Sporting Madness

Live from Scotiabank Place, it's the consolation final of the Final 8! The Concordia Stingers are taking on the Ottawa Gee-Gees. Join in the live blog below! Ottawa - Concordia live blog

It's the Battle of Ontario, CIS hoops-style! The Western Mustangs take on the Ottawa Gee-Gees at 6 p.m. tonight, live on The Score. The winner will play whoever comes out of tonight's late game between Carleton and St. FX. Join in the live blog below starting at 6! Western - Ottawa live blog

Just a quick post to let all CIS hoops fans know that Neate will be live-blogging tonight's Capital Hoops Classic [ universitysport.ca ] over at The CIS Blog , featuring the No. 1 Carleton Ravens and the No. 2 Ottawa Gee-Gees on the men's side and both schools' 10-5 women's teams in the opener. I saw both schools' men's and women's teams play Queen's last weekend, and I was rather impressed with all of them (plus, that Queen's - Carleton women's game had the craziest ending I've ever seen ). Thus, we should be in for two very good games tonight. For supplementary coverage to go with the live blog, you can watch webcasts of both games at Streaming Sports Network Canada 's site or watch them on TV on The Score .

Breaking down Ottawa’s win over Queen’s Friday night… [ Michael Grobe , gogaelsgo.com ] The score: Ottawa 71, Queen’s 50 How I saw it: In person The Good: -Alaina Porter : Porter was Queen’s best player on the night. She went four for eight from the field and seven for 11 from the charity stripe for a 15-point total while adding eight rebounds, four of them offensive. She played well in the post against taller defenders and was consistent all night, a main reason why she recorded a game-high 32 minutes of court time. -Erin Skippon : Skippon also had a decent game for the Gaels, making three of her seven shots from the field and four of her six chances from the line for 10 points. She also added three rebounds. -Jill Wheat : Wheat didn’t provide much offence, only notching three points on free throws, but she collected a game-high 10 rebounds, four of them on the offensive glass. She also only picked up two fouls in 26 minutes of court time, quite good for a post player. -The free-...

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...

I'm settled in here at Richardson Stadium and have a press box seat this time,so the live blog is a firm go and will start in about 15 minutes. Here's a quick preview of what I'm expecting from the game: Storylines: - The absence of Mike Giffin : It's been confirmed that Giffin will start on the sidelines, and it doesn't sound like he's likely to play at all. It will be interesting to see how that affects the game. As I've mentioned before, Marty Gordon and Jimmy Therrien are very capable backups, and Gordon in particular could probably start for several OUA teams. Neither is as threatening as Giffin, though: all year long, defences have been forced to stack the box to stop Giffin, opening up passing lanes for Dan Brannagan . That's not too likely to happen with Gordon and Therrien in there, which may lead to some big rushing gains for them, but will make the passing game more difficult. We'll see how this plays out over the afternoon. - Dave Mason...

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging Saturday's CIS football game between Queen's and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees right here: Queen's Athletics has told me that I should be able to get the power hookup I need, so barring technical difficulties, we should be good to go. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m., but I'll try to have the first post up by 12:45 p.m. or so. You can also check out CFRC for streaming radio coverage. Neate already has a good preview up at Out of Left Field and my Journal preview's been filed: it should hit the web later this morning. Clint Walper and Mike Koreen from the Kingston Whig-Standard will probably have pregame pieces up today as well, and I'll have more pregame posts here throughout the day. This should be one hell of a game, so it can use all the coverage it can get.

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 ...

There's some unusual stuff going on at the University of Ottawa these days, as Ross Prusakowski notes over at blogsketball . According to Prusakowski, Simon Cremer (the sports editor at La Rotonde , the French-language student newspaper over at the University of Ottawa) revealed on the Gee-Gees Hour radio show that Ottawa's Sports Information Coordinator, Dan Carle, apparently let too many details slip for coach David DeAveiro's liking on the injury star point guard Josh Gibson-Bascombe suffered against Toronto . Carle's press release updating Gibson-Bascombe's status contained the following: "The Gee-Gees are without their leading scorer this weekend. Third-year point guard Josh Gibson-Bascombe (Toronto, Social Science) suffered a partial tear of his right MCL knee ligament and sprained ankle following a awkward fall off a rebound attempt with three minutes left in the fourth quarter of last Saturday’s 78-69 home loss to Toronto." According to Cremer, ...

Just got back from the Queen's - Ottawa basketball games, which saw some surprising developments. The first game saw the Gee-Gees pick up only their second win of the season (and the other one was against RMC, so that hardly counts) against the 7-10 Gaels. Queen's had shown some signs of turning their poor season around lately after reeling off a couple of wins last weekend, but they left Ottawa in the game for far too long, and it eventually cost them. The first half was pretty even throughout, with neither team able to build too much momentum. Queen's took a slim 33-32 lead into the break, but the Gaels were outscored 18-10 in the third and weren't able to make up the lost ground. Ottawa took a 12-point lead with 90 seconds left on a Katie Laurier field goal, but Gaels Sarah Barnes and Christine Wallace hit back-to-back threes to bring Queen's within six. That was as close as they got, though, and the game finished 68-63 for the Gee-Gees. There were both upsides a...