total of fifteen years with the uOttawa football program first as player (1987-1990) then as an assistant coach (1997-2001).

Piché was named Gee-Gees head coach on January 15, 2002.

“Being named head coach of the Gee-Gees football team was a dream come true, said Piché. I had eight great years with uOttawa. I had an unbelievable time and the opportunity to work with so many fantastic people and devoted coaches. I will leave the Gee-Gees with tremendous memories.

I want to thank all the student-athletes that came here and made the commitment to the program, I’m never going to forget them.”

Luc Gélineau, University of Ottawa Director, Sports Services thanked Denis for his years of devoted services and immense contribution to the football program.

“Denis was an integral part of our football team’s success during the last fifteen seasons, especially during his tenure as head coach, Gélineau said. He was a tireless worker, great competitor and was truly passionate about making the Gee-Gees a top ranked team and perennial contender in the OUA and the CIS.

I would like to thank Denis for his years of service to uOttawa and the football program. I wish him all the luck in his future endeavours.”

Interesting.   Piché was sometimes critisized for the team’s lack of discipline (in terms of drawing penalties)  and a rather ordinary playoff record (6-8, by my count).  Nowwe get to find out if “don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” applies here.

Either way, I doubt anyone could question his desire and effort.  I also doubt we’ve heard the last of Denis Piché.

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New Link: CFLDB

By CRFadmin | Published February 9, 2010

I don’t normally make much of adding a link to the blog, but I found this one pretty impressive and think people should give it a look.

The Canadian Football League Database refers to itself as “a collection of Canadian Football League information, links, commentary and opinion”.   I came across it as a result of a detailed post entitled Foundation for a successful Ottawa Franchise.

There’s obviously been an awful lot of thought put into it and it’s a refreshing change from the “why go back to ottowa again??!!!!  theyve already proved they cant support a team!!!  put a team in halifax or quebecity instead!  Lol!!!!!!!!1″ types that you see on message boards or comment sections of sports sites.

If your a fan of the league as a whole rather than of Ottawa football specifically, I suspect that CFLDB will be to your liking.

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Opening Kick-Off, Feb 7th

By CRFadmin | Published February 7, 2010

I recently posted about Google News Archives, and how useful they are for locating past scores and historical data on local teams, even  as far back as the mid 1800’s.

I’ve used it a fair amount over the past two or three weeks to sort out the history of football locally from about 1881 to 1890 (and counting) which amounts to Ottawa College (now university, obviously) and the team that would become the Rough Riders.  Football was going through its formative years and reconstructing the whole thing is a little complicated, but it also quite interesting.  More on that later.

(As an aside, I feel less stupid about only putting it to heavy use of late in light of a recent article by Citizen columnist Kelly Egan about the archives.  Maybe they weren’t as commonly-known as I’d originally thought.  Or perhaps the Citizen articles were added only to it recently.  Whatever, I’m just grateful for their existence)

They have been extremely helpful as well in nailing down the beginnings of the Midget level locally.  This had been very challenging to this point, which is peculiar in light of the fact that it is fairly recent by comparison.  Locating information about the WW2 (professional) Trojans was actually easier.

This reminds me to give NCAFA credit for their fan-friendliness.  Last month, I mentioned that the stats for the last games of the regular season were not available.  It was not a criticism, simply a statement of explanation as to why I did not include them myself.  Nonetheless it was rectified only a few days later.

As a result, I have created a stats page for the 2009 champion Mustangs, then went back in time to include the 2004 results to their main page.  Every Mustangs score should now be recorded in one place.  The other teams will get similar treatment over the next couple of weeks.

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“Big step for Wildcats”

By CRFadmin | Published February 1, 2010

Jayme mentions this in a comment to an earlier post.  Hey, it’s quiet, so why not include it?  Besides, it impacts the Cumberland Panthers.

The (abbreviated) article is from Cornwall’s Standard-Freeholder and written by Todd Hambleton.

The Cornwall Wildcats have announced they’ve been awarded a franchise in the highly-scouted Ontario Varsity Football League, with play to begin this May.

“We’re excited, this is something huge for us,” said Rod Simpson, the Cornwall Minor Football Association club president. “Everything just fell into place.”

Simpson said the association has toyed with the idea of an OVFL team for a few years; in existence for six seasons, and with over 300 players in the spring league last year, the timing seemed right, to add what’s a football version of a junior A hockey team, for players 19-and-under.

/

Cornwall will be one of 28 teams in the OVFL, and squads include the Mississauga Warriors, Barrie Stallions, Brampton Bulldogs, Toronto Thunder, Metro Toronto Wildcats, Niagara Spears and London Falcons.

But Eastern Ontario is represented too, with Cornwall’s biggest rivals likely to be the Cumberland Panthers, Ottawa Myers Riders and Kingston Grenadiers.

The Wildcats varsity club will play an eight-game schedule, with home games on Saturday afternoons at Joe St. Denis Field at the Bob Turner centre. Travel isn’t onerous — Cornwall has games in its inaugural campaign at Cumberland and Kingston, and two more in the Toronto area.

/The Wildcats have a gameplan drawn up well in advance, with Cornwall native Wayne Blakely having been chosen the varsity team’s head coach. Blakely’s football resume includes five seasons as head of the Cumberland franchise; two years ago he returned home to Cornwall, and last spring began coaching with the Wildcats program in the fall at St. Joseph’s Secondary School.

Blakely’s coaching staff will be made up almost entirely of current or former university players and will include Luc Lacelle (offensive co-ordinator), Kirby Camplin (defensive co-ordinator), Al Primeau (special teams and QB’s), Chad Guay (running backs), Pat Coristine (wide receivers), Joe Bradshaw (defensive line), Pat Carson (linebackers) and Chris Sullivan (defensive backs).

“This is brand new for us, but we have to think big and we’re hoping to make the playoffs,” Simpson said.

“We have a lot of talent in this area, and our district is fairly large.”

Posted in Varsity | Tagged | 3 Comments

Team USA vs The World

By CRFadmin | Published January 30, 2010

While the game is televised on the NFL Network, in case there are people out there who want to keep track of the local content but do not have that network (hey, it could happen…), I plan on updating throughout the game.  Hit your refresh button to keep track of how the World Team as a whole, but Soonbum Cha,  Tyler Crapigna and Tyler Sawyer specifically, is doing.

The game starts at noon.

11:04:  For those who ARE able to watch, Sawyer will be wearing #52 , Cha will be #10 and Crapigna, though as a kicker he should be fairly easy to locate, will be #8.

11:53: Playbook is one of my favourite shows on the NFL Network.  It’s on now as I wait for the game to start, and no matter how much I like it, I will never get used to Brian Baldinger’s pinky finger.

12:05: Rich Eisen, Deion Sanders and Scott Kennedy, the latter of scout.com, will be doing commentary.  The World Team will receive the kickoff.

12:10: Five straight running plays by World to start the game.  3rd and five near midfield.

12:12:  The World team has two first downs on their first drive.  Eisen sounds surprised at this grand accomplishment.  Clown.

12:16:  Punt by the World team, but could not tell if Crapigna is handling those duties.  I don’t see a punter named on the roster so I assume so.

12:21:  It doesn’t appear as though either Sawyer or Cha are starting.  Team USA are now punting from their 45 (LOS).  3:30 left in the first quarter (12-minute quarters in this game).

12:29: The first quarter ends scoreless as a six-play drives stalls on the World 30 or so.  The first play of the second quarter will be a punt, indeed by Crapigna.

12:33: Crapigna forces the return man to scramble back despite a heavye rush.  He’s not hurting his stock early.

12:38: Three and out for Team USA.  Punt to the World, and World Team will start from midfield.  World is outgaining the USA team at the moment with both teams having two drives to this point.

12:40:  Forget it.  Roughing the kicker so Team USA retains.  Horseshit call, but what can you do?

12:45:  USA finding their groove.  First and goal from the World five.

12:50:  USA dropped for a loss on 3rd down.  Just spotted Cha on the field goal team.  28-yard FG attempt is…blocked!  World ball.

12:56: World QB tries to do too much and fumbles the ball on a 3rd and one scramble.  USA recovers.  USA ball on World 40 or so.

12:59:  Keeping with the world team theme, the NFL Network has sent Canadian Stacey Dales to work as a sideline reporter.

1:01:  Big sack on 3rd down forces USA to punt.  Touchback.

1:03: 16-yard run by the best Swedish running back I’ve ever seen. :-)   1:06 left in the half.

1:11:  46-yard punt by Crapigna, whiffed initial tackle by Cha, then great USA blocking sets the USA team on their own 48 with 32 seconds left.  Sawyer was also on the coverage team.

1:15:  Deep pass to the World one, then a power run into the endzone to make the game 6-0 USA.  Extra point good.  7-0.

1:17:  Halftime.

1:35:  Crapigna is about to kick off to start the second half.  I hope he gets the opportunity to kick off a few more times this afternoon.  Puts it on about the seven, and USA returns it to their own 28.

1:38: USA moving the ball on the ground, now past midfield.

1:42: USA goes deep left on 4th down from the World 31.  1st and goal from the five.  Five yard run on the next play to score.  Extra point good, 14-00 USA.

1:52: world drive stalls at the 50.  Eisen botches Crapigna’s name.  Punt to the five, returner tackled on the ten.  About 5:00 left in the third quarter.

1:56:  USA fumbles and Cha recovers!  Looked like no one on team USA thought they were getting the ball on play-action.  Strange play.  World ball on the USA 15.

1:58:  USA picks off World QB on 3rd and seven.  Blown opportunity.  Ironically, the pick was made by a player named Mike Hull.  :-/

2:03: World DB Mike Dubuisson drops what might have been a pick-six against the sideline.  It’ll be 3rd and 14 from the USA 35.

2:04: Sure enough, they convert.  Dubuisson is having a tough day as he blows the tackle on a short pass.  USA runs to the World 30 on the next play and the 3rd quarter dies out.

2:09: Dubuisson drops another easy interception.  Sorry, this guy is driving me nuts.  Good point by Kennedy; Dubuisson may be too big to play corner (Kennedy suggests linebacker) so this may be a coaching issue.  No idea if he normally plays corner up here, but almost every big USA offensive play has been at his expense.  USA now adds a field goal to make it 17-00.

2:13:  Stats shown a little earlier; 94 yards rushing, 17 yards passing for the World team.  Nice kickoff return now to put the ball on the World 39.

2:19:  World team nearing scoring range; 2nd and 4 on the USA 29.

2:24: 4th and seven, World going for it, 5:28 left to go.  Nice screen gets about 10.  Drive continues.

2:27:  Couple of good runs gets World to the USA eight.  Incomplete pass on first down, short run on second.  Incomplete pass on third down as well.

2:28:  Running attempt on 4th down fails, USA takes over on downs with about 2:35 left in the game.

2:35: Buck five left to go in the game with the USA leading 17-00.

2:40:  After the punt, Brandon Bridge at QB fumbles a second time today.  USA recovers on the World 35.  runs one play then takes a knee to bag it.  17-00 is your final.

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Opening Kick-Off, Jan 24th

By CRFadmin | Published January 24, 2010

This is a pretty dead time for amateur football but a recent discovery, which may be common knowledge to the rest of the world, has enabled me to remain busy making small changes to several parts of the site.

I never bothered to look too deeply into the archives section of Google News but it turns out that it provides access to newspaper articles dating as far back as the late 1800’s.   I feel like a dumbass, to be entirely honest.  What the hell else would “Google News Archives”  offer??  It just never really jumped out at me.

The archives are not as thorough as the Ottawa Public Library, of course.  The OPL offers local newspapers that are no longer in circulation.  On the other hand, it allows for easier access to old articles from out-of-town newspapers.  The Montreal Gazette in particular has been a great help.

As a result of this epiphany, I have been able to find several Sooners and Ravens scores that I was missing, and I know there are far more where that came from.   But more importantly, I have been able to add very obscure information to the “Other” page (my personal favourite on the site), the purpose of which is to record details about defunct programs at various levels.  For example…

  • The “cause of death” of the professional Ottawa Trojans  from the 40’s, as well as the scores I was missing.  In their last season, the Trojans won their league championship.  The next year, they disappeared.  What happened?  Now we know.
  • The addition of a short-lived team in the 1930’s called the Ottawa Rangers.
  • Some details about the Ottawa District Football League, the first league in which the Ottawa Sooners played.

I’m still chipping away at that page so bear with me if some of it is difficult to follow.  I also plan to use the Google archives  to flesh out the Midget and High School historical information.

Posted in General | 1 Comment

“Evraire invades coaching ranks”

By CRFadmin | Published January 24, 2010

Tim Baines of the Ottawa Sun covered the Invaders’ appointment of Ken Evraire as Head Coach yesterday.

Ken Evraire has been out of the Canadian Football League for more than 10 years.

But that didn’t dampen his love for the game, a passion that he’ll bring as coach of the new Ottawa Invaders semi-pro team, which will play in the Northern Football Conference. Evraire, a star receiver with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Saskatchewan Roughriders and Ottawa Rough Riders, couldn’t say no when he was approached by Invaders GM Sean Murphy.

“If you get a chance to get back to things you love to do, if you can juggle around life’s responsibilities, you’re a lucky man. And I’ve been quite lucky,” says Evraire, 44, who helped coach the Merivale High School football team last fall.

“I’ve always wanted to get connected back to the game. I’ve got a nine-month-old son Elijah, another child on the way. My wife Pamela has been fantastic about it. She knows I love football.”

Also supportive is Evraire’s workplace, Hill and Knowlton. The winner will be local football — and players looking for a place to play. The Ottawa Bootleggers enjoyed success years ago in the semi-pro ranks and the Ottawa Deacon Demons had some success before going under before last season.

“We’re looking at a lot of former university and junior players,” said Evraire. “We have an expectation of competing. We don’t want this to be Murder Inc. kind of thing, where the guys just hammer each other and it becomes a Longest Yard environment. We want to make sure the Ottawa Invaders are known as a classy team.

“The truth of the matter in a lot of football minds when they hear semi-pro is that it’s semi-good and it’s semi-bad. We don’t want to be known that way. This is going to be a group that’s passionate about the game.

“Football never leaves your blood, although sometimes it feels like it’s a little dormant. I want the guys to play and enjoy the game. But at the same time, the reason you put on the helmet and pads is to play for the people.”

Posted in Semi-Pro | Tagged | 2 Comments

Growing the Midgets

By CRFadmin | Published January 16, 2010

The NCAFA Midget level will be getting the bulk of the attention this weekend.

I had been waiting for the final week of the regular season to be included on the NCAFA stats page prior to copying them here.  However, the only team that has its full stats on display is the Nepean Redskins (and that appears to be due to not playing in the final week of the regular season).

Since the page was last updated on October 15th, I think we can assume that the final week will not be added any time soon, or at all.  Therefore, I have copied the Redskins stats and will do the same for the other teams, with a disclaimer that the totals are for seven games only.  Beats not having them recorded at all, and if I find that the final week’s numbers are added later, I’ll modify mine accordingly.

Speaking of the Redskins, I had previously created a page specific to the 2005 edition of that club due to their dominance at the time.  Reviewing some of the links on the Resources page, I noticed that I actually had access to NCAFA Midget stats and rosters from 2002 to 2007 through Statspack.

Being that the Statspack page hasn’t been updated in over two years, and many of its links are dead, I suspect it may not be around much longer.  So I’ll attempt to hoarde what I can.  I’m not out to steal from anyone, but I also don’t want that information to be lost.

What I hope to be able to do is collect the rosters of the Midget champions  during that time frame.   At the moment, the individual team pages pretty well only include past scores but before long, if everything goes well, they will either have the roster included under the results, or have a link leading to the roster on a separate page.

Lastly, as a general “shout out”, the successful return of the Canterbury Mustangs in 2008 only makes it harder to view Kanata Knights information while they are no longer a part of the midget level.  I don’t know the cause of that team’s termination however if there is a way by which I can assist in restoring it, get a hold of me.

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