Canada West Universities Athletic Association

The Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA) is a regional membership association for Canadian universities 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. The CWUAA, which covers Western Canada, is one of four such bodies that are members of the country's governing body for university athletics, Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS). The other three regional associations coordinating university-level sports in Canada are Ontario University Athletics (OUA), Atlantic University Sport (AUS), and the Quebec Student Sports Federation (QSSF).

History

The Canada West Universities Athletic Association was founded as the Western Intercollegiate Athletic Association (WIAA) in 1920, but regular competition between schools at the time were often unfeasible due to the high costs of travel and existing rivalries with American colleges.

In 1971, the WIAA was split into the Canada West Universities Athletic Association and the Great Plains Athletic Association, the latter consisting of schools primarily from Manitoba. In 1988, the GPAA (also known as the GPAC or Great Plains Athletic Conference) was absorbed into Canada West.

In 2005, Thompson Rivers University, based in Kamloops, BC began competition in the conference.

In 2006, the University College of the Fraser Valley, based in Abbotsford and Chilliwack, BC started competition in the conference. The school has since changed its name to the University of the Fraser Valley.

Member schools

Scholarships, UBC, Simon Fraser University, and the NAIA

In May 2005, UBC made a formal bid to join the NCAA. The NCAA has not yet made a decision on whether to admit UBC. See the UBC article for more details.

Simon Fraser (known as the SFU Clan) did not compete in CIAU/CIS 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. The status of the SFU programs in Canada West remain uncertain during the transition time.

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. The NCAA limits membership to schools based in the U.S.. Some Simon Fraser teams still compete in the U.S., and their men's wrestling program competes in both organizations.

UBC also has their men's baseball program compete in the NAIA.

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.