Sporting Madness

Join me in the live blog below! Queen's - Ryerson men's hockey

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging tonight's Queen's-Ryerson men's hockey game, which is at 7:30 p.m. at the Memorial Centre. It's Slap Shot night, so people in attendance are encouraged to dress up (and they apparently will have beer gardens, which is a huge step for men's hockey; we haven't seen those since the glory days of Jock Harty Arena). The game itself will be big too, as the 7-13-2 Gaels desperately need a win. They're four games behind the 11-9-2 University of Toronto Varsity Blues for the division lead and three games behind the 9-9-4 Ottawa Gee-Gees for the final playoff spot. Here's a few links to pique your interest for the game: - Neate unleashes an excellent Top 5 Slap Shot clips . [ Out of Left Field ]. - Amrit wrote a great story on last week's Queen's-RMC game with a bit of a preview for tonight. [ Queen's Journal ]. - Scott Turcotte has a solid profile of Queen's goalie Brady Morrison in today's pa...

Just a quick post to let all CIS hoops fans know that Neate will be live-blogging tonight's Capital Hoops Classic [ universitysport.ca ] over at The CIS Blog , featuring the No. 1 Carleton Ravens and the No. 2 Ottawa Gee-Gees on the men's side and both schools' 10-5 women's teams in the opener. I saw both schools' men's and women's teams play Queen's last weekend, and I was rather impressed with all of them (plus, that Queen's - Carleton women's game had the craziest ending I've ever seen ). Thus, we should be in for two very good games tonight. For supplementary coverage to go with the live blog, you can watch webcasts of both games at Streaming Sports Network Canada 's site or watch them on TV on The Score .

A reminder to everyone that I'll be chatting with Amrit and Phil from There is No Original Name For This Sports Blog at 1:30 today. We'll have a lot to talk about this week, between various transfers and transfer speculation ( Kenwyne Jones to Spurs ? Didier Drogba to Olympique Marseille ? Arsene Wenger to Real Madrid !?), some surprises in FA Cup action (such as Cardiff holding Arsenal and Swansea dumping defending champions Portsmouth ) and a bunch of off-the-field news (Kuwaitis buying Liverpool ? Millwall fans acting up again ? Indian sponsors for United ?). [All above stories from ESPN Soccernet ). We'll try to get to all of that and more this afternoon, so join us here at 1:30 and submit your questions and comments!

Join us in the live blog below!

Breaking down Ottawa’s win over Queen’s Friday night… [ Michael Grobe , gogaelsgo.com ] The score: Ottawa 71, Queen’s 50 How I saw it: In person The Good: -Alaina Porter : Porter was Queen’s best player on the night. She went four for eight from the field and seven for 11 from the charity stripe for a 15-point total while adding eight rebounds, four of them offensive. She played well in the post against taller defenders and was consistent all night, a main reason why she recorded a game-high 32 minutes of court time. -Erin Skippon : Skippon also had a decent game for the Gaels, making three of her seven shots from the field and four of her six chances from the line for 10 points. She also added three rebounds. -Jill Wheat : Wheat didn’t provide much offence, only notching three points on free throws, but she collected a game-high 10 rebounds, four of them on the offensive glass. She also only picked up two fouls in 26 minutes of court time, quite good for a post player. -The free-...

Later today will see an epic FA Cup fourth round clash between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. Both sides are struggling through injuries [ ESPN Soccernet ] and have a large fixture load for the near future, so it will be notable to see who plays and how some of the less-famous players on either side respond. Moreover, this match will be an interesting preview of the March 1 Carling Cup final, as both sides advanced into that fixture this week (United knocked off Derby 4-2 to advance 4-3 on aggregate, while Tottenham lost 3-2 to Burnley , but went through 6-4 on aggregate) [all stories from Soccernet]. As I am a massive Manchester United fan and my Journal colleague Amrit Ahluwalia is a big Tottenham supporter (and actually played for their youth squad), we decided that this match had to be a joint live-blogging undertaking. We'd love for any and all soccer fans to stop by and join us. The match starts at 12:15 ET, but we may be a little late getting going thanks to s...

The inaugural edition of Premier League Punditry will start at 1:30 today. Hope you can join us! Again, today's featured guests are Amrit and Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog . No registration or anything is required; just click on the CoveritLive icon and you should be able to get in. E-mail me at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail.com if you're having problems. Meanwhile, here's some other soccer writing I've been doing recently to tide you over until the blog starts: -" Pellerud winds up in T and T " [ Out of Left Field ] -" Whitecaps: Introduction and some roster changes " [my new gig at The 24th Minute ]

This is to announce the start of a new weekly feature on this site, Premier League Punditry. Every week after Sunday's soccer games, I'll host a live conversation here about the weekend's matches. The focus will be on the English Premier League, but we may also bring in cup competitions and news and matches from other leagues. Everyone is welcome to stop by. Tomorrow's featured guests will be Amrit and Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog . We'll start at 1:30. Hope to see you all here then!

Yesterday morning saw Manchester United see off Southampton rather easily [ ESPN Soccernet ] in the third round of the F.A. Cup. They were helped by the sending off of Saints' striker Matt Paterson in the first half and a questionable penalty call, but the class divide between the two teams was still striking. United started two players who have barely seen any first-team action this season( Jonathan Evans and Danny Welback ) as well as several others whose minutes have been limited of late ( John O'Shea , Nani and Gary Neville ), and the Red Devils also brought on rarely-used Darron Gibson and Rodrigo Possebon as substitutes, but these lesser lights still had little trouble with the Saints. It's interesting how quickly things change in soccer. Southampton has a long history of good, if not great proportions; they won the FA Cup in 1976 (reasonably recent by English soccer standards) and they reached Division I for the second time in 1978 and stayed there until 1992, ...