MONDAY,NOVEMBER25,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O REPORTONBUSINESS | B15
Fifth-year quarterback Adam Si-
nagra led the Calgary Dinos to a
27-13 win over the Montreal Cara-
bins for the Vanier Cup on Sat-
urday.
Sinagra, a native of Chateau-
guay, Que., completed 22-of-28
passes for 292 yards and two
touchdowns in his final U Sports
game to help Calgary win its first
Canadian university football
championship in 24 years.
It was the fifth Vanier Cup win
in Dinos history. They had last
won in 1995, when they beat the
Western Mustangs in Toronto.
“To win this in my home prov-
ince, to end my career as a cham-
pion, and I’ve never won any-
thing before, at any level, wow,”
said Sinagra, the game’s MVP.
Calgary took a 20-10 lead early
in the fourth quarter Saturday
when Hunter Karl caught a nine-
yard pass from Sinagra, complet-
ing a 10-play, 87-yard drive.
The Dinos added a late TD in
the final minute of the game on a
Robinson Rodrigues one-yard
run.
“What a sweet win,” said Cal-
gary’s head coach Wayne Harris.
“Those veteran players showed a
lot of leadership today and all
season long. And Adam [Sina-
gra] played one heck of a game. ”
Calgary opened the scoring
with a pair of field goals from Ni-
ko DiFonte – from 22 and 38 yards- to take a 6-0 lead in the second
quarter.
The Carabins briefly pulled
ahead, scoring the game’s first
touchdown on a one-yard run
from Reda Maki late in the sec-
ond quarter. The score was
helped by a faked field goal dur-
ing the drive.
The Dinos responded quickly
with a touchdown of their own
when Sinagra connected with Ja-
len Philpot in the end zone on a
13-yard pass, giving Calgary a 13-7
lead at half time.
Karl extended Calgary’s lead to
20-7 with his TD in the fourth, af-ter Montreal’s Louis-Philippe Si-
moneau kicked a 27-yard field
goal in the third quarter. Simo-
neau added a 16-yard field goal in
the fourth to cut the Carabins’
deficit to 20-13.
The Dinos suffered a serious
blow on defence when lineback-
er Charlie Moore was injured on
the second offensive play of the
game. Moore went down after he
tackled running back Ryth-Jean
Giraud. Moore got back up after a
few minutes, but did not return-
ed to the game.
Later, it was the Carabins’ de-
fence that was hit hard, when li-
nebacker Jean-Philippe Levesque
and defensive back Marc-Antoine
Dequoy exited the game with in-
juries.
“No matter the injuries, the
best team won today,” said Mon-
treal head coach Danny Maciocia
after the game.
Maciocia now has a record of
1-2 in Vanier Cup finals.
It was the first ever game be-
tween the Dinos and the Cara-
bins.
The game was played in front
of 8,376 fans at Telus Stadium, on
the campus of Laval University.
Calgary last appearance in a
Vanier Cup before Saturday was
in 2016, when it lost to Laval at
Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton.THE CANADIAN PRESSDepartingSinagraleadsDinostoVanierCupvictory
CalgaryDinosplayer
J-MinPelleyraisesthe
trophywithteammates
afterwinningtheVanier
Cup27-13againstthe
MontrealCarabinsin
QuebecCityonSaturday.
JACQUESBOISSINOT/
THECANADIANPRESSLUCLANGQUEBEC
M
eredith Goldhawk has
loved hockey since she
was four.
But she says since a coach at
the University of Windsor ha-
rassed and bullied her, she can’t
even bring herself to play a pick-
up game with friends.
“Some days I will just sit down
and cry because she took so
much away from me,” the 22-
year-old says.
The athlete is among several
across Canada who say universi-
ties are failing to protect players
from abuse. Students in Ontario,
Alberta and British Columbia all
say their schools mishandled se-
rious complaints against coaches
in recent years.
Their fight is part of a move-
ment to end so-called “old-
school” coaching techniques that
experts say are abusive. But
change is slow, they say, because
coaches hold so much power over
players and some mistakenly be-
lieve military-style training is key
to winning.
Six hockey players, including
Goldhawk, complained to the
University of Windsor about
coach Deanna Iwanicka in Febru-
ary. The athletes allege she hu-
miliated them in front of others,
belittled them with expletive-la-
den insults and kicked out some
without cause.
The university hired an inves-
tigator, but refused to provide the
final report to complainants, in-
stead sending a four-page sum-
mary that didn’t address all the
allegations, say Goldhawk and
fellow complainant Reagan Kauf-
man.
The summary says the investi-
gator found the allegations were
unsubstantiated. For the most
part, Iwanicka was “direct, clear
and professional,” although it
was “inappropriate and disre-
spectful” to tell Goldhawk and
Kaufman they were being cut by
phone, it says.
“It’s definitely not right,” Kauf-
man says. “If they had been there
for everything we went through,
she definitely wouldn’t still be
coaching.”
The school says it can’t com-
ment on personnel matters and
Iwanicka, who is still head coach
of the women’s team, didn’t re-
spond to calls and e-mails re-
questing comment.
Margery Holman, a retired ki-
nesiology professor who helped
the University of Windsor players
file their complaints, says post-
secondary institutions lack cour-
age.
“Often it’s a ‘he said, she said’
and we lean in the direction of
the person in power because they
have more at stake,” she says.
“We’re not going to fire a coach,
no matter the preponderance of
evidence, if we can’t prove it.”
She adds coaches have unique
power over athletes’ futures, de-
termining whether a player is a
starter or a bench warmer and in-
fluencing scholarships and other
opportunities.
At the University of Leth-
bridge, an investigator found in
July, 2018, that women’s hockey
coach Michelle Janus had violat-
ed its harassment policy. The
school required her to undergo
counselling and additional train-
ing and it also started developing
a coaches’ code of conduct.
But the six players who had fil-
ed complaints had called for Ja-
nus to be fired or suspended. In
August, 2018, four of the complai-
nants launched a lawsuit against
the university, Janus and athletics
director Ken McInnes seeking
more than $1-million in damages.
The lawsuit alleges Janus bul-
lied players, insulted them as “pa-
thetic” and “useless” while using
expletives, threw water bottles,
broke equipment, punched doors
and participated in a “fine jar”
that charged fees to players for
their sexual history or personal
lives.
It also accuses Janus and
McInnes of requiring players to
vote on whether to allow a team-
mate who had attempted suicide
to return to the team.
None of the allegations have
been proved in court. The univer-
sity, Janus and McInnes deny all
the allegations in a joint state-
ment of defence and say the law-
suit should be struck as it is “scan-
dalous, frivolous and vexatious.”
Janus left her position at the
university in January.
Complainants Alannah Jen-
sen, Brittney Sawyer and Chelsea
Kasprick all say they’re still suf-
fering psychological and emo-
tional effects. Kasprick alleges Ja-
nus forced her to play five weeks
after shoulder surgery, potential-ly causing permanent damage.
“I put so much on the line for
this coach who had all the power
and control, and abused me and
secluded me and isolated me
from all my teammates,” Kas-
prick says.
Janus, the university and a law-
yer representing the defendants
declined to comment as the mat-
ter is before the court. McInnes
did not reply to a request for com-
ment.
Last week, the University of
Victoria wrapped an appeal proc-
ess after three athletes and an as-
sistant coach filed complaints ac-
cusing women’s rowing coach
Barney Williams of verbal abuse
and harassment.
The three rowers say the uni-
versity threatened them with dis-
ciplinary action if they speak
about the results of the investiga-
tion.
Lily Copeland is one of the
complainants, and has alleged
Williams criticized her weight
and appearance and yelled at her
in a small, locked room.
Williams has said he respects
the confidentiality of the univer-
sity probe and couldn’t provide a
detailed response until it wrap-
ped up. He didn’t respond to re-
quests for comment after the in-
vestigation concluded.
He says he regards coaching as
a privilege, and he encourages
athletes to become their best ver-
sion of themselves. Other ath-
letes on the team credit Williams
with their success.
The university has said privacy
legislation and its own confiden-
tiality policies apply to all investi-
gations.
Jennifer Walinga, a Royal
Roads University professor and
Commonwealth Games gold
medallist in rowing, says her re-
search has shown that humiliat-ing or neglecting athletes typical-
ly leads to worse performances.
“You can still win and be bro-
ken,” she notes. “But you can
achieve greater heights, win more
gold medals and for longer peri-
ods of time with a values-based
approach to coaching.”
That approach includes sup-
porting athletes’ mental health as
well as their physical health, Wal-
inga explains.
But she says the coaching style
that is similar to combat training,
involving hurling insults and
swearing at athletes, still exists
because our society tends to glo-
rify people who can endure
abuse.
“In society, it’s a naïveté or an
ignorance about what sport ac-
tually involves,” she says. “Sport
is not war. It’s not a battle at all.”
There is a growing campaign to
rid Canadian sports of abuse and
harassment.
More than 700 national-team
athletes responded to a survey by
the group AthletesCan about
mistreatment. Seventeen per
cent reported psychological inju-
ries, 15 per cent experienced ne-
glect and 4 per cent suffered sex-
ual harm.
The federalgovernment has
brought in a series of initiatives,
including establishing new policy
for national sports organizations,
funding the Sport Dispute Reso-
lution Centre to create an investi-
gation unit and setting up a toll-
free confidential tip line.
It’s crucial to encourage young
people to remain enrolled in
sports, says Carolyn Trono, a di-
rector with the non-profit group
Sport for Life Society.
“If the place that you are going
to voluntarily isn’t positive, why
would you stay?”THECANADIANPRESSSeekinganendto‘old-school’coachingtactics
StudentsinOntario,
AlbertaandB.C.say
universitiesmishandled
seriouscomplaints
againstvariousteam
leadersinrecentyears
LAURAKANEVANCOUVER
MeredithGoldhawk,22,
aformerUniversityof
Windsorhockeyplayer
seenin2018,sayssheis
unabletobringherselfto
evenplayapick-upgame
ofwithfriendsafter
enduringharassmentand
bullyingfromacoachat
theschool.‘Somedays
Iwilljustsitdownand
crybecauseshetook
somuchawayfromme,’
Goldhawksays.
MEREDITHGOLDHAWK/
THECANADIANPRESSInsociety,
it’sanaïvetéor
anignorance
aboutwhatsport
actuallyinvolves.
Sportisnotwar.
It’snotabattleatall.JENNIFERWALINGA
ROYALROADSUNIVERSITY
PROFESSOR,
COMMONWEALTHGAMES
GOLD MEDALLIST IN
ROWING