Sporting Madness

Queen's principal Dr. Karen Hitchcock announced her resignation earlier today, which came on the heels of some severe criticism of her by student leaders , professors , and even our own paper . It's no secret that I haven't been the biggest Hitchcock fan, especially given her treatment of the athletics review. Back in June, three months after the review's initial release date, she wouldn't even speak to our paper about why it was delayed or when it could be expected out. Instead, we got a statement from one of her plethora of spokespeople that she'd been considering it for a month and would release it in the near future. Well, that near future turned out to be nearer than expected: the day after we went to press, she suddenly released the review (perhaps prompted by our editorial criticizing the delay, or perhaps with the knowledge that any criticism of it would be delayed until our next print issue a month later, as we operate on a slower schedule in the s...

I've been meaning to put this up for a while, but just didn't have the time. A couple weeks ago, I wrote a story for the Journal about two new proposed TV networks the CRTC is looking at. The first application is an initiative of the Canadian Olympic Committee, which wants to launch English and French channels focusing on amateur sports, called the Canadian Amateur Sports Network and Réseau des sports amateur canadiens respectively. The second application is from the CBC for its own sports channel, which would also include an amateur sports component. Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports, told me that their application proposed 35 per cent amateur content. Both applications are currently before the CRTC, and should soon enter the "gazetting" period, where the public and other companies can intervene for or against the new channels. These applications are interesting because they may very well lead to more televised coverage of CIS sports. CIS Director o...

The men's basketball team faces a sharp contrast this weekend. Tonight, they play 14-0 Carleton, the consensus No.1 team in the country (according to the CIS poll, cishoops.ca , and the RPI rankings , which agree on very little apart from Carleton). Tomorrow night, they play a polar opposite team in the 0-14 RMC Paladins (as an aside, why does RMC even bother keeping volleyball and basketball teams? They haven't won a game in either gender in either sport this year, so they're worse than the Miami Dolphins, which is pretty sad). Tonight's Carleton game should be quite interesting. As Neate Sager noted on The CIS Blog , Carleton's suffering from a flu bug . That, combined with the possibility that the Ravens might overlook tonight's match in preparation for tomorrow's Capital Hoops Classic against Ottawa before 10,000 fans at Scotiabank Place, should at least give the Gaels a slim chance to my way of thinking. Unfortunately, head coach Rob Smart doesn't...

Currently watching the Canada-U.S. showdown at the World Juniors. Good game so far: the first period was a little defensive, but as a Canucks fan, I can hardly complain about that! Canada broke through in the second with a nice goal, and both teams seem to have decided to turn up the offensive pressure as a result. Kyle Turris is having a solid game, and just recorded Canada's second goal on the power play (after the U.S. was called for too many men on the ice) What I find weird about this match is how many, including the Globe's Tim Wharnsby , have labeled the Canadians as underdogs. Sure, they lost once in the group stage this year to a very good Swedish team (who knocked off Russia earlier today to advance to the finals), and came in through a quarterfinal win over Finland, but they've still won the last three world championships, and killed the Russians in the Super Series earlier this year: that deserves a little respect in my books at least. In contrast, the U.S. has...