Sporting Madness

The Dinos receive their trophy and CIS banner. [Andrew Bucholtz photo; check out my Facebook profile for more low-quality pictures from the tournament, to be posted Monday night.] The Calgary Dinos have come a long way in a week. On March 6, they lost a five-set thriller to the Trinity Western Spartans in the Canada West semifinals. They went on to beat Thompson Rivers in straight sets in the bronze-medal match and entered the nationals this week as the sixth seed. From there, though, things only got better for them; they knocked off the No.3 Dalhousie Tigers in a close five-set match in the quarterfinals, then beat the No.2 Alberta Golden Bears in a five-set semifinal battle and finally got revenge on the Spartans with a four-set victory in the gold-medal match. Trinity Western head coach Ben Josephson said the Spartans didn't play as well as they could have, but the Dinos turned in a stellar effort. "A lot of things weren’t quite working the way we wanted, but any...

This one's for all the marbles. It's an all-Canada West final at the CIS men's volleyball championships here in Kamloops, with the Trinity Western Spartans taking on the Calgary Dinos. Join me in the live blog below! Trinity Western - Calgary (gold medal)

It's the first game of the medal round at the CIS volleyball nationals in Kamloops, featuring the No.2 seed Alberta Golden Bears and the No.1 seed Laval Rouge et Or. The game can be seen at SSN Canada . Join in the live blog below! Alberta - Laval (bronze medal)

The first action of the day at the CIS men's volleyball tournament sees Queen's taking on the hometown Thompson Rivers WolfPack in the fifth-place game. Join in the live blog below! Queen's - Thompson Rivers

That has to be one of the most exciting volleyball games I've ever seen. Both teams came out slugging early, but Laval looked to have the upper hand when they won a close third set 25-23 to take a 2-1 lead. Trinity Western refused to quit, though, winning the last two sets to advance to the final. The final set, which ended 20-18 in favour of the Spartans, could have gone either way, but in the end, they did enough to hang on. Steven Marshall had a tremendous night for the Spartans, finishing with 25 kills. He said the whole team took their game to a new level. "It was amazing," he said. "It was the best game we’ve had this season. I think we played as a team, as a whole. We helped each other all game." Trinity Western demonstrated a great deal of depth; Marshall and Rudy Verhoeff (11 kills, 10 blocks) were both huge in the Spartans' comeback, with other players like Marc Howatson (16 kills) and Josh Doornenbal (9 kills) coming up big when call...

In an all-Alberta matchup, the University of Alberta Golden Bears will take on the University of Calgary Dinos in tonight's late semi-final. The winner will go on to face Trinity Western in tomorrow's gold-medal game, with the loser taking on Laval for third place. Watch the game on SSN and join in the live blog below! Battle of Alberta

It's the first semifinal of the CIS men's volleyball championships, featuring the fourth-seeded Trinity Western Spartans and the top-ranked Laval Rouge et Or. Catch the webcast at SSN Canada and join the live blog below! Laval - Trinity Western

Earlier this week, I wrote a long piece about how the increased availability of athletic entrance scholarships and the increased focus on national recruiting has started to help schools outside of Canada West start to catch up in sports traditionally dominated by western teams. Canada West does still have some edges in scholarships, infrastructure and coaches, but I think the gap is beginning to close a bit. However, you wouldn't know it from this weekend's CIS volleyball national championships. As I wrote in a feature for the Queen's Journal back in 2008, men's volleyball has been solidly dominated by Canada West since its inception, with the conference claiming the last 15 straight national titles and 37 of the 43 championships that have been held. That pattern hasn't shown any signs of changing so far; there are four Canada West teams here, making up half the field; No. 2 Alberta, No. 4 Trinity Western, No. 6 Calgary and No. 7 Thompson Rivers. Three of the f...

It's the second consolation final at the CIS men's volleyball championships in Kamloops, featuring the hometown Thompson Rivers WolfPack against the Dalhousie Tigers. Winner plays Queen's for fifth tomorrow; loser's tournament ends here. Join me in the live blog below. This will be a little more infrequently updated than some of the others, as I'm working on some other posts as well, but I should still have regular score and action updates. Thompson Rivers - Dalhousie

It's time for the first consolation semifinal at the CIS national volleyball championships in Kamloops, featuring Queen's against the Montreal Carabins. Join in the live blog below! Queen's - Montreal

I was paging through the Dalhousie Tigers' media guide earlier and came across quite an interesting stat. The Tigers have appeared at 31 straight CIS championships. They've won 24 straight Atlantic University Sport championships and 30 of the last 31 (presumably, their other appearance came either when they were hosting or when the AUS wound up with two spots). Current head coach Dan Ota has been there for 11 years and won 11 straight AUS championships; he's also been named AUS coach of the year nine times in that span. Clearly, AUS volleyball is Dalhousie and everyone else. The question, though, is if that dominance is a good thing or a bad thing for the program. On the plus side, that probably gives them first crack at any Maritime recruits who want to stay in the region. Their almost-guaranteed spot at nationals also can be a significant recruiting advantage, allowing them to draw more national recruits than they probably would otherwise; only three players on the cur...

The next game in the CIS men's volleyball championships sees the hometown Thompson Rivers WolfPack, seeded seventh, taking on the Canada West champion Alberta Golden Bears, seeded first. It should be an interesting one. Tune in on SSN Canada and join in the live blog below! Thompson Rivers - Alberta

After top-seeded Laval opened the CIS volleyball championships with a three-set thumping of Trinity Western, we're now set for what should be an entertaining second match. Queen's, who took the Ontario title in an extremely close five-set thriller against Guelph last weekend, enters the nationals as the lone OUA representative. They're seeded fifth. They'll battle the fourth-seeded Trinity Western Spartans, who came up just short in their conference final against the Alberta Golden Bears. Both teams have a lot of young talent, which should make this one thoroughly interesting. The game will be streamed live at SSN Canada ; watch it there and follow along with the live blog here! We'll get underway at 6 Eastern/3 Pacific. Queen's - Trinity Western

The CIS men's volleyball championships are underway out here in Kamloops, but there aren't any surprises so far; top-seeded Laval is up one set to nil on eighth-ranked Montreal. Later today, we'll have Queen's taking on Trinity Western at 3 p.m. Pacific, followed by the host Thompson Rivers WolfPack against the Alberta Golden Bears at 5 and the Calgary Dinos and Dalhousie Tigers at 8. The plan is to live blog all of those games, as well as chipping in a few other previews and recaps here and there. Check back here often for the latest.