Sporting Madness

Photo: Karina LeBlanc makes a save while training with the Canadian women's team in 2007 [Photo from CTV.ca]. In what may perhaps be a big step forward for women's soccer in the United States, a Canadian played a key role. Karina LeBlanc , the long-serving Canadian international (69 caps at the senior level according to the CSA site ), made several impressive saves [ The Canadian Press ] to preserve a 2-0 victory for the Los Angeles Sol over the Washington Freedom in the first-ever game in the new Women's Professional Soccer league. It's been a long road to this point for LeBlanc. According to her bio page , she was born in Atlanta but moved to Maple Ridge, B.C. with her family at a young age. She went to Maple Ridge Secondary, where she didn't play high school soccer (as they didn't have a team at that point) but starred in basketball, track and field hockey. She then spent four very successful years playing soccer at the University of Nebraska, finishing wi...

This is rather spur-of-the moment, but myself and some of the other writers from The CIS Blog thought we might as well live blog this afternoon's men's hockey final between the Western Mustangs and the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds (which can be seen on all four Sportsnet regional channels and at ssncanada.ca ). Who will take home the University Cup? It should be quite the clash, so come join in the live blog below! Men's hockey final

The wait is over, and Dale Mitchell has officially been axed as the head of the Canadian men's national soccer team. I have more over at The 24th Minute .

Wednesday's announcement [ Geoffrey York , The Globe and Mail ] that the Dalai Lama will be barred from visiting South Africa until after the 2010 World Cup was rather interesting. After all, as the Globe pointed out in their editorial on the matter, this is a country famous for producing civil-rights advocates like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu . This move seemed a step back from the recent success of South Africa, and more in tune with the country's ugly past under apartheid. Government spokesman Thabo Masebe told the Globe the move “would not be in South Africa's best interests.” That depends on the interests you're considering. There's a good reason "Follow the money" is one of the most memorable lines from the film version of All The President's Men , one of my favourite journalism books of all time. You can often learn quite a bit from the greenback trail. Let's try and apply that methodology here and see where it takes us. South Af...

After much ado and Internet wrangling, my poll of the Top 10 Gaels' moments of the year (a collaboration with the Athletics Department ) is finally live. Unfortunately, only part of the explanatory text made it into the Journal post on the matter, so I figured I'd just post the whole thing and the survey link here as well. Check it out and vote for your favourite! If you feel I left out any key moments or just want to talk about the list, post a comment here or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz[at]hotmail.com. Here's the full release on the matter: VOTE ONLINE FOR QUEEN’S TOP SPORTING MOMENT OF THE 2008-09 SEASON Kingston, Ont. (March 19, 2009) – The Queen’s Journal invites fans of the Queen’s Gaels to vote online for the top sporting moments of the 2008-09 season. Fans can visit the Journal website at www.queensjournal.ca to cast their ballot and select this year’s top sporting moment. The moments will be ranked and unveiled at the 73rd Annual Colour Awards Athletic Banquet o...

Premier League Punditry is back! Plenty to talk about this week, including Liverpool's trampling of Aston Villa and Man U's loss to Fulham. Is the title race back in play? All that and much, much more from the world of soccer will be discussed. Join us in the live blog after the jump! Premier League Punditry 03-22-09

After a one-week hiatus thanks to my duties covering the Final 8 men's basketball tournament, I'm happy to announce that Premier League Punditry will return later today at the usual time (1:30 p.m. Eastern). As always, there will be lots to talk about. The focus will be the Premier League as normal, but we'll probably also touch on the Champions League and the recently announced MLS expansion to Portland and Vancouver. Come join us live at 1:30 or leave comments, questions or discussion topics in the comments on this post! Update : Make that 2:30; a meeting came up that Amrit has to go to.

Today's announcement [ Jose Romero , The Seattle Times ] of Portland as the 18th MLS franchise could mean great things for the league, especially considering how Vancouver was named as the 17th franchise [ Marc Weber , The Province ] on Wednesday. Of course, there are many great reasons behind this pairing, but one of the most interesting is the history between the cities. Way back when Duane first called the race for Vancouver and Portland on March 3 , his MLS source stated that the decision was made due to "stadium plan, political support and geographical factors". The stadium plans and political support are obviously crucial, but much ink has been spilled about them already, so it's those geographical factors that deserve further examination. Vancouver, Portland and Seattle have had a natural soccer rivalry since the days of the old NASL, and that rivalry has carried on through the USL; all three cities had USL teams from 2001-2008, rekindling the old flame. Mor...

One of the things we often forget about democracy, especially at the level of student politics, is the impact some decisions can have. That was evident at tonight's AMS Annual General Meeting, where around 800 students packed Ban Righ Cafeteria and almost unanimously approved the athletics department's request for a $120 fee increase [myself, Queen's Journal ] over four years. It's easy to see why we often have voter apathy, though; much of the rest of the meeting was consumed with the petty squabbles and meaningless arguments more frequently found in politics, and it's a credit to those who managed to stick it out until the Athletics motion. Still, this one decision was incredibly important and will be remembered as such. Yes, there was a long process of research, polling and discussion leading up to today, but in the end, the future direction of the department all came down to this vote. Without the increase, Queen's sports would have been reduced to a shell...

This one's for all the marbles! It's the national championship game, live from Scotiabank Place. The top-ranked Carleton Ravens are taking on the third-seeded UBC Thunderbirds. Join in the live blog below! Carleton - UBC live blog

Sorry, I forgot to post this earlier. Premier League Punditry will take place tomorrow at 1 p.m. Eastern, as I'm pretty busy covering basketball today. Join us then for all your soccer analysis!

Live from Scotiabank Place, it's the consolation final of the Final 8! The Concordia Stingers are taking on the Ottawa Gee-Gees. Join in the live blog below! Ottawa - Concordia live blog

The final game of the day sees the top-seeded Carleton Ravens take on the wild-card St. Francis Xavier X-Men. Join the live blog below! Carleton - St. F.X. live blog

It's the Battle of Ontario, CIS hoops-style! The Western Mustangs take on the Ottawa Gee-Gees at 6 p.m. tonight, live on The Score. The winner will play whoever comes out of tonight's late game between Carleton and St. FX. Join in the live blog below starting at 6! Western - Ottawa live blog

Join in the live blog below! UBC - Dalhousie live blog

And here's the promised live blog of Calgary-Concordia Final 8 men's basketball! Sorry it took so long; had to fight a vast horde of technical gremlins. Join me and the other CIS Blog guys below. Calgary-Concordia live blog

I'm off to Ottawa later this morning for the men's basketball nationals, the Final 8 . It should be a great tournament. Four of the five of us from The CIS Blog are going to be in attendance and will be providing wall-to-wall coverage there, but I'm also planning to do some stuff at this site. In particular, I'll be involved in the live-blogging of all the Friday and Sunday games, and thanks to the magic of CoverItLive , you should be able to access those live blogs here, through Out of Left Field or through The CIS Blog . I have to return to Kingston for some Journal meetings on Saturday, so I won't likely be in on those live blogs (I think the guys are still planning to do them), but you can access those at The CIS Blog. Here's tomorrow's slate of games: #2 Calgary vs. #7 Concordia: 12:30 p.m. Eastern ( SSN Canada ) #3 UBC vs. #6 Dalhousie: 2:30 p.m. Eastern ( SSN Canada ) #4 Western vs. #5 Ottawa: 6:00 p.m. Eastern (Live on The Score ), also webcast...

(Note: this is a tongue-in-cheek parody of this First Things article by Webb about how soccer is ruining America. The words I've changed are in bold.) Update: 11:43 P.M. Links and some further thoughts added at the end of the post. Update, March 27 : It's become clear that Webb intended his article as satire. Still, it was pretty harsh and at least some of the criticisms seemed genuine. Anyway, the guys from the excellent Avoiding The Drop spoke to Webb and had him watch a soccer game for the first time ever and report in. I guarantee you'll like him much more after reading this. Sounds like they may even have made a convert! (By the way, he also talked to Jason of Match Fit USA before this and I missed it. Also worth a read). Soccer is Stephen H. Webb and his ilk are running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people critics of soccer a...

Next Monday's going to be a very significant moment in the future of Queen's athletics. That's the date of the AMS (Alma Mater Society, the undergraduate student government) general meeting, which takes place in Ban Righ Hall at 8 p.m. All current students have a vote at the meeting. The key motion to be addressed is a $120 increase to the current athletics fee of $131.75, spread out over several years (you can see the details on the Queen's site here , along with some very interesting budgeting data). Steep university budget cuts mean that the athletics department is facing some challenging times financially and may have to drastically alter their programs if they don't get this increase. Anyway, an interesting foreshadowing of what may go down at the AGM occured March 1 at a special AMS Assembly meeting to consider endorsing the fee increase and sending it to the general meeting for further ratification. I got the bare-bones details on the meeting in last week...

Premier League Punditry is back to the usual time this week, and we should be back to the usual cast as well. Plenty to talk about, including the midweek games and this weekend's FA Cup clashes. If there's time, we may even bring some world soccer into it with Beckham, the Montreal Impact and MLS expansion. Come join us in the live blog below starting at 1:30 p.m. Eastern! Premier League Punditry 03-08-09

Join me in the live blog below! Queen's-Laurier women's hockey 03-05-09

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging tonight's women's hockey OUA semi-final game between Queen's and Laurier. Laurier's only lost one game all year, so this will be a tough one for Queen's, but they do have home-ice advantage. It's a best of three series; this is the first game. Check in here around 7 p.m. for the live blog. Update: 7:10 p.m. Technical gremlins have postponed the start of the live blog. Will have it up ASAP. In the meantime, here's a preview story I wrote earlier: Women’s hockey stays alive By Andrew Bucholtz Sports Editor The women’s hockey team kept its season alive with a 4-2 road victory over the ninth-ranked University of Toronto Varsity Blues in the OUA quarterfinals Tuesday night. Fifth-year forward Amanda Morra notched a hat trick for the Gaels, and forward Becky Conroy scored the game-winning goal and goaltender Melissa John recorded 38 saves. Head coach Harold Parsons said it was significant to defeat Toronto in the playof...

Yesterday may well be remembered as a momentous day in Vancouver soccer history. The news that Miami was dropping out of the MLS expansion race [ Duane Rollins , The 24th Minute ] was huge, as many had seen their bid as almost a sure thing given the involvement of FC Barcelona. This also reduced the pool of remaining cities to four (Vancouver, Portland, Ottawa and St. Louis), giving Vancouver a 50 per cent chance mathematically. Shortly thereafter, the news got even better: Duane related that a highly-placed MLS source had confirmed Vancouver and Portland as the two teams to be added, while Ives Galarcep anointed Vancouver as the front-runner . That seems to be the consensus around the intertubes at the moment, with Vancouver Province soccer reporter Marc Weber telling me on Twitter that he’d bet his house on Vancouver earning an expansion slot (he also put up a post about it today), Ben Knight declaring the Whitecaps all-but-in today, Ben Van Weelden proclaiming the Whiteca...

Plenty to talk about in this week's instalment of Premier League Punditry, including the Carling Cup and the slipups of Liverpool and Aston Villa. Join us in the live blog below! Premier League Punditry 03-01-09