Is Laval's dominance bad for the CIS game?

The Laval Rouge et Or made some history today with an ugly 29-2 beatdown of the Calgary Dinos before a crowd of 16,223 in the snow at Stade PEPS. With the win, the Rouge et Or claimed their sixth Vanier Cup (which team president Jacques Tanguay is pictured raising at right with co-captains Pascal Baillargeon, centre, and Mathieu Picard, left), tying Western's record of six university football championships (some of Western's came during the period when the Vanier was still known as the Canadian College Bowl). Incredibly, Laval's football program only started in 1995, but they won their first Vanier in 1999 under current B.C. Lions' offensive coordinator Jacques Chapdelaine and have gone on to win five more under current coach Glen Constantin (who earned his second CIS coach of the year nod earlier this week). By any metric you care to use, they've established an incredible dynasty.

The question is if that's a good thing for CIS football, though. For one thing, one-sided blowouts like today's game can't be good for the TV ratings. That's hardly Laval's fault, as they turned in an incredible game (and were very restrained in the second half, only adding one field goal). The Dinos had played well all season and there were indications the conditions might even favour them Saturday, suggesting things might be close. If Laval played perhaps their best game of the year, though, Calgary certainly played their worst; their high-powered offence only gained two points, which came off a Laval safety. Still, Laval's strength means they often are involved in a lot of lopsided games. There's nothing wrong with a dynasty per se, but one with this much longevity does make the rest of CIS pale somewhat by comparison and causes some denigration of the university game by casual observers. The Montreal Alouettes face some of the same criticisms thanks to perennially being in the Grey Cup, but they've only won it twice since 1999; Laval has six Vaniers in that time. Parity is helpful for a league's success, and at the moment, the CFL has much more of that at the top than CIS does.

What's more concerning, though, is the way the Laval program interacts with outsiders. There have been rumblings coming out of Quebec all week about the Rouge et Or's efforts to dodge the English-language media that did make it to the game (see this tweet from The Calgary Herald's Allen Cameron for one example). I'm not saying that teams need to go out of their way to be friendly with the media, but Laval's efforts in the other direction certainly don't help the profile of the CIS game. It's quite amateur of them, which is unusual for a program that does so many other things professionally.

The Rouge et Or also appear to wield a disturbing amount of influence. They've managed to host the Vanier two years in a row despite never delivering the promised stadium improvements (including lights, which would have allowed a more reasonable kickoff time for this game than 11:30 a.m. Eastern)*.

*Clarification, Nov. 28: Yahoo!'s Neate Sager informs me lights weren't installed thanks to a dispute between the university and the provincial power authority, as well as the construction of an indoor soccer facility behind the stadium. So that's not all Laval's fault, but it's still disappointing.

Laval's influence seems to extend beyond CIS circles as well; at CFL commissioner Mark Cohon's state of the league address Friday, he cited the presence of the Rouge et Or as one of the key reasons the league isn't looking at expansion to Quebec City. Laval fans are great, and it's terrific to see the kind of presence they've developed in that town, but should a CIS team really have much say over what the CFL does? The CFL and CIS teams seem to get along just fine in Calgary, Winnipeg, Regina and Montreal; it's disappointing that Laval has apparently vetoed any idea of a similar relationship.

Laval does a lot of things right, and they deserve full credit for that. They've developed a strong relationship with their local business community, built a tremendous fan base almost from scratch, became a key presence on the local sporting scene, secured the funding they needed for a solid stadium and have used their wealth to put a tremendous coaching staff in place. There are a lot of CIS athletic departments that could learn from their example, and it might be good for university football if more schools followed Laval's model and really invested in athletics.

However, there are things Laval could learn from other schools too, such as working with the CFL and promoting the CIS game. There's nothing necessarily wrong with playing the heel, as even heels can draw interest (look at how much more attention the Miami Heat have in their current League of Evil iteration), but heels have to fall sometimes too. Laval has done that at times, notably in last year's semifinal against Queen's, but this year shows they're still at the top of CIS football. Given some of their actions, that has to be at least a bit concerning for those who'd like to see the university game grow.

Drea de Matteo Trista Rehn Moon Bloodgood Kristin Kreuk Molly Sims