Sporting Madness

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...

James Mirtle of the tremendous eponymous hockey blog (and a former CIS Blog colleague) has a terrific feature in Monday's Globe and Mail on Queen's football head coach Pat Sheahan . Anyone interested in Queen's football should give it a read: highly recommended.

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...

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...

Today’s football game between the 3-0 Gaels and the 2-1* University of Toronto Varsity Blues, which will be live-blogged right here (kickoff at 1 p.m.), should be an interesting clash. It’s a great matchup for Toronto, as the vast majority expects them to be beaten to an unrecognizable pulp, so the weight of expectations on the Blues is reduced to a single feather. *It still feels weird writing Varsity Blues with a number other than zero in front. For Queen’s, the situation’s approaching Kobayashi Maru-like levels of difficulty, as there’s almost no way this game can improve their standings. Everyone expects a big win, so even a superlative performance will be shrugged off with a “aw, it was against Toronto.” A closer game would lead to intense questioning, while a loss would lead to calls for heads, perhaps displayed John the Baptist-style on a platter. Very little good can come from this game, and there’s the potential for a lot of negatives to arise. Looking on the bright side of li...

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: ...