Why St. Mary's College got booted out of the Central Bowl

Throughout the current season, St. Mary's College head football coach Marty Smith has been focussing with laser precision on one goal.

Get to Esther Shiner Stadium in North York, Smith instructed his senior players.

And become the first team in OFSAA history to win four Central Bowls.

That, pure and simple, was the goal.

Every pass, every tackle, every kick on the practise field was executed with the Central Bowl in mind.

Little was said, if anything, about the Northern Bowl.

Every St. Mary's player knows that Central Bowl is where the winners go.

Northern Bowl?

Isn't it just for also-rans?

Who wants to play in the LoserBowl?

Surely not anyone from Sault Ste. Marie, a football powerhouse community whose teams have prevailed in four of the five Central Bowls played so far.

This past weekend, St. Mary's Knights proudly earned their ticket to the Central Bowl, beating North Bay's Widdifield Wildcats 35-14.

That meant the Knights were on their way to the 2005 Central Bowl game on November 26, with the Wildcats resigning themselves to the Northern Bowl to be played earlier the same day.

Or so everyone thought.

On Monday, as the new NOSSA champions basked in headlines like "Knights Central-Bowl Bound," Smith was hearing quite a different story from the Big Kahunas of the Ontario Federation of Secondary School Athletic Associations.

Well gosh darn, didn't anyone tell you, Marty?

You don't get to play in the Central Bowl.

A bunch of us boys got together a while ago and decided the NOSSA champions will be in the Northern Bowl.

After school tonight, Smith spent a lot of time on the phone with OFSAA Executive Director Doug Gellatly trying to sort things out.

He's also been talking to Mike Thorpe, OFSAA's football co-ordinator, and Richard Lachance, who represents NOSSA on OFSSA.

So far, all Smith knows for sure is that the decision to move the NOSSA champions into the Northern Bowl was made weeks, even months ago, at a meeting of the advisory committee to OFSSA football.

And that it was apparently prompted by Thunder Bay's desire to get into a bowl game.

No one's been able to tell Smith exactly when the decision was made.

So far, no one's complied with Smith's request to have the minutes of that meeting faxed to him.

And absolutely no one is saying who dropped the ball in failing to inform the teams involved in last weekend's NOSSA championships that the winner would no longer be going to the Central Bowl, but to the Northern Bowl.

"I wonder if we've been given this at the eleventh hour so we wouldn't appeal," Smith tells SooToday.com.

"We don't understand why. We're not too happy with it and we want to continue in the Central Bowl. Our team has won three times. We wanted a chance to win a fourth time."

Smith says he and his players are upset by OFSAA's decision and he's been working the phones trying to get it reversed.

"It could easily be switched back," he says.

If OFSSA doesn't agree with Smith's assessment, Widdifield Wildcats will be playing Eastview Secondary School in the Central Bowl.

And a disappointed team of noble Knights will face Hammarskjold High School from Thunder Bay in the Northern Bowl.

The Central Bowl is at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 26 in North York.

The Northern Bowl will be at 11 a.m.

Same day.

Same place.

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