By Joel Tichinoff, Sports Editor
Canada’s university football team par excellence, are not competing for the Vanier Cup in Quebec City.
Even in the hot, schoolwork-free days of August 2009, the Laval Rouge-et-Or’s second consecutive Vanier Cup was considered a fait-accompli. On Aug. 30, Laval hosted the Western Mustangs, Canada’s number two ranked team going into the regular season, in a pre-season exhibition game at the Stade PEPS in Quebec City. The Rouge-et-Or obliterated the Mustangs 27-0 before a home crowd of 9,000 (the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes average less than twice Laval’s average home-game attendance).
Starting quarterback and 2008 league MVP Benoit Groulx didn’t even play a full game for Laval, leaving second-stringer Cesar Hernandez-Sanchez to clean up with 152 passing yards and two touchdown passes in the second half. The last time the Mustangs and the Rouge-et-Or met had been the 2008 Vanier Cup, a game Laval carried 44-21 for their fifth national championship in five appearances, and fourth Vanier Cup in six years.
Long considered the crème-de-la-creme of CIS Football, the Mustangs have been the hallmark team of Canadian university football for nearly four decades; since the inaugural Vanier Cup game in 1965, Western has appeared in the finals a record 12 times with six wins dating back to 1971. In 2009, Laval stood poised to tie Western’s six championship titles in the team’s 14-year history. During the 2009 regular season, Laval would go on to post a 9-1 record, outscoring opponents 333-61 and averaging 42 points per game. In Quebec University Football League (QUFL) playoffs, Laval outscored opponents Concordia and Montreal by a combined score of 94-8 en route to their seventh-straight Dunsmore Cup.
To date the Laval Rouge-et-Or is the most successful football program in CIS history with a championship success rate of 39 per cent since 1995. By comparison, the New York Yankees have won championship titles in 28 per cent of 96 seasons, the Montreal Canadiens, 24 per cent in 100. So de rigueur was it in CIS circles that Laval was a pied-a-terre for the 2009 Vanier that for only the second time in the trophy’s history, the deciding game will be played outside of Ontario, the Stade PEPS sold out weeks in advance of the Vanier game.
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Although university football in Canada dates back to 1898, (North American Football grew out of a game played between Harvard and McGill in 1874, the first documented game of ‘football’ took place at Toronto’s University College in 1861), Laval’s Rouge-et-Or traces its history back to another storied Quebec sports team: the Quebec Nordiques.
The idea of a football team based at a francophone university had been shopped around the province in the early 1990s. For years football’s popularity had grown out of the province’s high school and CEGEP athletics programs, yet talented francophone players had few options when it came to continuing to play football at the university level. Only three Quebec universities supported football programs at the time – Concordia, Bishop’s and McGill – all three Anglophone schools competing in the Ontario-Quebec Intercollegiate Football Conference (O-QIFC). Located in a metropolitan area of 700,000 and with an alumni base of nearly 250,000, Quebec City’s Universite Laval was a natural choice for experimenting with a francophone university football program.
Despite the arguments in favour of football at Laval, support for the idea was far from universal. A football team is an expensive proposition (as Dalhousians are well aware) and with the national deficit tipping the $40 billion mark in 1991, a fresh round of funding cuts were on the way for Canada’s already cash-strapped universities. Laval itself had already cut it’s hockey program in order to free up funding for other sports programs. Since the 1980s, Laval sports teams have operated under-semi autonomous non-profit corporations supported in part by fundraising and sponsors from outside the Laval community. With the Nordiques franchise packing their bags for Denver, a consortium of local businessmen, Laval alumni and former Nordiques personnel managed to successfully assemble the necessary investment – much of it from the private-sector – and willpower to convince Laval, a school with no previous connection to football, no stadium and no extra money for sports, to enter a team in the O-QIFC. The call went out to French-speaking football players across La Belle Province; there wouldn’t be a stadium, or training facilities, or a full coaching staff, but they would be able to study in French and play in French for French-speaking fans.
In 1995, the Laval Rouge-et-Or played a season of exhibition games against O-QIFC opponents. Even with strong local support, many viewed the football program with scepticism, questioning if fans and sponsors could withstand the predicted years of winless seasons as the program built itself up from nothing. That first ‘exhibition’ season, Laval beat 1994 Dunsmore Cup finalists the McGill Redmen at home before 7,000 fans sitting on jerry-rigged bleachers. In 1996 the Rouge-et-Or not only won games, but also posted a win-percentage above .500. They have been above .500 in every season since.
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In 1998, Laval celebrated its first Vanier Cup (or Coupe Vanier as it has often been called since) in a 14-10 victory over Atlantic Canada’s perennial football powerhouse, the St. Mary’s Huskies at the SkyDome. Inspired by Laval’s success, the Universite de Montreal launched its Carabins football team in 2002, followed by the Universite de Sherbrooke Vert-et-Or in 2003. In 14 years, Laval has grown into the force majeure of Canadian university football; 27 Laval alumni currently play in the CFL and the Rouge-et-Or attract talent from across Quebec and the world including Africans, Europeans and South Americans.
Ironically, the Nov. 21 upset of Laval in the 2009 Mitchell Bowl by the Queen’s Gaels was hailed as a David-and-Goliath match-up. Money flowing into the Rouge-et-Or program from over 40 private sector sponsors combining with season-tickets sales of over 8,000 has created a team bearing more resemblance to an American (quasi-pro) NCAA football team when compared to the CIS participation-over-results model.
The R-et-O are reportedly supported by a more than $2 million operating budget compared to the average CIS football team’s $400,000 annual budget. When most CIS football players are preparing for final exams, the Rouge-et-Or are in Florida for spring training. Before each game Laval players are given DVDs tailored to their individual opponents on the field, and receive instruction from a full-time coaching staff of five. Most universities are lucky to have three coaches. Laval players are also aided academically by a supportive study hall and tutor program – presumably another advantage over a smaller-budget team. It is no surprise that as updated scores of the Laval-Queen’s game were announced at the Uteck Bowl, both Calgary and St. Mary’s fans alike cheered in unison for the under-dog Gaels.
For better or worse, Queen’s University and the University of Calgary squared off in Quebec City to decide CIS football supremacy. The Davide-turned-Goliath that is Laval will have to wait until next November for a shot at winning the Vanier at home. With new athletic scholarships meant to compete with those offered south of the border under CIS review, Simon Fraser’s defection to the NCAA and Carleton University edging toward reviving their football team under the controversial ‘Laval model,’ there are changes afoot in Canadian university sport. More likely than not, the Rouge-et-Or stand at the vanguard of the new era in the CIS.
With 11 Dunsmore Cup appearances in their 14-year history, it’s a safe bet that Laval will be back in the Final Four in 2010, leaving many in the CIS with a sense of déjà vu all over again and money will continue to grow as the eminence grise behind CIS athletic glory.
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