NCAA & CIS Archive

1

UBC star and FC Edmonton trialist Dosanjh nominated for major CIS honour

Gagandeep Dosanjh

Gagandeep Dosanjh

Gagandeep Dosanjh’s future as an FC Edmonton player is still uncertain. But the University of British Columbia’s dynamic attacking midfielder has been nominated for the CIS athlete of the year award.

On Wednesday, the CIS announced that Dosanjh is one of four nominees for the Doug Mitchell Trophy, which goes to top overall male athlete in CIS. He’s up against St. Mary’s hockey standout Lucas Bloodoff, Concordia wrestler David Tremblay and Kyle Quinlan, the McMaster quarterback who already won the Hec Creighton as the top university football player in the country.

Dosanjh led the Canada West conference in goals, with 12. He scored the winner over the University of Alberta in the Canada West championship game, then led the Thunderbirds to the national title, where he was named the MVP of the CIS finals.

Dosanjh was invited to FC Edmonton’s training camp and, according to head coach Colin Miller, was crafty and creative in the time he spent with the club in the preseason. But, Dosanjh is committed to finishing his schooling, so the team said a decision will be made later in the spring on whether or not the UBC standout will become an Eddie or not.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
0

Cox scores, then gets sent off as 10-man FCE settles for 1-1 draw with UBC

Michael Cox

Michael Cox

Michael Cox scored, then got sent off — and FC Edmonton had to weather more than 60 minutes of soccer with just 10 men on the pitch.

With less than 15 minutes left to go in the match, Paul Clerc scored off a corner kick, allowing the University of British Columbia to come away with a 1-1 draw with the Eddies, as FCE continues its week-long training-camp series of matches in Vancouver.

Cox scored 10 minutes into the match, putting in his own rebound to give the Eddies the lead over the CIS champs, who had FCE trialist Gagandeep Dosanjh back in the T-Birds’ jersey for the match. (Dosanjh, who played a preseason game for the Eddies earlier this week, will return to the FCE fold Saturday and remain with the club for the weekend, then head back to school. The Eddies will decide whether or not to sign Dosanjh later this spring).

But Cox didn’t last much longer. He was sent off in the 26th minute, a straight red after his foot made contact with a UBC defender in the T-Birds’ penalty area. Read the rest of this entry »

Share
0

Bring on the longshots: How the Canadian teams did at the Supplemental Draft

Hakan Ilhan, selected by the Impact

In the case of the majority of the players picked in Tuesday’s MLS Supplemental Draft, this may be the only time you’ll hear their names in conjunction with the clubs that picked them.

Some will come on trial, some will never sign. Some will go to NASL or USL. Many you’ll never hear of again. And, maybe, just maybe, one or two will stick it out and make it into an MLS match.

The Supplemental Draft is all about finding diamonds in the rough, gambling on prospects whose stock dropped during the combine or have been battling injuries.

But all three Canadian teams were active, stockpiling prospects — including Jamaican Ashton Bennett, who also carries Canadian residency. He will get the chance to try his luck at Toronto FC.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
1

USL updates list of Canadian invited to this week’s combine

Jonathan Viscosi

After some players dropped out and replacements were added, the USL has provided a final list of Canadian players who will be attending the league’s combine.

In total, 13 Canadians will be there — and six of them are products of CIS soccer.

Three Toronto Lynx products — forwards Leigh Veidman, Macca Wilde and midfielder Andrew Derayeh, will all look to be bumped up from the PDL ranks to the USL.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
3

Seven CIS products will go to USL-Pro combine

Sasa Plavsic

Seven CIS products are being invited to the USL-Pro Combine.

McMaster University’s Andrew Pastoric, York’s Adrian Pena, UOIT’s Aldo Maiorano, Trinity Western’s Adrian Kekec, Concordia’s Peter Bow, University of the Fraser Valley’s Sasa Plavsic and Cape Breton’s Shayne Hollis will all be heading to Bradenton, Fla. to try and earn contracts in the third division of U.S. soccer.

The USL-Pro combine runs from Jan. 24-27.

“We are delighted with the quality of player that has applied for this year’s combine,” USL National Technical Director Peter Mellor said in a release. “For the second consecutive season we have had more than 400 applicants for the event, making the selection process a very difficult one, but we believe that a number of this year’s group has what it takes to play in USL PRO in the upcoming season.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
1

The 11′s Top 11 stories of 2012

Sports fans are natural-born stats junkies. And at The 11, we love to look at the analytics for this site, too — to continually check what stories are resonating with readers.

So we went under the website’s hood and looked at the numbers. And, we were able to rank our 11 most-read stories of the year. Now, we present them in reverse order.

Of course, as the authority on second-division soccer in Canada, we skewed very heavily to FC Edmonton and Ottawa NASL expansion stories, as these are the kind of items you won’t find anywhere else. There are other excellent sources for NASL news, but our uniquely Canadian perspective gives us a niche all to our own.

So, here are the Top 11 stories of the year:
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
4

The problem with the MLS Combine: Where are the Canadians?

Kyle Bekker

Major League Soccer has released the names of 54 players who will attend the Player Combine, which begins Jan. 11 in Fort Lauderdale.

Of the 54 players, only three were born in Canada. And of those three, only Kyle Bekker and Oregon State’s Emery Welshman retain their, well, Canadian-ness.

The other, University of Michigan defender Kofi Opare, was born in Niagara Falls, Ont. and won the Ontario Cup in 2008. He played his youth soccer in St. Catharines, Ont. But Opare was part of the U.S. U-20 program and is now part of the American soccer pool.

So, of 54 players at the combine, Bekker is the only one who has a realistic chance of ever suiting up for the Canadian men’s national team. Bekker, who was a star midfielder at Boston College, played for Canada’s U-23s in the 2012 Olympic qualifying tournament. He will get his chance to play in front of the brain trusts of the 19 MLS clubs in Fort Lauderdale.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
0

Trinity Western women ensure that B.C. gets sweep of CIS titles

Kristen Funk

The province of British Columbia can boast a clean sweep in CIS soccer.

Hours after UBC won the men’s title Sunday in Quebec City, Trinity Western University took the women’s crown in Victoria. The Spartans prevented Queen’s from claiming a third title in a row, winning the penalty shootout after 120 minutes of scoreless soccer in the wind and the rain.

The Spartans were perfect from the penalty spot. Gael Alexis McKinty saw her shot strike the bar when the teams were tied 2-2 in kicks. After TWU keeper Kristen Funk stopped the fourth Gaels attempt from the spot, Colleen Webber smashed home the shot that gave the Spartans an insurmountable 4-2 advantage — and no need for the fifth round of kicks.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
0

Dominant UBC powers its way to CIS men’s title

In Canadian men’s university soccer, there’s the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, and then there’s everyone else.

UBC claimed the men’s national championship Sunday at the University of Laval, with a 1-0 win over Cape Breton University in the final. Steve Johnson got the winning goal, but the scoreline on the final day doesn’t do justice to just how dominant the T-Birds were in 2012.

UBC played three games at nationals and outscored the opposition by an 8-0 total score. Four goals vs. the University of New Brunswick in the quarters, three against the host Laval side and Player of the Year Samuel Georget in the semis, and then the unspectacular-but-effective effort in the 1-0 win in the final.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share
1

Georget, Baggott named CIS Players of the Year

Samuel Georget

The legend of Samuel Georget continues to grow.

The French midfielder was named the CIS Men’s Player of the Year at the awards banquet in Quebec City Wednesday night. The Laval midfielder scored six times and added six assists in 12 games, but was also recognized for how he dominates the middle of the park, game in, game out.

Georget was named player of the match three times this season for Laval, which finished the RSEQ campaign with a 9-0-3 record. He was named a Canadian first-team all-star for the third time.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share