{"id":207713,"date":"2025-10-12T14:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T14:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/207713\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T14:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T14:58:09","slug":"saskatchewan-huskies-chief-athletics-officer-shannon-chinn-raises-concerns-about-cfl-field-changes-for-u-sports-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/207713\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan Huskies chief athletics officer Shannon Chinn raises concerns about CFL field changes for U Sports teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

University of Saskatchewan’s chief athletics officer Shannon Chinn<\/a> has concerns about\u00a0to the\u00a0upcoming Canadian Footbal League field changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“As far as thinking about it from my position, universities right now across the country are quite stretched when you talk about budget and even before that happened, infrastructure changes at universities did not happen quickly. There are a couple of things within the rule\u00a0changes that if we adopted them, I could see them being doable,” Chinn said on\u00a0the 620 CKRM Rider\u00a0Broadcast Network.<\/p>\n

“It’s 110-to-100 yards. Currently at Griffith Stadium, our turf is stitched in, our lines and numbers are all stitched in. We’re talking millions of dollars there\u00a0and I don’t see the path forward there right now.”<\/p>\n

Chinn\u00a0detailed\u00a0how the U Sports leaders\u00a0reacted to the CFL news.<\/p>\n

“Pierre Arsenault, Matthew Davies\u00a0and the group found out at the last moment. They’re doing a good job\u00a0collecting data from different universities to figure out what fields look like, when your turf went in, what the dimensions of your end zone are, if you’re painted or stitched, all those sorts of things,” Chinn explained.<\/p>\n

“They’re in that data collection mode right now so we have a better idea across the landscape\u00a0what everybody is sitting at right now. They have booked a meeting so that we can all get together and\u00a0start the conversation, but that conversation has not started yet. We’ve had a little bit of one with my colleagues and with the other Canada West football schools, but definitely nothing in depth.”<\/p>\n

CFL\u00a0commissioner Stewart Johnston <\/a>unveiled the new three-down league game\u00a0changes on Monday, September 22,\u00a0which will be implemented over the next two years. In 2026, all CFL teams will be required to have benches on opposite sides of the field. Additionally, there\u00a0will be\u00a0a new 35-second play clock, replacing the previous 20-second one. New changes will be implemented for the rouge,\u00a0it will only be awarded\u00a0if the returner fails to take it out of the end zone or takes a knee. That is different from what is now, where a rogue is given\u00a0for either a missed field goal or punt when the ball goes\u00a0out of bounds in the end zone. In 2027, the goalpost will be moved to the back of the end zone. All CFL fields will be shortened from 110 to 100 yards while the end zones will be shortened from 20 to 15 yards.<\/p>\n

“I’d start by seeing a little bit of excitement,\u00a0I love the Canadian Football League. I grew up in the Rider rookie section,\u00a0I’m from Regina and have been a big fan of the Canadian Football League for a long time,” Chinn explained.<\/p>\n

“Now working in U Sports football, it’s exciting that they’re looking to make changes to increase the fan base, increase excitement, keep the pace of the game up and keep the entertainment factor. I think when you take a step back and think about some of the expenses that may come with some of the changes, it gives you a little bit of pause to figure out how exactly that’s going to roll out.\u00a0Even though we’re looking at it in 2027 and everybody’s like, ‘Well, that’s a long time down the road\u00a0at a university for infrastructure changes.’\u00a0That’s not very far away.”<\/p>\n

Before Chinn\u00a0went to\u00a0the Huskies, she worked with CFL teams, including the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the defunct Ottawa Renegades. Besides CFL teams, she worked with the\u00a0Ottawa Senators in the NHL, TSN, and Carleton University. Currently, she also sits\u00a0as a member of the Football Canada Board as well as\u00a0an executive for Football Saskatchewan and is the U Sports liaison for Canada West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University of Saskatchewan’s chief athletics officer Shannon Chinn has concerns about\u00a0to the\u00a0upcoming Canadian Footbal League field changes. “As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,101339,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-207713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-saskatchewan-roughridersu-of-s-huskiescfl-2025shannon-chinnuniversity-of-saskatoon","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}