Vanier Cup Preview

It’s an all-around football championship weekend for the city of Hamilton, and the action begins Saturday at 1pm when the McMaster Marauders face the Montreal Carabins in the Vanier Cup.

This is Mac’s third trip to the big show in the last four years, and the first time ever that Montreal has made it out of their conference.

Unlike their previous two Vanier Cup runs, the McMaster Marauders have relied heavily on defense to get them to the national championship this time.

Nick Shortill, McMaster Linebacker: “This one has not been pretty. The other ones we were running people over the whole way, and this time it’s been ugly and it’s taken a while to get here, so I think we appreciate it more this time.”

They also respect the talents of their Vanier Cup opponent: the Montreal Carabins — a team largely overshadowed by their conference rivals from Laval.

McMaster head coach Stefan Ptaszek: “They are extremely good on defense. To hold Laval to no offensive touchdowns over 8 quarters, to beat them twice, back to back. Montreal has had the disadvantage of having the premiere program in their conference and therefore may be top 2 every year, but no one will know it. And we’ll discover just how good they are shortly here.”

With the odds stacked against them, McMaster will also be playing without one of their strongest offensive weapons — running back Chris Pezzetta. Sadly, he spent the two previous seasons on the bench, after tearing his right ACL twice. He injured his “left” knee last Saturday.