The junior ranks could be valuable to Canadian football, but different leagues must coexist

There's always been infighting in Canadian football, with the CFL's teams fighting amongst themselves and further internal feuds in the CIS and junior (CJFL) ranks, plus disputes between the different levels. Thus, it's not particularly surprising that Lowell Ullrich's profile of Vancouver Island Raiders' chairman Hadi Abassi earlier this month has ruffled some CIS feathers; Abassi, a well-known junior football figure, not only promoted his own circuit, but also took some pretty strong shots at the university game. Here's the key part of what he said:

As Jim Mullin has pointed out, many of Abassi's comments are empty rhetoric that's well off-base. The sheer idea that there's any pan-CIS way of recruiting kids is laughable, as each program's incredibly different, and CIS has been good for a lot of people. It's understandable why he's hot under the collar, though, as his team and junior football in general have taken a lot of flack from the university ranks over the years. The bigger question is if the adversarial back-and-forth is really best for advancing Canadian football as a whole.

From this corner, there's a simple answer; it isn't. The junior, CIS and CFL ranks are all part of the bigger picture, and they all have roles to play. Those roles could be made much more effective if so much time wasn't consumed with infighting. The calibre of junior football's on the rise thanks to people like Abassi and his rivals, and it's proven to be a solid path directly to the CFL for junior stars like Andrew Harris and Stu Foord. However, junior still serves as a pipeline to CIS for some players, and that's valuable too; junior can provide seasoning for some players who might not have made a university roster otherwise. Not all junior players need to stay there indefinitely, and junior teams don't need to necessarily need to be at war with CIS. Similarly, CIS could stand to treat junior football with more respect and admit that it's a better option for some players than the university game. Not everyone needs, wants or is able to go off to school to play football, and that's just fine.

The CFL's already recognized that both the CJFL and CIS are important parts of the player development system, and that's a good step. Even the top league gets into conflicts with CIS and the CJFL from time to time, though, and that's problematic. It's the classic analogy of growing the whole pie rather than quibbling on how to divide it. The state of Canadian football talent at the moment is terrific, and there are more than enough talented players for CIS and the CJFL. Meanwhile, the CFL can benefit from both leagues being strong; CIS is still likely to produce most of the CFL's Canadian players, but some like Harris will become CFL stars straight out of junior, while others will head to CIS first for more seasoning and then turn into capable CFL players. Both of the developmental leagues have much to gain from a strong professional league featuring their alumni, and the CFL could benefit dramatically from solid feeder leagues. It may be a stereotypically Canadian solution to advocate politeness and respect, but if all these leagues could get along consistently, our game as a whole would likely be considerably stronger.