CFC ‘top 25’ high school poll continues to get national attention

CFCs ‘top 25’ high school poll has swept across Canada being cited in newspapers from windsor, ontario, abbotsford, BC, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Ontario, slam sports and this exert from a newspaper in saskatoon.

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FROM STORY
“High school football goes to the polls

New website covers high school football on a national level

By Taylor Lambert, The StarPhoenix October 7, 2010”

Hockey and lacrosse may be our official national pastimes, but football is close behind. While the CFL and Canadian Interuniversity Sport provide a national home for the game at the professional and university level, there’s plenty of work to be done to unite players, coaches and fans of high school gridiron.

That’s the void that a new website hopes to fill with forums and coverage of Canadian high school football, but especially with rankings of the top 25 teams in the country.
“I thought a high school ranking would get people talking,” says Lee Barette, the man behind CanadaFootballChat.com. “And it has.”

The site, launched in February, offers a centralized place for football-minded Canadians to head to for discussion and information, something that was lacking at the high school level.
“People are in their silos, so to speak,” says Barette. “People have no idea what’s going on in other places.”

The most recent rankings, posted Monday, have Aden Bowman in second place, down from the top spot the week before. Curé-Antoine-Labelle secondary school in Laval, Que., jumped ahead of the Bears to claim the top spot.

The Holy Cross Crusaders also made the top 25, moving from 17th to 14th in the rankings this week.

While the head coach of the Bowman Bears is aware of the rankings, he is not exactly watching them closely.

“I think anything they do to promote high school sport and high school football is good,” says Mark Andrews. “But I don’t put a lot of stock in numbers or rankings like that.”
Andrews points out the majority of the ranked teams don’t play against each other and the leagues they play in across the country can vary widely in terms of competition.
“How can you rank them against each other?”

Barette, a former financial planner who coached at Ottawa University and Acadia, and played at Acadia, compiles the rankings himself based on information from football coaches and scouts across the country. He says the rankings are “subjective” and are designed more to promote a dialogue.
That is something coach Andrews can get behind.
“If that’s his reason, I think it’s wonderful,” says Andrews. “Anything we could do to get people interested in high school football is a positive.”

None of Andrews’s players have mentioned the site to him and he is not aware if any have seen it. But he worries about the potential for a team losing focus by watching its place in the rankings.

“As a coach, we’re always trying to keep our players grounded,” he says. “As an educator, I’ll always guard my players against that.”

Barette, who is based in Toronto, says he has turned the website into a full-time job.
“Hopefully it will start paying the bills soon,” he says with a laugh.
While the prominence of the site is growing, Barette cautions against seeing more in the national rankings than a simple starting point for debate.

“I’m not a guy who cares about rankings,” he says. “And yes, I see the irony.”
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