Sporting Madness

It's a great CFL Friday night showdown. In one corner, we have the 7-5 Saskatchewan Roughriders, tied for first place in the West Division; in the other one, the 5-7 B.C. Lions, in the division cellar. The playoff race is so close at the moment that this could be a huge game. I'll be live-blogging it here and at Out of Left Field starting at 10:30 p.m. Eastern/7:30 p.m. Pacific. Come join me then! B.C. Lions - Saskatchewan Roughriders

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm taking off for a few days to go camping, so things have been somewhat light around here due to preparations for that. I do have a lengthy essay on sportswriting and Malcolm Gladwell scheduled to go up tomorrow morning, though, and I should be back with fresh content Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Until then, here's a few links to tide you over: My work: - A post on the Canucks' acquisition of Mikael Samuelsson [ Canuck Puck - A piece on the death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair [ The Phoenix Pub ] - A piece on the Sedins returning and a few other signings [ Canuck Puck ] Other good pieces: - James Mirtle sees the Canucks as a team with cash still to spend [ From The Rink ] - Joe Posnanski on the Royals' lack of speed - Neate on the Raptors picking up Turkoglu [ Out of Left Field ]

Apologies for the horribly long absence; I had to spend most of the past week preparing for a move and then flew across the country yesterday. I'm back in the blogging saddle now, though, and have plenty of stuff planned here for the next few days. Until then, here's a link to two of the pieces I've managed to write in the meantime and some other pieces I've enjoyed reading recently. - A piece I wrote Monday at Canuck Puck on the Canucks' involvement in free agent rumours and laying out my blueprint for Vancouver's free-agency moves. - A piece analyzing the top 10 picks of the NHL draft I co-wrote over at The Rookies . - An interesting piece by First Derivative over at The Phoenix Pub on why the acquisition of Marian Hossa may hurt the Blackhawks thanks to the length of his deal. - Neate has a breakdown of the CFL players from the CIS ranks over at Out of Left Field . - A great piece from Joe Posnanski on the Royals' problems handling injuries. Th...

Hello, readers! As you might have noticed, there have been a few changes around here. I'm now part of the excellent TheScore.com Sports Federation , which will be a lot of fun, and have a real domain name to boot (sportingmadness.ca)! Check out some of the other sites in the network if you get the chance; they're all listed by category in the black bar at the top of the page, but I figured I'd spotlight a few of my personal favourites. For you baseball fans, there's a lot of great sites in the network,including Drunk Jays Fans and Ghostrunner on First . For hockey nuts, check out the likes of Down Goes Brown and the Canucks Hockey Blog . In basketball, RaptorBlog and DinoNation are both excellent, and for soccer, there's some terrific stuff over at TFC Connected and Arsenalist . In general sports, Sports and the City is the best comprehensive Toronto sports blog out there and there's some excellent insight into the world of sports at The Tony Ambrogio Expe...

It was a big day for Toronto FC, as general manager Mo Johnston released veteran goalkeeper Greg Sutton and traded a third-round draft pick to the San Jose Earthquakes for defender Nick Garcia and the rights to Canadian international striker Ali Gerba . I have some analysis on the move and a few links over at Out of Left Field .

Tomorrow's going to be a big day for Canadian women's soccer; it's new head coach Carolina Morace 's first home match in charge of the team against the most feared side in the world, the top-ranked Americans. The U.S. is 37-3-4 against Canada all time, but recent results between the sides have been close, so it should be a good match. I have a full match preview posted over at Out of Left Field and will be live-blogging the match here and at The 24th Minute tomorrow night. The game is at BMO Field and will be broadcast live on Rogers Sportsnet. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. Eastern time; come by for the live blog then!

Neate has some interesting thoughts on the newspaper industry over at Out of Left Field , particularly with relation to an online subscription-based model either through cable companies or done as a standalone (as Newsday is trying [ Steven Musil , CNET). I don't think this is the way to go, though. For one thing, subscriptions are untenable if free alternatives are offered, so you'd have to get all the papers on board (nigh to impossible) and others would certainly start free alternatives of their own to challenge this. Furthermore, bringing in subscriptions would generate some new revenue, but it would also lower your traffic numbers and thus either your online advertising rates or the number of ads you're able to sell. In my view, this would mean that going to subscriptions would either have a minimal effect or even a negative one on the bottom line. For me, the solution is a traditional one with a couple of new elements. Make all the content free; this increases the ...

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...

Apologies for the shortage of posts here; I've been busy writing for Out of Left Field for the last couple of days. There hasn't been a shortage of interesting stuff, though. Here's my post on the Arena Football League's potentially impending demise and what that could mean for the CFL; I've also written a follow-up post on the Prime Time Sports segment discussing it and one today on the newest member of Toronto FC, Dwayne De Rosario . Should be back to regular posting here shortly.

Now would be a great time to extend good wishes to soccer writer extraordinaire Ben Knight , who has just launched his own site after the Globe decided to move in a different direction [ Duane Rollins , Out of Left Field ] with their On Soccer blog. Ben is a terrific writer and a great guy, and I'm sure he'll find a lot of success with this. What I value most about his work is his ability to see the shades of grey I referenced earlier . Even on the topics he's most passionate about, such as the bungling of the CSA and some of the mistakes made by Toronto FC, he has avoided the pitfalls of absolutism and put forth balanced, reasoned and rational arguments to improve matters, rather than just the constant vitriol and criticism without solutions found in other quarters. He can balance being a journalist and being a fan, which is a difficult line to walk, but he does it very well in my mind and appeals to a broad range of people as a result. All soccer fans should definitely...

Ben Knight has dug up a really interesting press release from the Montreal Impact on Montreal dropping its MLS bid, which I covered over at Out of Left Field a couple of days ago. Here's the release: "RECTIFICATION REGARDING MONTREAL'S BID FOR MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER Following MLS Commissioner Don Garber's statements regarding Montreal's bid, the Montreal partnership group would like to bring one important rectification: Montreal did not withdrew its bid from Major League Soccer but was informed that the league did not retain its bid. Out of respect for the Grey Cup festivities, the partnership group will not make any additional statements over the weekend. However, the President of the Montreal Impact [and] Saputo Stadium, Mr. Joey Saputo, who is spearheading Montreal's MLS bid, will meet the media: Monday, November 24, 2008, 10:30 am, Saputo Stadium, 4750 Sherbrooke Street, Montreal." That's fascinating. According to this release, it wasn't tha...

Just thought I'd mention that I'm doing CFL coverage today over at Out of Left Field . East final preview is here , West final preview here and a East final recap is here ; I'll put a West final recap up there later tonight, hopefully between periods of the Queen's-McGill game (which will be live-blogged here, as previously mentioned).

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...

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.

It was tremendous to hear that the Vancouver Whitecaps claimed the United Soccer League Division I championship [ Marc Weber , The Vancouver Province ] Sunday with a 2-1 win over the Puerto Rico Islanders [ Jim Morris , The Canadian Press via The Globe and Mail ]*. It's the Whitecaps' second championship in three years (their last one came in 2006), and their first championship clinched at home since they won the 1991 Canadian Soccer League title. That's some great news for Vancouver soccer fans. Yes, the Lions are still doing well and the Canucks are off to a 2-0 start, but for at least a little while, the Caps claimed top spot in the Vancouver spotlight. *Morris has some great tidbits in the notes at the bottom of his story, including that this is the first time the USL men's final has ever been between two teams from outside the U.S. and that the Vancouver-Puerto Rico trip is the second-longest in any world soccer league (bested only by Vladivostok and Kaliningrad...

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 ...

It was an impressive week for Queen's sports, which resulted in two Gaels taking OUA Athlete of the Week honours. I've already covered defensive tackle Dee Sterling 's superlative performance in Saturday's football game against Laurier both here and at Out of Left Field , and will have more on his win in tomorrow's Journal , but his stats deserve repeating again: five solo sacks, one assisted sack, six solo tackles, four assisted tackles and six tackles for a loss, leading to a net loss of 37 yards. He broke the all-time Queen's record of four sacks, jointly held by Jim Aru and Marc Mitchell , and there's a good chance he'll earn CIS Defensive Player of the Week. I didn't write about Jackie Byers yet, though, so she deserves some play here as well. The first-year lacrosse player turned in an incredible nine-goal, two-assist performance in Queen's three games over the weekend, leading the Gaels to a 3-0 record with wins over the University of T...

Breaking down Queen's win over Laurier this afternoon (which you may have missed while pondering that the U of T Varsity Blues are now 2-1 [Varsity Blues Sports Information]...) The score: 41-7, Queen's. The recap: Here [My recap, Out of Left Field ]. How I saw it: In person. The Good: - Dee Sterling: Defensive tackle Sterling had a monster game for the Gaels, recording five solo sacks (a Queen's record) and adding a shared sack with Osie Ukwuoma . He also led Queen's with six solo tackles, four assisted tackles and six tackles for a loss (which added to a total loss of 37 yards). As a result, Sterling was named the Boston Pizza Player of the Game.* *I don't normally use corporate names for awards, but I make an exception in this case because I worked at Boston Pizza for two years (as a delivery driver) and loved it. Very, very good pizza. Also, they gave plenty of pizza to the press box at halftime, which was awesome. - Queen's defensive line as a whole: ...

Seeing as I'm spending so much time writing for other sites and publications these days, which means this blog doesn't get updated as often as I liked, I figured I'd bring in a new feature and rework an old one. I'll try to do a Bucholtz Roundup post every week with links to some of the pieces I've written (for any readers who want to see what else I'm doing and why I don't have much time to write here). To keep it from getting too self-promotional, I also plan to include a Best of the Intertubes section, where I highlight some of the most interesting pieces I've seen over the last week (it's pretty much the old Links of the Day, but that never turned out to be daily and I like this title better). Collectively, I'll call the combined post the Intertubes Roundup. Here's the first one. Bucholtz Roundup: Out of Left Field / The CIS Blog : - "More coverage of CIS Sports on the way?": This is a piece based off of the feature I wrote ...

There's been quite a bit of controversy over the Queen's Athletics and Recreation Department's recent decision to refer to their teams as the "Queen's Gaels" from now on instead of the traditional "Queen's Golden Gaels". For dead-tree edition background on the story, check out my piece in today's Journal or the article Jordan Press wrote for Monday's Kingston Whig-Standard . There's also some solid pieces of the Out of Left Field variety, including Neate 's initial post on the rebranding and name change, Neate's post on Monday's football game (which includes some reaction to the name change and Duane 's first upset comment on the matter), a satirical press release written by Duane about the next logical step, dropping the "Thigh" from the Oil Thigh*, and Duane's post today suggesting that this is all part of "the modern marketers' pathological need to control every aspect of everything....