U Sports East–West Bowl

The East–West Bowl began in 2003, when U Sports was known as Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS). The first edition was held in Waterloo, Ontario at Wilfrid Laurier University. Wilfrid Laurier hosted the first three years of the event in Waterloo from 2003 to 2005.[3] The next two years of the East–West Bowl, 2006 and 2007, took place in Quebec City at Laval University, followed by McMaster University hosting the 2008 game in Hamilton, Ontario. Western University then hosted the event for six consecutive years from 2009 to 2014 in London, Ontario. In 2015 and 2016, the event was hosted for the first time by McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.[4] The game was awarded to Laval again for 2017 and 2018.[5] The game was hosted by Carleton in 2019 and was scheduled to be hosted by Carleton in 2020, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[6] With the game also cancelled in 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic, McMaster was named as the host for the 2022 game.[7]

CIS changed its name to U Sports in October 2016.

Players participate in week long activities, drills and evaluations which are much more important than the actual all-star game. The game itself is the final event of what is a busy schedule for CFL prospects and U Sports players over the last seven days.[4]

Players are housed by the hosting university for the week and attend daily practices and meetings in which they are constantly evaluated on both their physical football capabilities as well as their mental knowledge and understanding of the game. Players that comprise the East team practice with each other for most of the week, while players on the West team do the same; however, there are certain practices where East players will match up against players from the West team in a variety of team and one-on-one competitions. Players are coached by a variety of different coaches from different U Sports members throughout the week. Additionally, some of the coaching also comes directly from CFL coaches and all of it comes under the watchful eyes of CFL player personnel people, coaches and executives.[2]

During the week of practices and evaluations players also compete in a combine which puts the players through a variety of drills designed to evaluate and assess the athletes agility, speed and strength. The East–West combine is a dry run for players who hope to receive invites to CFL combine the following spring.[2]

As of 2023, the East Team contains players from the AUS and RSEQ conferences as well as players from Carleton, Ottawa, Queen's, and York.[10] The West Team is made up of players from Canada West and the remaining Ontario University Association (OUA) universities.[4][11][5] In 2023, the Simon Fraser Red Leafs also had players invited to play in the game following the controversial cancellation of the school's football program.[10][12]