Canada West Universities Athletic Association

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]

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.)

The media has reported 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 approved a bid from Grant MacEwan University (Now rebranded as MacEwan University) in 2013.[9]

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. In May 2013 MacEwan (Formally Grant MacEwan) approved as a 17th Canada West member starting in the 2013-2014 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, golf, outdoor track and field and softball) compete in the NAIA.

• Official website