Sporting Madness

Just got back from the Queen's - Ottawa basketball games, which saw some surprising developments. The first game saw the Gee-Gees pick up only their second win of the season (and the other one was against RMC, so that hardly counts) against the 7-10 Gaels. Queen's had shown some signs of turning their poor season around lately after reeling off a couple of wins last weekend, but they left Ottawa in the game for far too long, and it eventually cost them. The first half was pretty even throughout, with neither team able to build too much momentum. Queen's took a slim 33-32 lead into the break, but the Gaels were outscored 18-10 in the third and weren't able to make up the lost ground. Ottawa took a 12-point lead with 90 seconds left on a Katie Laurier field goal, but Gaels Sarah Barnes and Christine Wallace hit back-to-back threes to bring Queen's within six. That was as close as they got, though, and the game finished 68-63 for the Gee-Gees. There were both upsides a...

Ben Knight, the Globe and Mail 's esteemed soccer writer, had a great post up today about the Canadian Soccer Association refusing to reveal the terms of their settlement with Fred Nykamp (the chief operating officer they lured from Canada Basketball, kept in limbo for several months, and eventually fired before he could start work). If this were any other government-funded organization, people would be up in arms by now: they've been without a full-time president since Colin Linford's resignation, there's no technical director or COO in sight, they somehow managed to lose substantial money on a U-20 World Cup tournament that shattered attendance records, and now they've wasted an undisclosed amount of money on a settlement that wouldn't have been necessary if they hadn't been so inept in the first place. It's not disputed that Nykamp deserved a substantial settlement for his shoddy treatment at the hands of the CSA: the taxpayers and average soccer pla...

Some very interesting stuff from the HockeyAnalysis.com power rankings . David Johnson's complied a list looking at adjusted winning percentage (eliminating the extra points from shootouts and OT losses) and strength of schedule, and came to the conclusion that the top 11 teams are in the Western Conference, while the only Eastern in the top half of the league are Ottawa and Philadelphia. As he mentions, this might be a little off: Ottawa's probably better than Phoenix, Colorado or Columbus, but their numbers are hurt by the terrible quality of the teams they play. In fact, many of the lower Eastern teams probably have more wins than they should given the poor quality of their opposition, which in turn would inflate the strength of schedule factor for the top Eastern teams. What this really shows, though, is the depth of the conferences. The top half of the West is very even (except for Detroit), while the East seems far more imbalanced. Overall, the West is 57-31-7 against th...

In the final installment of Campus Corner for this week, here's my thoughts on the hockey teams. First, the men's team pulled off a very nice come-from-behind victory against RMC on Wednesday: the Journal was well-represented at the match, with Mike, Josh and myself all making the cross-town trip to Constantine Arena. I mentioned in a comment on Neate's blog earlier that I wasn't too impressed with the arena: to me, it felt way too small and cramped (the section we were sitting in was packed to the brim, and there were constantly people moving around looking for seats). Also, the penalty boxes weren't glassed in, which I haven't seen in a hockey rink before, and the whole arena's covered by white netting, making visibility pretty limited. Others think differently, though. Anyways, on the game itself: it was a pretty impressive performance from the Gaels. What amazed me the most was one particular coaching decision on the part of Brett Gibson. Pat Doyle was ...

The men's basketball team faces a sharp contrast this weekend. Tonight, they play 14-0 Carleton, the consensus No.1 team in the country (according to the CIS poll, cishoops.ca , and the RPI rankings , which agree on very little apart from Carleton). Tomorrow night, they play a polar opposite team in the 0-14 RMC Paladins (as an aside, why does RMC even bother keeping volleyball and basketball teams? They haven't won a game in either gender in either sport this year, so they're worse than the Miami Dolphins, which is pretty sad). Tonight's Carleton game should be quite interesting. As Neate Sager noted on The CIS Blog , Carleton's suffering from a flu bug . That, combined with the possibility that the Ravens might overlook tonight's match in preparation for tomorrow's Capital Hoops Classic against Ottawa before 10,000 fans at Scotiabank Place, should at least give the Gaels a slim chance to my way of thinking. Unfortunately, head coach Rob Smart doesn't...

Apologies for the absence: been a bit of a crazy week with regards to classes and the paper, so I haven't had a lot of time to post. That should hopefully be remedied over the next little while. Anyways, it's going to be a pretty crazy weekend for Queen's athletics: all three of the major winter sports (volleyball, basketball and hockey) are playing some home games, so I figured I'd put something up here about each of them. Check today's Journal for further info: I've got a preview piece on the weekend in general. This post will focus on the volleyball teams: expect ones later today on basketball and hockey. To start things off, there's the men's volleyball team. These guys are probably Queen's best shot for an Ontario or national title this fall: they're defending OUA champions, and have proved that they can contend with the likes of McMaster (15-0) and Guelph (12-3), taking each team to five sets in their prior matches on hostile turf. Queen...

Seeing as there are so many quality sports writers out there these days, and many of them are producing fine books, I figured I’d start occasional posts about the best works by sporting journalists I’ve read recently. To start it off, there’s Future Greats and Heartbreaks by Gare Joyce, which I received for Christmas and promptly read in the next couple days: it's very difficult to put down. The book provides a fantastic look at the profession of hockey scouts with a good deal of access from the inside, as Joyce was able to sit in on the Columbus Blue Jackets’ 2006 draft preparations and was involved with much of their subsequent scouting season. There are also interesting takes on a variety of other topics related to junior hockey, such as the tragic Swift Current Broncos bus crash of 1986, the world junior championships, and the players who never make it to the big leagues. Another thing that helps this book excel is Joyce’s terrific writing talent. As established in his previo...

Today's astonishing New York Giants win over the heavily-favoured Green Bay Packers sets the stage for what could potentially be a fantastic Super Bowl. I must admit I was hoping Brett Favre and the Packers would triumph, setting up the old era-new era clash between Favre and Tom Brady, two of the all-time greats. For a while, it looked like they had a shot, especially at the end of regulation when there was a distinct chance "Wide Left" could enter the sports lexicon (it would have been nicely symmetrical, too). However, Favre threw an overtime pick, the Giants hit a field goal, and the rest is history. The next act could be even more epic, though: Giants - Patriots II. As MSNBC 's Mike Celizic pointed out after the original clash in the last week of the regular season, the Giants showed that beating the Patriots is indeed possible. "The Giants haven’t been accused of being the best team in the NFL," Celizic wrote. "Nor, for that matter, were the Eag...

There's lots of discussion going on in Canuck Nation at the moment regarding Hockey Night in Canada panelist Al Strachan's suggestion last night that Mats Sundin may be headed to Vancouver. It's certainly an intriguing notion: the Canucks' major weakness is a lack of deep, consistent scoring, which Sundin would certainly provide. However, given that he's likely to only be a rent-a-player and wind up back in Toronto next season, the question is if he's worth the steep price the Leafs will certainly demand. My thinking is he is, but only if two conditions are met: first, that Vancouver's playing well enough that his addition would be enough to push them over the top into the realm of serious Cup contenders, and second, that the Canucks don't have to mortgage their entire future to grab him. The first condition seems to be a bit of an iffy proposition at the moment, as the Canucks haven't played consistently lately. After falling behind to Detroit, one...

Last weekend in the NFL was a case in point as to why we still bother to actually play out the games, even in this day and age of intensive statistics, research and computer analysis on sporting events. Against the odds and the collected wisdom of the pundits and prognosticators, two underdogs (the San Diego Chargers and New York Giants) knocked off heavily-favoured teams (the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys). The classic "any given Sunday" line became true again, which is a great thing for both the league and sport in general. Hopefully, this will continue: it will certainly make next week's games interesting if the Chargers and Giants can at least give the Patriots and Packers a run for their money. All sense, odds, and logical thought again favours the home teams, but as this past week showed, the league can't simply be turned over to the statisticians and computers. It should be a great round of games. Links of the day: - Stephen Brunt has a great piece in...

In the wake of his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, Roger Clemens held a press conference Monday to repeat his denials of steroid use (alleged in George Mitchell's report earlier). The most interesting thing to come out of it was his playing of a (secretly) taped conversation between himself and former trainer Brian McNamee, which he thought would help his cause (aside: who knew that only one party to a conversation had to consent to taping it? Apparently New York and Texas have no problems with people acting like Richard Nixon ). As the Globe and Mail 's Jeff Blair reports , it actually may have hurt Clemens' case. Clemens shows his outrage at McNamee for telling Mitchell that he used steroids, but never actually accuses McNamee of lying (and McNamee never said he lied on the tape). As Stoeten points out over at Drunk Jays Fans , another interesting moment comes from McNamee's line, "The truth is the truth. It is what it is," which Clemens, not so shockin...

Following the Philadelphia Flyers is the equivalent of watching a train wreck in slow motion, any horror movie, or even most episodes of The Office (or most other comedies for that matter)... you know things are going to go horribly wrong, but you can't turn away. The most recent calamity again has Steve Downie's handiwork written all over it , as he tried to gouge out the eye of Toronto Maple Leafs' forward Jason Blake with his thumb (after a linesman separated the two). This time, though, league discipline czar Colin "Soupy" Campbell (yes, he was actually called that during his playing days with the Canucks) decided that the act didn't even warrant a suspension , which is completely ridiculous. As James Mirtle points out, even Downie's own GM (who incidentally led the Flyers in career penalty minutes until the early 1990s) isn't defending him this time , but Colin Campbell somehow is. Another incident in the same game that's potentially even mo...

Canada beat Sweden 3-2 in overtime to take home the World Junior Championships' gold medals. It was a solid performance from the juniors against the only team to beat them at these championships in their last 24 games. There were definitely worrisome moments, such as Sweden's tying goal with less than a minute to go (which brought back all the reasons I hate no-touch icing: in regular hockey, Matt Halischuck gets the puck Shaun Matthias shot down the ice and perhaps even scores an empty-netter to seal the victory, but under international rules, it's still icing even though there were no Swedes anywhere near the puck. For a while, it looked like the many posts and crossbars the Canadians hit might come back to haunt them, and Canadian fans with international hockey memories don't fancy shootouts in championships against Swedes (particularly when one of them is named Forsberg ). However, in the end, it was Canada's determination and grit that won them the victory. Th...

Currently watching the Canada-U.S. showdown at the World Juniors. Good game so far: the first period was a little defensive, but as a Canucks fan, I can hardly complain about that! Canada broke through in the second with a nice goal, and both teams seem to have decided to turn up the offensive pressure as a result. Kyle Turris is having a solid game, and just recorded Canada's second goal on the power play (after the U.S. was called for too many men on the ice) What I find weird about this match is how many, including the Globe's Tim Wharnsby , have labeled the Canadians as underdogs. Sure, they lost once in the group stage this year to a very good Swedish team (who knocked off Russia earlier today to advance to the finals), and came in through a quarterfinal win over Finland, but they've still won the last three world championships, and killed the Russians in the Super Series earlier this year: that deserves a little respect in my books at least. In contrast, the U.S. has...