Sporting Madness

Just a quick note that Greg Layson of the Guelph Mercury has resumed writing his Big Man On Campus blog. It's great to see Greg back in the blogging game: his site's a must-read for anyone following the Gryphons, and he has a lot of good league-wide coverage in football and basketball as well. Definitely worth a look.

Breaking down Queen's win over Western [myself, Queen's Journal ]... The score: Queen's 46, Western 13. How I saw it: In person. The Good: - Queen's defensive line: The Gaels put tremendous amounts of pressure on Western quarterback Michael Faulds all day long, sacking him four times and forcing him to throw the ball away several other times. Dee Sterling and Osie Ukwuoma were particularly effective, recording one sack each and seven solo tackles between the two of them. I particularly liked Neate 's take , evoking memories of Grantland Rice : You could almost write of the Queen's D line, "In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Osie Ukwuoma, Kyle MacDonald, Dee Sterling, and Neil Puffer and they formed the crest of the Kingston cyclone." - The turnover ratio: Queen's forced 11 Western turnovers (four interceptions, three fumble recoveries and four more turn...

Apologies for the lack of a live blog: I wound up outside the main press box in the stands due to a space shortage, and the pouring rain kept me from even taking out the computer until now. Fortunately, Neate is watching from home and has plenty of live-blogging coverage: check it out at Out of Left Field . Halftime score here is Queen's 23, Western 0. The Gaels are winning this one in the trenches: the offensive line is giving quarterback Dan Brannagan tons of time and opening holes for running back Mike Giffin , while the defensive line and linebackers have been bringing tons of pressure on Western quarterback Michael Faulds and his running backs all day, resulting in a couple of sacks, a number of thrown away balls and little offensive yardage on the ground. The other significant thing thus far has been the play of Western long-snapper Conor Elliot : his first two snaps flew way over the head of punter Daryl Wheeler , resulting in a safety and fumble, which was recovered and ...

I learned just this afternoon that Teddi Firmi , the star point guard for the Queen's women's basketball team and last year's OUA East Defensive Player of the Year ["Women's teams exit early," myself, Queen's Journal , February 29, 2008], has decided to quit basketball and join the women's rugby team. She'll be playing her first match with them tomorrow on the road against the McMaster Marauders. This is a big loss for the basketball team. Firmi was their starting point guard last year, and demonstrated a tremendous ability to control the flow of the game and find the open player. She could score as well, but her greatest talent was on defence, where she was an almost-unparalled stopper. The team has a lot of promising young players, though, so it will be interesting to see if any of them can step up and fill her shoes. It's going to be a very different women's hoops squad this year, as they've lost their best defensive player in Firmi...

A big shout-out to Dan Pawliw for throwing to this blog in his terrific weekly Queen's Football Club Newsletter. Just to let everyone interested know: I will be doing my best to live-blog tomorrow's Queen's - Western game (kick-off: 1 p.m. ET), but a lot depends on the weather. Due to the media crush covering the match, there's a good chance I'll be in the regular bleachers instead of the press box itself, which may lead to difficulties in case of rain. There's also a possibility I'll be in the press box serving as a spotter for announcer Tim Cunningham , which would help with the weather but probably keep me from trying to do every play the way I did last week : if this happens, I'll check in periodically here with big plays, updates and analytical thoughts on the game. Either way, there will almost certainly be some form of live-blogging going on here, but it's unclear at this point exactly what form that will take. I'll also be checking in wi...

(Note: You may not get the headline unless you're a history nut like me...) A few thoughts on my post earlier this week about Tyler King's comments on my work. First, I went too far with it: it was intended as a defence of my work, but I spent too much of it attacking his. In response to his attacks, which I took as personal, I also made some somewhat personal attacks of my own that I shouldn't have, including calling him "two-faced" for insulting me on the radio and then being friendly to me in person. I shouldn't have attempted to judge his motives, and from talking to him, I've come to a better understanding of why he's chosen to do things the way he does. I don't necessarily agree with him, but there's plenty of room for opinion in the world: as I wrote earlier, sports are full of grey areas, not black and white issues. In any case, I believe I've worked things out with him and neither of us wants to get into a drawn-out personal war....

“Once blood is shed in a national quarrel, reason and right are swept aside by the rage of angry men." - David Lloyd George "It's true, I'm a Rageaholic.....I just can't live without Rageahol!" - Homer Simpson [Satirical letter: please don't think this is real!] Dear Mike Giffin , I'm sorry to inform you that the single-game rushing record [myself, "The GBU: Queen's football versus Toronto", Sporting Madness ] you set Saturday [myself, "Football: U of T - Queen's live blog", Sporting Madness ] has been retroactively removed by the CIS bean-counting machine. In our infinite wisdom, we've decided that the initial game stats were wrong, and you actually only earned 212 net yards rushing, instead of 215. Now, we could have informed you earlier, maybe even during the game so that head coach Pat Sheahan could have left you in for another play or two to clinch the record. After all, he did say [myself, "Campus Corn...

"Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey to the dark side will become complete!" - Emperor Palpatine “Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.” - Jimmy Breslin Unfortunately, I'm not too much like Breslin, and most of my pieces aren't written out of rage. That doesn't mean I don't have it bottled up, though. Ever since I became the assistant sports editor of the Journal last spring, I've endured almost-weekly slings, arrows, mocking and outright character assassination from one Tyler King , a former Journal writer who used to co-host a sports show on the campus radio station, CFRC. King was promoted over the summer, so he's now CFRC's sports co-ordinator, which means that he's now affecting their entire coverage as well as his own show (where he now is the sole host, thanks to Brendan McNamara moving back to Toronto: an unfortunate development, as McNamara was...

[Image from The Guardian ]. "Obi-Wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear. Now, release your anger! Only your hatred can destroy me!" - Darth Vader “Yes, honey...Just squeeze your rage up into a bitter little ball and release it at an appropriate time, like that day I hit the referee with the whiskey bottle.” - Homer Simpson Seems to me I've probably been taking Homer's advice a bit too seriously for too long. There are several things that have been bugging me for quite a while that I've never really written about, usually preferring to keep this site in the realms of sober, rational analysis and outside the area of raw emotion. Well, that rule's being voided for one day: I'm not having a good week, so I unilaterally declare this to be the first official Vent Day. Of course, my remaining discretion will still limit the venom levels of my writing and I'll try to keep some rational analysis in these posts as well, but I figured it's ...

Breaking down Queen’s win over the University of Toronto Varsity Blues Saturday [myself, Out of Left Field ] (which you may have missed while pondering UBC’s stunning loss to Regina [ Neate Sager , Out of Left Field ] ... UBC now stands for Unbelievably Bad Clock management in my mind)... The score: Queen’s 58, U of T 14 How I saw it: In person (live blog can be found here ): yes, I went to Toronto just to see this one The Good: - Running back and all-around superstar Mike “The Giffinator” Giffin: Giffin ran for a career-high 215 yards 212 yards [see this post for explanation] on 16 carries despite being pulled after the third quarter. He got 4 or so yards on almost every run, which is respectable, and pulled away for some huge ones as well. He also picked up two rushing touchdowns and his 15th-straight game of 100-plus rushing yards. 189 of his rushing yards came in the first half, as he only got three carries in the third quarter. Giffin leads all CIS players with 687 rushin...

Well, I'm settled in in the press box at U of T and have Internet access, so the live blog should be a go. The trip in on the Dance Pak's fan bus was pretty good, if sparsely attended: there were only about 10 people not affiliated with the dance team. A good amount of Gaels' supporters in the crowd, though, as there's a lot of Toronto alumni who have made it out here. About 15 minutes until kickoff. T-10: A nice tribute and moment of silence for former Queen's coach Hal McCarney , who passed away Tuesday ["Goodbye, Moose", myself, Queen's Journal ]. Interestingly, the only people in the stadium I heard talking during it were the CFRC types who were just starting their broadcast: a bit disappointing from a Queen's perspective. T-5: One of the Shriners carries out the pre-game kickoff, and does much better than the majority of the types who try to do so at Queen's. Note for those who complain about music at Gaels' games: it's here too. ...

Breaking down the men's hockey team's shootout win over the Royal Military College Paladins in Friday night's Lou Jeffries memorial exhibition game... (abbreviated because I have to get up rather bloody early tomorrow today to journey to the Centre of the Universe and cover the football game against U of T, which will be live-blogged here as mentioned previously)... The score: Queen's 3, RMC 3 (Queen's wins 3-2 in a shootout) How I saw it: In person, which meant a bus trip out to Gananoque with the team and sitting around the arena for a couple hours beforehand. It was a great game, though, and worth the time invested. The Good: -Queen's physical play: You could tell right from the start that the Gaels weren't taking this one lightly, appropriate considering that it was against hated rivals RMC. Defencemen Francis Horvath and Marcus Halcro in particular established a physical presence from the opening puck drop with some big hits. -Pat Doyle: The fi...

Today’s football game between the 3-0 Gaels and the 2-1* University of Toronto Varsity Blues, which will be live-blogged right here (kickoff at 1 p.m.), should be an interesting clash. It’s a great matchup for Toronto, as the vast majority expects them to be beaten to an unrecognizable pulp, so the weight of expectations on the Blues is reduced to a single feather. *It still feels weird writing Varsity Blues with a number other than zero in front. For Queen’s, the situation’s approaching Kobayashi Maru-like levels of difficulty, as there’s almost no way this game can improve their standings. Everyone expects a big win, so even a superlative performance will be shrugged off with a “aw, it was against Toronto.” A closer game would lead to intense questioning, while a loss would lead to calls for heads, perhaps displayed John the Baptist-style on a platter. Very little good can come from this game, and there’s the potential for a lot of negatives to arise. Looking on the bright side of li...