Canadian senior men's team kicks off training camp, UofT wins 5v5 women's flag provincial championship
East-West Bowl rosters announced
School's out, so textbooks are traded for training schedules.
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Up north 🍁
East-West Bowl rosters have been announced for this year’s prospect game featuring 2026 CFL Draft-eligible players. Over 100 U Sports football players and coaches will travel to the University of Waterloo to compete on May 10. Four schools are tied for having the most players (six) attending, including the host:
Waterloo Warriors
Montreal Carabins
Guelph Gryphons
Laurier Golden Hawks
The Toronto Varsity Blues women’s flag football team won their first 5v5 Ontario provincial championship in Peterborough, Ont., this week; the York Lions won in the Great Lakes division. UofT also won the OWIFA fall season championship in 2024. This week’s tournament was presented by Football Ontario in partnership with NFL Canada and the Detroit Lions. The Adult Flag Circuit Championship is on Saturday.
The Canadian senior men’s football team arrived at Western University to kick off training camp on Thursday. Camp will conclude on Tuesday before the team flies to Sardinia, Italy, to play the Italians in the team’s opening game of the IFAF World Championship on April 19. The Western Mustangs have the most current and former U Sports football players, with nine — no other team has more than four — on the national roster:
QB Chris Merchant
H-back Antonio Valvano
OL Philip Jeffs
LB Myles Manalo
LB Jean-Gabriel Poulin
LB Max Nixon
LB/DB Lourenz-Bowers-Kane
DB Hakeem Johnson
DB Daniel Valente Jr.
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Heading south ✈️
Bowling Green Falcons defensive lineman Ali Saad told me on Wednesday that he had a successful Detroit Lions local pro day on Tuesday. The Windsor, Ont., native said he was very happy with his performance and felt like he stood out from the rest of the prospects at his position. Saad also told me coaches were impressed by the way he moved as a 285-pound lineman who primarily played on the edge. Northwestern Oklahoma State Rangers DL Muftah Ageli, also from Canada’s Rose City, was competing at the Lions local day, too. Ageli transferred from the Windsor Lancers following the 2023 OUA season.
Arkansas Razorbacks tight end Rohan Jones has made an early impression at his new team’s spring camp. Head coach Sam Pittman told reporters in March how impressed he was with the “super athletic” and “very capable” offensive weapon from Montreal. Jones transferred to the SEC from the Montana State Bobcats following the FCS national championship loss to the North Dakota State Bison in January; he spent two years with the Maine Black Bears before then.
(Video: HawgSports/YouTube)
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Student shout-outs 📢
I got my start in multimedia storytelling and sports journalism at a student newspaper. It’s important for me to spread the love to those student journos finding new leads on campus fields across the country, just like I did a short time ago.
OUA
The Western Gazette (Western)
*My old stomping grounds!
The Cord (Laurier)
Imprint (Waterloo)
The Silhouette (McMaster)
The Varsity (Toronto)
Excalibur (York)
The Queen’s Journal (Queen’s)
The Fulcrum (Ottawa)
The Charlatan (Carleton)
Canada West
The Ubyssey (UBC)
The Gateway (Alberta)
The Gauntlet (Calgary)
The Sheaf (Saskatchewan)
The Manitoban (Manitoba)
RSEQ
Impact Campus (Laval)
*Covered Rouge et Or football in the Vanier Cup
Quartier Libre (Montreal)
Concordia
The McGill Tribune (McGill)
Le Collectif (Sherbrooke)
AUS
The Xaverian Weekly (StFX)
The Campus (Bishop’s)
The Athenaeum (Acadia)
The SMU Journal (Saint Mary’s)
More Canadian college football coverage
The media covers U Sports football at a level not seen since theScore’s former television program “University Rush” covered Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS, the former name for U Sports) football until the early 2010s.
The Motivated (AUS)
Correction (April 11, 2025, 9:50 a.m.): This newsletter was corrected to share that UofT won the 5v5 provincial tournament, but it wasn’t its second consecutive provincial title in the same tournament, as previously stated.