Sporting Madness

One of the growing trends in CIS athletics in recent years has been a shift towards national recruiting. Local and regional recruits used to make up the majority of most university teams, and while they still have an important role to play, we're seeing more and more athletes head across the country for school. One such case is B.C. product Dylan Ainsworth , who I wrote about recently for the South Delta Leader . Ainsworth and his teammate Sam Livingston led the South Delta Sun Devils to the 2008 AA high school championship, and both were sought-after recruits locally. They both elected to head to Ontario after receiving athletic scholarships, though, and will suit up for the Western Mustangs next fall. There have always been some prominent athletes who have gone out of province for school, but they used to be few and far between. These days, these stories are becoming more and more common. There are probably a multitude of reasons behind this shift. We frequently talk about ...

After much ado and Internet wrangling, my poll of the Top 10 Gaels' moments of the year (a collaboration with the Athletics Department ) is finally live. Unfortunately, only part of the explanatory text made it into the Journal post on the matter, so I figured I'd just post the whole thing and the survey link here as well. Check it out and vote for your favourite! If you feel I left out any key moments or just want to talk about the list, post a comment here or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz[at]hotmail.com. Here's the full release on the matter: VOTE ONLINE FOR QUEEN’S TOP SPORTING MOMENT OF THE 2008-09 SEASON Kingston, Ont. (March 19, 2009) – The Queen’s Journal invites fans of the Queen’s Gaels to vote online for the top sporting moments of the 2008-09 season. Fans can visit the Journal website at www.queensjournal.ca to cast their ballot and select this year’s top sporting moment. The moments will be ranked and unveiled at the 73rd Annual Colour Awards Athletic Banquet o...

One of the things we often forget about democracy, especially at the level of student politics, is the impact some decisions can have. That was evident at tonight's AMS Annual General Meeting, where around 800 students packed Ban Righ Cafeteria and almost unanimously approved the athletics department's request for a $120 fee increase [myself, Queen's Journal ] over four years. It's easy to see why we often have voter apathy, though; much of the rest of the meeting was consumed with the petty squabbles and meaningless arguments more frequently found in politics, and it's a credit to those who managed to stick it out until the Athletics motion. Still, this one decision was incredibly important and will be remembered as such. Yes, there was a long process of research, polling and discussion leading up to today, but in the end, the future direction of the department all came down to this vote. Without the increase, Queen's sports would have been reduced to a shell...

Next Monday's going to be a very significant moment in the future of Queen's athletics. That's the date of the AMS (Alma Mater Society, the undergraduate student government) general meeting, which takes place in Ban Righ Hall at 8 p.m. All current students have a vote at the meeting. The key motion to be addressed is a $120 increase to the current athletics fee of $131.75, spread out over several years (you can see the details on the Queen's site here , along with some very interesting budgeting data). Steep university budget cuts mean that the athletics department is facing some challenging times financially and may have to drastically alter their programs if they don't get this increase. Anyway, an interesting foreshadowing of what may go down at the AGM occured March 1 at a special AMS Assembly meeting to consider endorsing the fee increase and sending it to the general meeting for further ratification. I got the bare-bones details on the meeting in last week...

Few things during my time at Queen's have depressed me more than finding out yesterday [myself and Emily Davies , Queen's Journal ] that the dream of a new hockey arena on Main Campus was all but dead. Sure, they've been talking about it for a while and there are some financial benefits (although no one I talked to yesterday could confirm if those numbers are still accurate), but for me, the arena was always one of the big selling points of the Queen's Centre. New gyms and student space are great, but the sports experience I probably miss more than anything else here were the Friday night hockey games at Jock Harty I'd go to with my buddies from the dorm floor back in first year. There was great student support, beer gardens and just generally a tremendous atmosphere. I've been to plenty of great Queen's hockey games since, including this past weekend's Carr-Harris Cup , but it's never been quite the same; even though the Memorial Centre is a good...

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging Queen's men's hockey games here both Friday and Saturday. The Gaels face 4-20-1 Ryerson Friday night and then take on 7-16-2 RMC Saturday in the annual Carr-Harris Cup. Both games are at 7:30 p.m. at the Memorial Centre, and both are likely to prove rather important for the OUA playoff picture. Queen's (10-13-2) is one point behind Ottawa for the final OUA East playoff spot. We'll see if interim captain Billy Burke can continue his streak; he's notched 2 goals in each of the last three games. Check tomorrow's Journal for a piece by Julie Stewart-Binks on Tuesday's win over Carleton and a profile of Burke by Anand Srivastava , and then come join the live blog tomorrow night!

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...

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-...

Apologies for the ridiculously long absence: I've had to crank out 45 pages of essays in the last couple of weeks in addition to my normal work at the paper , so I haven't felt like writing much in the little downtime I've had. School's almost done for the term, though, and I don't have much Journal work to do until January, so I should be able to get more done here. Expect several posts today with more to come on the weekend. Thanks for sticking around here, and apologies again for the lack of content lately. - Andrew

We were pretty pressed for space in this week's Journal , so I had to cut this piece on the men's basketball team's opening weekend games down substantially for the paper. I figured I'd post it here in its entirety for anyone interested in more details on the team and their opening games. For more Gaels' hoops coverage, check out my profile of Mitch Leger in today's paper: I'll have another posts on the team up here shortly. Here's the full story: Basketball opens with a bang By Andrew Bucholtz Sports Editor The men’s basketball team’s started the season with a bang Friday. They earned a 72-67 victory against the Waterloo Warriors, a team that was 6-16 last season but had defeated the Gaels 92-62 in the preseason. Point guard Baris Ondul poured in 19 points against Waterloo and added six assists and three rebounds. Ondul said the team was out for revenge after their ignominious loss to the Warriors in the pre-season. “We were motivated for redemption,...

I learned just this afternoon that Teddi Firmi , the star point guard for the Queen's women's basketball team and last year's OUA East Defensive Player of the Year ["Women's teams exit early," myself, Queen's Journal , February 29, 2008], has decided to quit basketball and join the women's rugby team. She'll be playing her first match with them tomorrow on the road against the McMaster Marauders. This is a big loss for the basketball team. Firmi was their starting point guard last year, and demonstrated a tremendous ability to control the flow of the game and find the open player. She could score as well, but her greatest talent was on defence, where she was an almost-unparalled stopper. The team has a lot of promising young players, though, so it will be interesting to see if any of them can step up and fill her shoes. It's going to be a very different women's hoops squad this year, as they've lost their best defensive player in Firmi...