Ontario Universities Athletics Association
| Ontario University Athletics | |
|---|---|
| OUA | |
 |
|
| Association | U Sports |
| Members | 20 |
| Headquarters | Hamilton, Ontario |
| Website | Official website |
Ontario University Athletics (OUA) is a regional membership association for Canadian universities which assists in co-ordinating competition between their university level athletic programs and providing contact information, schedules, results, and releases about those programs and events to the public and the media. This is similar to what would be called a college athletic conference in the United States. OUA, which covers Ontario, is one of four such bodies that are members of the country's governing body for university athletics, U Sports. The other three regional associations coordinating university-level sports in Canada are Atlantic University Sport (AUS), the Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA), and Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ).
OUA came into being in 1997 with the merger of the Ontario Universities Athletics Association and the Ontario Women's Intercollegiate Athletics Association.
The first formal organization of intercollegiate athletics in Canada took place in 1906 with the formation of the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (CIAU). This organization had four active members: Ottawa College, Trinity College, McMaster College and the Royal Military College. As the years passed, the CIAU expanded until in 1954 the union had nineteen members.
In 1954, the administration of the CIAU was becoming somewhat unwieldy. There was a great variation in the standards of play between institutions, a different philosophy towards athletics between many members and difficulties in agreeing upon common standards of eligibility. It was also felt that the name Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union was not truly appropriate since intercollegiate athletic associations were also in existence in other parts of the country. In 1955, it was agreed by the member institutions that the CIAU (Central Division as it was then called) would reorganize in two sections to be known as the Ontario-Quebec Athletic Association (with nine members) and the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Intercollegiate Association (with ten members).
The original members of the O-QAA had been joined by the Assumption College (University of Windsor) and were joined in 1961 by Waterloo and 1968 by Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. In 1968, the O-QAA was divided into Eastern and Western Divisions in order to facilitate the scheduling of events. The 1960s also saw the creation of Canada's first national governing body for university athletics, the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (also CIAU), in 1961.
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