The International Bowl
is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) collegiate American football bowl game played in Toronto. It is the only post-season bowl game played outside the United States, and the first since the Bacardi Bowl, played in Cuba on January 1, 1937. The inaugural game in 2007 matched with the and was televised live on ESPN2 in the United States and TSN in Canada. Ball State and Rutgers played in the 2008 edition, and the University at Buffalo played the University of Connecticut in the 2009 edition.
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INTERNATIONAL BOWL TICKETS
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History
The
first game was played on January 6, 2007 at the
Rogers Centre, home to the
Canadian Football League's
Toronto Argonauts, multiple
Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS)
Vanier Cups (1989–2003, 2007), and the part-time home of the
Buffalo Bills (2008-2012). In 2004, a partnership led by the city of
Toronto bid to host a bowl game in Toronto to help the city recover from its loss of tourism dollars due to the 2003
SARS outbreak, but the NCAA sanctioned the new
Poinsettia Bowl in
San Diego, California instead. Toronto re-launched the bid in 2005 and was successful, playing the first game at the end of 2006 season.
The bowl signed an agreement with two
Division I conferences for annual representation. The
Big East Conference, a
Bowl Championship Series conference, will send a top team, and the
Mid-American Conference will also select a top team for inclusion in the event. Each conference is composed of schools in the northern states of the American
Midwest and
Northeast, except for the
University of South Florida.
The inaugural game was the first post-season bowl game played outside the United States since the
Bacardi Bowl was played in
Cuba on January 1, 1937,
[1] and the first football game of significance to be played in Canada under
American football rules since
Simon Fraser University's
football team left the
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in 2001, and joined CIS, where Canadian universities play under
Canadian football rules.
The
2009 International Bowl was notable in that the
Buffalo Bulls (champions of the
Mid-American Conference) appeared in the first bowl game in the history of the school. The Bulls turned down their only other bowl invitation in 1958, as the black players on the team were not going to be permitted to play. It is also notable since the professional
Buffalo Bills had played their first regular season NFL game in the same stadium just four weeks prior to the International Bowl. It was the third bowl game that the Connecticut Huskies had participated in, having played Toledo at the Motor City Bowl in 2004, and Wake Forest in the Meineke Car Care Bowl in 2008.
Results
thumb
| Date
| Winning team
| Losing team
| Attendance
|
| January 6, 2007
|
| 27
|
| 24
| 26,717
|
| January 5, 2008
| Rutgers
| 52
| Ball State
| 30
| 31,455
|
| January 3, 2009
| Connecticut
| 38
| Buffalo
| 20
| 40,184
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MVPs
| Date
| MVP
| School
| Position
|
| 2007
| Dominick Goodman
|
| WR
|
| 2008
| Ray Rice
| Rutgers
| RB
|
| 2009
| Donald Brown
| Connecticut
| RB
|
Most appearances
| Rank
| Team
| Appearances
| Record
|
| T1
| Cincinnati
| 1
| 1–0
|
| T1
| Connecticut
| 1
| 1–0
|
| T1
| Rutgers
| 1
| 1–0
|
| T1
| Ball State
| 1
| 0–1
|
| T1
| Buffalo
| 1
| 0–1
|
| T1
| Western Michigan
| 1
| 0–1
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Television
| Date
| Network
| Play-by-play announcer
| Color commentator(s)
| Sideline reporter
|
| 2008
| ESPN2 [2]
| John Saunders
| Doug Flutie, Jesse Palmer
| None
|
| 2007
| ESPN [3]
| John Saunders
| Doug Flutie, Jesse Palmer
| Stacey Dales
|
| 2006
| ESPN2 [4]
| John Saunders
| Craig James, Doug Flutie
| Todd Harris
|
Photo gallery
2007
2009
Notes and references
- The Bacardi Bowl, however, was not the last major-college football game to be played outside the US before the International Bowl. The Mirage Bowl, later the Coca-Cola Bowl, was played in Tokyo during the regular season between 1977 and 1993, and Navy and Notre Dame played their annual game in Dublin in 1996.
- http://www.espnmediazone.com/press_releases/2008_12_dec/20081217_ABCESPNESPN2ESPNRadioESPN360.comCol
- http://www.espnmediazone.com/press_releases/2007_12_dec/20071213_ABCESPNESPN2andESPNRadiotoProvideCo
- http://www.espnmediazone.com/press_releases/2006_Dec/ABCESPNESPN2andESPNRadiotoProvideCoverageof27Co