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Canada West
Established	1972
Association	U Sports
Members	17
Sports fielded	12 men's: 9 women's: 11
Region	Western Canada
Former names	Western Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union, Western Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Association
Website	www.canadawest.org

Canada West is a regional membership association for universities in Western Canada which assists in co-ordinating competition between their university level athletic programs and providing contact information, schedules, results, and releases about those programs and events to the public and the media. This is similar to what would be called a college athletic conference in the United States. Canada West is one of four such bodies that are members of the country's governing body for university athletics, U Sports. The other three regional associations coordinating university-level sports in Canada are Ontario University Athletics (OUA), Atlantic University Sport (AUS), and the Quebec Student Sport Federation (known by its French initialism of RSEQ).

History

The Western Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (WCIAU - later renamed Western Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Association) was formed in 1919-20 as the first recognized western-based post-secondary athletic organization in Canada, with the University of Manitoba winning the first-ever league championship, a men's hockey title, in 1920.

In the spring of 1972, the WCIAA was split into the Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA) and the Great Plains Athletic Association (GPAA - later renamed the Great Plains Athletic Conference).

CWUAA consisted of schools spanning from Victoria to Saskatoon (Victoria, British Columbia, Calgary, Alberta, Lethbridge and Saskatchewan), while GPAA's member institutions stretched from Regina to Thunder Bay (Regina, Brandon, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Lakehead).^[1]

Membership changes

In 1985-86, Canada West offered playing privileges to men's hockey teams from the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) with other sports following over the years, culminating with the 2001-02 merger of basketball.

Since 1999, 11 additional schools have joined the Canada West's six charter members. Trinity Western joined in 1999-00 and, in 2000-01, all schools from the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) except for Brandon were provided full membership in Canada West (Manitoba, Regina and Winnipeg). Brandon joined as an associate member at the time, until full membership was granted in 2005.

Simon Fraser joined Canada West in 2000, followed by Thompson Rivers in 2005 and Fraser Valley in 2006.

Simon Fraser withdrew from the conference as a member after the 2009-10 season, while both Thompson Rivers and Fraser Valley were awarded full membership in 2010 and, at the same time, UBC Okanagan received probationary membership.^[2]

In 2011, Mount Royal University^[3] and the University of Northern British Columbia^[4] were voted in as probationary members and began active competing in 2012-13.

In 2013, UBC Okanagan was awarded full membership, while Mount Royal University and the University of Northern British Columbia were awarded full membership in 2014.

Full membership was granted to MacEwan University in the spring of 2015,^[5] after the Edmonton-based university fulfilled their probationary membership requirements and was accepted by Canada West membership as the conference's 17th member.

Member schools

Current members

Winnipeg

Alberta

Brandon

UBCO

Calgary

Lethbridge

MacEwan

Mount Royal

UNBC

Regina

Saskatchewan

UVic

Winnipeg schools:
Manitoba
Winnipeg

Locations of the Canada West member institutions

UBC

UFV

TRU

Locations of the Lower Mainland institutions

Former member

Facilities

Canadian athletic facilities are often listed by their "maximum capacity", which is often an estimate of their largest recorded crowd in the facility. These maximum capacities can and often do include standing room patrons and attendees seated on grass surrounding a playing field. Seated Capacity is the actual number of permanent seats, be they grandstands or permanently in use bleachers. This is why you will sometimes see larger capacities listed for these sites when searching for them on line. When capacity numbers have mismatched on source sites, unless the larger capacity could be confirmed as a seated capacity, the smaller capacity number has been listed here.

Please update with verified "seated capacities" only when the institutions release more accurate official seated capacities.

(Data mined from the U Sports homepage's member directory^[7] and WorldStadiums.com.^[8] The member directory numbers seem to be ballpark figures in some cases.)

Future expansion

The media has reported^{[example needed]} that the following institutions are building their athletic programs for potential admission into the association.

• Capilano University


• Vancouver Island University

In 2012 the conference declared they would not take applications from new schools, as Canada West rejected a bid from Grant MacEwan University.^[9]

Scholarships, UBC, Simon Fraser University, and the NAIA

In May 2005, UBC made a formal bid to join the NCAA, but decided in April 2011 to remain a part of Canada West Athletics. See the UBC article for more details.

Simon Fraser (known as the SFU Clan) did not compete in what is now known as U Sports until 2002, after a failed attempt to join the U.S. NCAA. On July 10, 2009 the NCAA accepted SFU's bid to join NCAA Division II in the 2011-2012 season. Canada West proceeded as a 13-team, 14 member conference for 2010-11, with the inclusion of UBC-Okanagan as a non-competing, probationary member for 2010-11, in time to begin competition (pending summer 2011 CIS approval) for the 2011-12 season. In May 2011 Mount Royal was awarded Canada West membership, effective Sept. 2011, with competition to begin in the 2012-13 season.

From its inception in 1965, Simon Fraser competed in the NAIA to allow "full ride" scholarships. Canadian schools did not allow any form of scholarships until the late 1980s. SFU was forced to leave the NAIA in many sports due to schools in the Northwest US shifting to the NCAA. Until 2009, the NCAA limited membership to schools based in the U.S. Some Simon Fraser teams still competed in the U.S. before the school moved to the NCAA, and their men's wrestling program competed in the then-CIS and the NAIA. UBC has several of its programs (baseball, cross country, golf, outdoor track and field and softball) compete in the NAIA.

Awards

References

External links

• Official website