Sporting Madness

The fourth-oldest hockey rivalry in Canada is featured prominently tonight, with Queen's taking on the McGill Redmen. Things just got underway here in Kingston at the Memorial Centre, and the game's already heated: a Queen's forward collided with McGill's starting goalie, Jake Jarvis , and one of their defencemen early on and the whole tangle slid into the boards, sparking a bit of a dustup. Jarvis hobbled off afterwards favouring his arm and was replaced by rookie Danny Mireault . (Correction: LeagueStats indicates that it was Hubert Morin who was the original goalie, not Jarvis). First period 14:00: We're six minutes into the first period now and it's been pretty even so far. Plenty of checks and big hits, and some strong penalty killing from McGill. Queen's looked all right on the power-play chances they've had so far, but they couldn't produce a goal and we're back to five-on-five. 11:43: The Gaels are going on the power play again. Brandon ...

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...

Photo: Ryan Gibb makes a save against RMC forward Josh Fudge Jan. 23. (Joshua Chan photo for the Queen's Journal ) It's been a painful couple of months for some of Queen's varsity teams. Last month, star football running back Mike Giffin and hockey forward Brady Olsen both decided to leave the university level and explore opportunities in the pros, in the CFL and Central Hockey League respectively. Giffin made the CIS first all-star team this year, finished third in the country with 1,157 rushing yards, and shattered school records in rushing, scoring, carries and touchdowns. He was drafted 17th overall by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Olsen put up team-high offensive numbers this year with nineteen goals and 32 points, and signed a pro contract with the Rapid City Rush. Now, another star has left the Gaels. Ryan Gibb, the goalie who was named this year's OUA East MVP and was the 2007 OUA Rookie of the Year, is moving on to the Laredo (Texas) Bucks of the Central Hockey L...