Sporting Madness

(Cell phone pics may not be impressive, but they're all I could get.) Last week, I bemoaned how many of us in the media often transform quarterbacks from a story into the story of a game. Yet, if you were to pick a game where quarterbacks were the story, Saturday’s Yates Cup clash between the Western Mustangs and the Queen’s Golden Gaels would be a pretty good one. With the head-to-head matchup of Michael Faulds and Danny Brannagan , two 10,000 yard passers and the top two guys on the CIS career passing list, many expected a passing shootout, and they were not disappointed. Faulds completed 25 of 38 passes for 509 yards and one touchdown in a losing cause, while Brannagan completed 27 of 47 for 515 yards and five touchdowns in Queen’s 43-39 victory and was named Yates Cup MVP. Both passers threw for over 500 yards, which is an incredible feat. There are only nine 500-yard passing games in the history of the NFL, and perhaps a few more in the CFL; I wasn’t able to find those...

There are some moments in sports that transcend the usual prose used to describe such encounters, when art, life and competition collide in a surreal mix. Saturday's football game between Queen's and the Ottawa Gee-Gees was one of those moments, at least from this perspective: I've been trying to find the proper way to give it justice for two days now. In the end, there was one poem that kept flashing through my mind high up in the chilly Richardson Stadium press box while watching the Gaels' dream season reduced to ruins on the gridiron below. I present it below, with annotated commentary on its relevance to this occasion. [ The full text of The Charge of the Light Brigade, by Lord Tennyson, can be found here ... ] Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Much like the famed Light Brigade...

And we're up and rolling! Kickoff should be in just a moment. My previews of the game are here [ Sporting Madness ] and here [ Queen's Journal ]. Neate also has a good one here . The game is also on the radio at CFRC and is being webcast at SSN Canada . Post comments here or send them to me at andrew_bucholtz (at) hotmail.com. First quarter: - Dan Village kicks off for Queen's: Ottawa returns it to around their own 20. - Dave Mason runs off the left tackle for about five yards. - Josh Sacobie completes a short pass, but his receiver is stopped less than a yard short. Gee-Gees are going for it. - Sacobie sneaks for the first down. 1 and 10 on the Ottawa 33. - Mason carries off right tackle, picks up 5. 2 and 5 on the Ottawa 38. - Mason carries for two, stopped by Mike Botting . 3 and 3 Ottawa: they decide to punt. - Awful snap and the punt's almost blocked by Tim Poffley . Ottawa gets it off, though, but the ball only travels about 35 yards. Jimmy Allin pulls of...

According to Kingston Whig-Standard sports editor Mike Koreen , Queen's football head coach Pat Sheahan has said that star running back Mike Giffin 's aforementioned knee injury is just a bad bruise. Here's the important parts: "The Gaels (8-0) took a sigh of relief yesterday when testing showed Giffin suffered only a badly bruised right knee Saturday in the first quarter of a season-ending 38-22 win over the Waterloo Warriors. 'He would be doubtful [if the Gaels had a game] this week,' Gaels coach Pat Sheahan said. 'But with a week to recuperate, there is a reasonable chance he'll be able to play. I'm optimistic. We've got two weeks and we're just hoping there are no major setbacks. It's not season-ending or career-ending or anything like that.' Because they finished first in the 10-team league, the Gaels will be spectators for the OUA quarter-final round this weekend. They will play host to the lowest-ranked quarter-final survi...

Yes, more happened in sports yesterday than just the continued resurrection of the Boston Red Sox [ Marcel Mutoni , Deadspin ]. For example, there's the Gaels' football win [ Neate Sager , Out of Left Field ] over the Waterloo Warriors [this blog], which gave them a perfect regular-season record of 8-0... The score: Queen's 38, Waterloo 22 (CIS box score is here ) How I saw heard it: On the CFRC radio broadcast. The Good: -Danny Brannagan: Our Queen's Journal Athlete of the Week from last week turned in another solid performance, completing 23 of his 39 passes for 342 yards and three touchdowns without being picked off. The early injury to Mike Giffin (see below, also here ) meant that the Gaels had to take to the air more frequently than normal. As Neate noted , that's a season-high in pass attempts for Brannagan. He was up to the challenge, though. The zero picks is particularly impressive given his number of attempts (although it sounded like he threw...

It wasn't in spectacular style, but the Gaels got it done Saturday afternoon, winning 38-22 over the Waterloo Warriors to complete their perfect regular season. Questions remain, though, especially around the absence of star running back Mike Giffin , who was removed from the game after the first play. According to the CFRC radio broadcast, Queen's Athletics has announced that Giffin's removal was merely precautionary and not a sign of a serious injury: he did seem to be in some pretty severe discomfort though from the radio call, and he was being worked on by the training staff and had an ice pack on. It sounds like he'll be back for the playoff match in two weeks, but you can bet what most of the talk in those weeks is going to centre around. As before, Queen's proved that they can succeed without Giffin. It's a very pass-happy offence without him in the backfield, though, and it may be more of a struggle to pull that off against a better team than the 2-6 Wa...

Well, the Gaels are winning their final regular-season game at Waterloo, but it may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. According to CFRC's excellent radio broadcast of the game, star running back Mike Giffin went down with what appears to be a right leg injury on the opening play of the contest. As Ben Kenobi might say, "I felt a disturbance in the force, as if thousands of Gaels' fans from coast to coast cried out in pain." No word yet on how serious this is, but Giffin hasn't returned to the field. That could be precautionary, as there's no point in risking further injury in a meaningless game like this, but it also could mean that this is serious. Fortunately for Queen's, the bye next week means that Giffin will have two full weeks to recover. We'll see if that is enough. Backups Marty Gordon and Jimmy Therrien are certainly capable, but they don't pose the same magnitude of running threat that forces defences to stack the box against Queen'...

Today's 38-16 win over Ottawa [ Mike Grobe ,gogaelsgo.com] was very impressive (go here for Neate 's excellent live-blog of the action). The score doesn't really reflect how absolutely dominant the Gaels were: they led 31-0 at halftime, and didn't seem to be trying particularly hard to pad their stats in the second half. That's a great result against an talented Ottawa team. Sure, the Gee-Gees have struggled on the gridiron this year (today's loss drops them to 3-4), but their talent is immense. All five entrants in our CIS Blog prediction pool had Ottawa finishing first in Ontario before the season began, and three out of the four sets of playoff predictions had them winning the Yates Cup as well. Yes, the Gee-Gees haven't lived up to their potential, but this was still a squad that could have posed a lot of problems for Queen's (as partially demonstrated by their third-quarter resurgence). It's not just the win that's important: the way it ...

Breaking down Queen's win over Western [myself, Queen's Journal ]... The score: Queen's 46, Western 13. How I saw it: In person. The Good: - Queen's defensive line: The Gaels put tremendous amounts of pressure on Western quarterback Michael Faulds all day long, sacking him four times and forcing him to throw the ball away several other times. Dee Sterling and Osie Ukwuoma were particularly effective, recording one sack each and seven solo tackles between the two of them. I particularly liked Neate 's take , evoking memories of Grantland Rice : You could almost write of the Queen's D line, "In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Osie Ukwuoma, Kyle MacDonald, Dee Sterling, and Neil Puffer and they formed the crest of the Kingston cyclone." - The turnover ratio: Queen's forced 11 Western turnovers (four interceptions, three fumble recoveries and four more turn...

Apologies for the lack of a live blog: I wound up outside the main press box in the stands due to a space shortage, and the pouring rain kept me from even taking out the computer until now. Fortunately, Neate is watching from home and has plenty of live-blogging coverage: check it out at Out of Left Field . Halftime score here is Queen's 23, Western 0. The Gaels are winning this one in the trenches: the offensive line is giving quarterback Dan Brannagan tons of time and opening holes for running back Mike Giffin , while the defensive line and linebackers have been bringing tons of pressure on Western quarterback Michael Faulds and his running backs all day, resulting in a couple of sacks, a number of thrown away balls and little offensive yardage on the ground. The other significant thing thus far has been the play of Western long-snapper Conor Elliot : his first two snaps flew way over the head of punter Daryl Wheeler , resulting in a safety and fumble, which was recovered and ...

Breaking down Queen’s win over the University of Toronto Varsity Blues Saturday [myself, Out of Left Field ] (which you may have missed while pondering UBC’s stunning loss to Regina [ Neate Sager , Out of Left Field ] ... UBC now stands for Unbelievably Bad Clock management in my mind)... The score: Queen’s 58, U of T 14 How I saw it: In person (live blog can be found here ): yes, I went to Toronto just to see this one The Good: - Running back and all-around superstar Mike “The Giffinator” Giffin: Giffin ran for a career-high 215 yards 212 yards [see this post for explanation] on 16 carries despite being pulled after the third quarter. He got 4 or so yards on almost every run, which is respectable, and pulled away for some huge ones as well. He also picked up two rushing touchdowns and his 15th-straight game of 100-plus rushing yards. 189 of his rushing yards came in the first half, as he only got three carries in the third quarter. Giffin leads all CIS players with 687 rushin...