Sporting Madness

Everyone's favourite hitman contractor Mike Danton is supposedly joining [ Neate Sager , The CIS Blog ] the Saint Mary's Huskies to play Canadian Interuniversity Sport hockey. It's not clear yet [ Noah Love , National Post ] if he'll be able to play later this season or if he'll have to wait until next year, but he has already enrolled in the university. Danton during his days with the St. Louis Blues From a strict on-ice perspective, this is probably a good thing for the Huskies. Regardless of his legal issues and prison time, Danton at one point has the skills to play in the NHL. It may take a while for him to regain that form, and he may never be back at where he was, but he'll probably still be one of the most talented players in the league. Most guys in CIS are former major junior players who couldn't make it to the AHL or the NHL; some of the top CIS talents in recent years (such as UNB's Rob Hennigar ) have gone on to pro deals. Danton wa...

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

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...

Thanks to Mike Grobe of Queen's Athletics, I came across the 3 minute clip highlighting the Queen's-RMC rivalry that aired on CBC Saturday during their Hockey Day in Canada coverage. It's pretty good; some creative camera shots of both universities, a bit of footage from the old-time reenactment and plenty of coverage from this year's Carr-Harris Cup , including pre-game speeches by Queen's head coach Brett Gibson and RMC head coach Adam Shell , as well as interviews with the likes of Gibson, Paul Bradley , Grant Horvath , Bill Fitsell and David Carr-Harris . You can find it at http://www.cbc.ca/sports/ondemand/ by searching "RMC": only the right clip will show up that way. Unfortunately, I can't embed it or link to it directly, but it's still definitely worth a look. Kudos to CBC on a job well done on this segment, especially without a lot of airtime to work with.

Few things during my time at Queen's have depressed me more than finding out yesterday [myself and Emily Davies , Queen's Journal ] that the dream of a new hockey arena on Main Campus was all but dead. Sure, they've been talking about it for a while and there are some financial benefits (although no one I talked to yesterday could confirm if those numbers are still accurate), but for me, the arena was always one of the big selling points of the Queen's Centre. New gyms and student space are great, but the sports experience I probably miss more than anything else here were the Friday night hockey games at Jock Harty I'd go to with my buddies from the dorm floor back in first year. There was great student support, beer gardens and just generally a tremendous atmosphere. I've been to plenty of great Queen's hockey games since, including this past weekend's Carr-Harris Cup , but it's never been quite the same; even though the Memorial Centre is a good...

It should be a classic clash tonight between Queen's and RMC for Kingston CIS hockey supremacy. More than just bragging rights is on the line, though; the winner takes home the Carr-Harris Cup, and the Gaels likely need two points to keep their playoff hopes alive. Currently, they're tied with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees for the final OUA East playoff berth, but Ottawa has two games in hand. Join me in the live blog below for all the action! Queen's hockey: the Carr-Harris Cup!

Join me in the live blog below! Queen's - Ryerson Men's Hockey 02-06-09

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging Queen's men's hockey games here both Friday and Saturday. The Gaels face 4-20-1 Ryerson Friday night and then take on 7-16-2 RMC Saturday in the annual Carr-Harris Cup. Both games are at 7:30 p.m. at the Memorial Centre, and both are likely to prove rather important for the OUA playoff picture. Queen's (10-13-2) is one point behind Ottawa for the final OUA East playoff spot. We'll see if interim captain Billy Burke can continue his streak; he's notched 2 goals in each of the last three games. Check tomorrow's Journal for a piece by Julie Stewart-Binks on Tuesday's win over Carleton and a profile of Burke by Anand Srivastava , and then come join the live blog tomorrow night!

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...

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...

A quick note that I'll hopefully be live-blogging tonight's men's hockey exhibition game between Queen's and the RMC Paladins. It's out in Gananoque, and I don't know if they have Internet connections in their press box, but if they do, There Will Be Blog (of the live variety). Puck-drop is set for 7 p.m. Tomorrow, I'm taking the fan bus to Toronto to cover the football game between Queen's and the Varsity Blues, and I've been assured their press box is fully connected, so you can count on a live blog of that game here (barring unforeseen complications). I'll hopefully have a preview of the football game up either later tonight or first thing in the morning before I leave. Kick-off is at 1 p.m. If anyone reading this will be on the fan bus or at the pre-game party, feel free to say hi! I should be easy to recognize, as it's doubtful that there will be too many mustached guys wearing ties and carrying laptops...