Comments for Capital Region Football Blog

Comment on The Laval model for dummies by steve desio

steve desio — Mon, 14 May 2012 02:27:54 +0000

Laval has filled the helped to fill the void for Francophone Football Players in and near Quebec.
It may be time to take the next step and use their corporate model and business sponsors to the next level. With the Province of Quebec football players making up 20% of the non import rosters in the CFL a team in Quebec city would be tremendously popular and financially profitable. While giving more players from Quebec a chance to fulfill their dreams of playing pro football.
The fear is that it would take away from the popularity of the University program but instead it may make the program even more popular.
In using the synergy model of Jeff Hunt in Ottawa and the Calgary Flames in taking majority ownership of the Stampeders they will be able to promote the University and pro team together the same as the others.
By using the same corporate sponsors as they do at Laval they would be able to control football in Quebec City and make sure that their is a partnership formed between the two instead of a rivalry for support.
With Montreal the only pro team in the province it plays on an the Anglo Campus of McGill. The owner of Montreal is said to control all rights to CFL football in the province but with the potential revenue that will be generated from three games a year between the two provincial rivals it would be hard for him to say no to a partnership of sorts that would expand the cahnces of placing more Francophone players from Quebec to play in the CFL.
The strength of this rivalry would be able to change the whole dynamic of the pay scale and profit of all CFL franchises. With RDS now being able to televise two pro football franchises in Quebec you can bet the TV ratings would skyrocket and record breaking audiences would be tuning in to RDS to see the games between the two.
Also the Alouettes would for sure need to move their home games vs the Quebec City Franchise to Olympic where a sellout of 60,000 will almost be assured for all games.
CIS football season opens on Labor Day weekend. Imagine a weekend double header in Quebec City every Labor Day weekend with a Laval Univesite vs. Montreal Universite CIS and a Montreal vs. Quebec City double header in Quebec city that weekend. The revenue for the city would be astronomical.
With the business sponsors for Laval now having the rights for the CFL franchise also the profit generated would be unthinkable. Both games shown on RDS for the nearly 8 million people of quebec both sets of tickets would be in extremely high demand.
The CFL game could be followed as part of a Friday night football double header at Olympic stadium in Montreal followed by the traditional Edmonton Calgary matchup. Laval could follow the CFL franchise to montreal with a sat afternoon game vs. Mcgill where a 25,000 seat sellout would most likely follow as the Corporation would be able to put a weekend package deal together for both games in Montreal. The friday night CFL game on RDS and TSN should bring monster national ratings. Followed by the Sat CIS game on RDS and TSN2 as Laval would have two traditional rivalry games to start the season with National TV coverage of both, perhaps TSN will be able to extend its deal with the NFL Network for these games as Laval will be the first CIS school to have National coverage of games in Canada and the US on back to back weeks.
EXCITING!

Comment on The Laval model for dummies by steve desio

steve desio — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:17:04 +0000

KUDOS! Laval university had saw a need for the football players in their francophone province of Quebec and has placed a model in place that will be the future of CIS Football. Since then two other Francophone Universities Sherbrooke and Montreal have started football programs and have also become CIS football top ten teams on a yearly basis. with this football in Quebec has taken off. Laval has a direct pipeline to the CEGEP pre university schools. With the addtion of Sherbrooke and Montreal has only made the sport more popular and there is enough talent to go around.
Carleton University out of the Ottawa-gatineau area will be using the laval model as well. McMaster has gone a similar route and have signed a contract with Nike to be their official supplier for all sports at the university.
Laval aleady has a TV deal with RDS and Sherbrooke and Montreal will be sure to follow.
With Nike now part of one McMaster you can be assured that they will want to have their Logo seen on National TV so look for McMaster to have a similar TV deal with one of the Canadian Networks.
you can be sure that other schools will follow suit with Laval and Mcmaster as CIS football will be making a change for the better for universities.

Comment on “Carleton Ravens’ football name new offensive line coach” by geegeesfan

geegeesfan — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:26:44 +0000

CFC has reported that Coulson was offered the interim HC job at Ottawa. He was offered less money than he currently makes as a HS teacher. I guess the negotiatiions did not please Coulson so he left the program.
Bellefeuille has been approached and said no. Jamie Baressi is said to be considering taking the iob–according to Le Droit. In the long run uOttawa has to pay their HC more , or they will continue to lose them to better paying programs.

Comment on “Raiders pick Ottawa’s Bilukidi in NFL draft” by CRFadmin

CRFadmin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:02:07 +0000

Thanks for that, I didn’t know. I also picked up on Twitter yesterday that he played with the Ottawa Colts.

If that’s the case, it may have been “only” one year, but it sounds like a pretty packed one.

Comment on “Raiders pick Ottawa’s Bilukidi in NFL draft” by Coach

Coach — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:41:35 +0000

Christo Bilukidi actually played a half-season of Sr.OVFL football with the Cumberland Panthers in 2008, as a slotback, before receiving a scholarship to go play in the US.

Comment on Gee-Gees field blueprint by geegeesfan

geegeesfan — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:05:04 +0000

“Asselin found it difficult to spend the proper amount of time coaching the Gee-Gees because his contract also made him responsible for program fundraising, alumni commitments, and other off-field duties”

I find this a little confusing. Last summer uOttawa hired Luigi Constanzo as a full time paid assistant coach. His job description clearly included program fundraising and alumni outreach, taking away the main responsibility for them from JP, (JP was previously aided in this regard by Rick Zmich who did it entirely on a volunteer basis). So what gives? It is Constanzo who is supposed to do these things.

Comment on U. of O. / Carleton media round-up by geegeesfan

geegeesfan — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:45:33 +0000

My condolences to your spouse.

there is a lot of precendence for severance arrangements. There is law too. I have a feeling that if you are not in direct competion with the former employer that is still paying you–under law, they can not stop you from other employment.

I left an employer who paid my salary every month for two years after I left them. There was a writtien agreement, which I ran by a lawyer,and was told there was nothing stopping me from double dipping–I could get another job if I wished.

Comment on U. of O. / Carleton media round-up by CRFadmin

CRFadmin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:28:15 +0000

Can I just whisper it in your ear? Lol…No, if I’m wrong I’ll look like a jackass. It’s a total shot in the dark so for now, I’ll keep it quiet. But believe me if I happen to be right, I’ll curse my reluctance to predict it ahead of time.

I’m not so sure how it works for former CFL coaches. I don’t know if you’re still entitled to your salary until you take ANY paying coaching job, or just another CFL-specific coaching job. I suppose that if you were still employed by a CFL club, you couldn’t also coach a CIS team, so my guess (and that’s all it is) is that taking on any other paying job voids the CFL team’s commitment to paying you.

I must say, I was telling my wife the other day that I had not yet picked up the football “bug” this year and was even wondering if it WOULD hit me. Usually by now I’m dying to go to a game and scrounging for any bit of news. Well, I’m into it now!

Comment on U. of O. / Carleton media round-up by geegeesfan

geegeesfan — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:55:36 +0000

Aw c’mon JF-you can tell me here who your favourite is . No one else will notice.

Actually, I am a bit conficted about JP’s move. I have spoken one on one with him only a handful of times in the past two years . I did get the impression he was struggling a bit, not really confident in the job, not really sure about what he should say.

While I see his reasons for leaving as i outlined above , I hate that after being with the Gee-Gees as a player and coach since he was about 19 –that it was Carleton he went to. It just has sent a bad message about uOttawa, to greater Ottawa, the football community .and potential Gee-Gee recruits. If he had gone home to Quebec City to work for the Laval R&O , that would have been easier to take.

Interesting .that MB is getting paid by the Cats for 2012. Is he allowed to take a paying job outside of pro football by the terms of his severance agreementt? In other words can he double dip for 2012?
If he could ,maybe a 2012 gee-gee salary would not look so bad.to him. However, after 2012 he would probably want a lot more.

As far as coaching the Ottawa CFL No-Names–well the amount of time the court cases are taking, who knows when we will see a team.
It might not hurt MB to coach the Gee-Gees for a couple of seasons. do a bang up job–build up a cadre MB fans in Ottawa–get to know the OSEG guys—-and use all this land a job with them when the time comes–an intriguing idea anyway.

Comment on U. of O. / Carleton media round-up by CRFadmin

CRFadmin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:21:32 +0000

Well, that’s just it. I’ve seen comments about his lack of loyalty, how he screwed the school over, etc. And it’s easy for that to be the initial reaction.

But you look into it a little deeper and it’s hard to blame him. I’d like to see how many of the people accusing him of this would refuse a similar offer in their own line of work. The fact that this is sports-based makes no difference to me.

About Bellefeuille, someone pointed out to me that he’s still getting paid by the Ti-Cats for 2012 so even if the opportunity to join now were available, he likely wouldn’t want it. I doubt that CFL clubs are beating down his door anyway, but there’s a rumour that one day, WE’RE supposed to get one of those things and he’d no doubt want to see if he can land that gig.

I do admit that I’m a little concerned about U. of O. thinking that it’s worked this long, surely it’ll keep working and they just keep on keeping on. We’ll see. I have a favourite in mind for the interim job but I don’t want to say anything about it until the choice is made.