Cooper Hamilton has a chance to go out on top.
The mammoth offensive lineman — standing six-foot-six and weighing 305 pounds — grew up in the Innisfil hamlet of Churchill and is a graduate of Nantyr Shores Secondary School in Alcona. He helps anchors the offensive line for the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks football team and will play his final university game when the Vanier Cup takes place this afternoon in Kingston.
The Golden Hawks (11-0) take on the Laval Rouge et Or (10-1) at Richardson Stadium in Kingston, the home of the Queen’s University football program who Laurier twice defeated this season.
Kick-off is set for 1 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on CBC.
It's a showdown between the two teams that both were ranked No. 1 in the country at some point this season.
“Our coach explained to us at the start of the season, that each game is like taking the train to a different station,” said Hamilton as his team was making the four-hour bus journey from Waterloo to Kingston this week. “The last stop (has always been) the Vanier Cup … it’s about keeping our foot on the gas, not hitting the brake before then.”
Laurier is the lone university team in Canada that flips its offensive line depending upon the lateral spot of ball each play. Hamilton plays the boundary (short-side) of the field, so that effectively means he plays both left and right tackle.
The size of a small sedan, he’s impossible to miss and all-star selectors took notice of him this season as well, naming him a first-time Ontario all-star.
“Attention to detail,” Hamilton said when asked about what has allowed him to evolve into a high-level player. “I trusted the process and learned how to put on good weight to get here.”
His time at Laurier stretches back to 2019 and included a lost football season due to the pandemic. Cooper followed his father, Vince, who was also an offensive lineman at Laurier in the 1980s. Cooper is the youngest of Vince and Kim Hamilton’s three children.
Undrafted in the Canadian Football League (CFL), Cooper Hamilton attended camp with the Ottawa RedBlacks last spring. He hopes to get another professional opportunity.
“I plan on moving up to Ottawa after the season to (prepare) for any (CFL) opportunity that I can get,” explained Hamilton, who married an Ottawa girl, Enola, this past summer. “I hope to sign somewhere.”
Hamilton is one of four Simcoe County products on Laurier’s roster. Defensive lineman Marcus Tenney is the most notable of the other three. Receiver Ethan Eldridge and gigantic offensive lineman Benjamin Ottosen (six-foot-six, 315 pounds) – one Laurier staffer called him a “Cooper clone” – are also on the Hawks squad, but not expected to crack the 48-player dress roster for today’s game.
Tenney, six-foot-three and 278 pounds, is from Minesing and a graduate of Barrie North. He came to Laurier as a fullback, but made the switch to the other side of the ball a couple years ago. He hasn’t looked back since a solid performance last year in the Yates Cup, the OUA final, against Western. He followed that showing with a two-sack performance against the Mustangs in this year’s Yates Cup, where the Hawks avenged that defeat from 2023.
“It hasn’t come easy for him to start (at Laurier), but he’s put in the work to (transform) into a good player for us, a starter on our D-line,” said Laurier head coach Michael Faulds. “He really (broke through) last year in the Yates Cup, even though we lost that game.”
Faulds, who was recently named USports coach of the year, says he expects Tenney to continue his steep ascent.
A third-year player, Tenney has two years of eligibility remaining.
“That recognition will come as other coaches around the league become more aware of him,” said Faulds.
Today’s game is a match-up between the nation’s best player, Laurier quarterback Taylor Elgersma, and the country’s most accomplished program in the Rouge et Or, who are, well, the gold standard nationwide.
Elgersma is a generational talent at the Canadian university level and expected to get a shot to play QB in the CFL, a rarity for a non-American.
Hamilton played a vital role in Elgersma’s historic season and Laurier’s eye-bulging offensive numbers that included an average of 38.3 points per game and 509 yards of total offence.
Hamilton knows what to expect, but is confident his team can win Laurier’s first Vanier Cup title since 2005.
“We think we are the best team in the country,” he said, “but we have to prove it against Laval.”
The Hawks also won the Vanier Cup in 1991, the same year Barrie native Paul Nastasiuk, one of Laurier’s most distinguished football alumni, helped the Toronto Argonauts take the Grey Cup.
Peter Robinson is a staff reporter at BarrieToday.
