Sporting Madness

In a few short months, the Waterloo doping scandal has gone from an investigation of one player to a team-wide investigation to league-wide concerns over drug testing. Today saw the first tangible impact on a league-wide scale, though; as Sean Fitz-Gerald of The Canadian Press reports , Waterloo has suspended its football program for the coming year. The coaching staff has been placed on paid administrative leave. I'll get into analysis on this later, and I believe Rob Pettapiece has a post coming at The CIS Blog as well, but for now, let's focus on the facts. As Mark Masters reports , Canadian Centre for Ethics In Sport (the organization that oversees CIS drug testing) president Paul Melia announced that nine anti-doping violations were found after tests of Waterloo's 62 football players. As Masters writes, CIS CEO Marg McGregor called it "the biggest doping situation in CIS history. "The results announced today illustrate that the CIS core value ...

It's been a good couple of weeks for CIS football. After a strong showing by CIS prospects in the CFL draft, including first-overall pick Shomari Williams (who I interviewed before the draft), six CIS players appear in good shape to catch on with NFL teams. The Detroit Lions signed [ Sean Yuille , Pride Of Detroit ] Laurier defensive end Chima Ihekwoaba after their rookie minicamp [ Tom Kowalski , Mlive.com , via Ron Balaskovitz ], and Concordia linebacker Cory Greenwood signed with [ Mark Masters , National Post ] the Kansas City Chiefs today. Waterloo offensive lineman Joel Reinders has signed with Cleveland [ David Naylor , The Globe and Mail , Concordia offensive lineman Kristian Matte has inked a deal with Houston [ Herb Zurkowsky , The Gazette ], Bishop's wide receiver Shawn Gore reached an agreement with Green Bay [ Dave Heller , Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ] and Regina wide receiver Jordan Sisco signed with the Indianapolis Colts [ Ian Hamilton , Regina Le...

I have a post up at The CIS Blog on Canada West's decision to add UBC-Okanagan, reject UNBC and VIU and make UFV and Thompson Rivers University permanent members. Might be worth a read for those interested in CIS issues; it's been a long process to get to this point, and it's still far from over.

The CFL draft is coming up [ Jaime Stein , CFL.ca ] this Sunday (noon Eastern, TSN). It's always an exciting time of the year, particularly from the perspective of watching CIS stars making the jump to the pros. To get you excited for it, here's an e-mail interview I just conducted with Shomari Williams , the Queen's defensive end who led the Gaels to the Vanier Cup this year and is ranked first overall by the CFL's scouting bureau. We talked about the CFL, CIS, the NCAA and his up-and-coming business helping recruits. My questions and his responses are below (slight edits for clarity). Andrew Bucholtz: You've made a pretty meteoric rise up the CFL Scouting Bureau rankings, from #15 at the start of last season to #4 in December to #1 earlier this year. Do you pay any attention to the rankings, and if so, what did it feel like to take over the top spot? Shomari Williams: It felt great being named the top prospect in Canada. I worked real hard all season and ...

It's a special day for Simon Fraser University's basketball teams. They're hosting the archrival UBC Thunderbirds in a pair of rather important games. On the women's side, the No. 1 Clan are coming off thumpings of the Winnipeg Wesmen and Manitoba Bisons last weekend. They're looking to maintain their perfect 13-0 record in conference play, but they'll face a tough opponent in 10-4 UBC, as the Thunderbirds are tied for second in the Canada West Pacific division. It's also the last home league game for their seniors, including popular blogger Kate Hole , and the team's also raising funds for breast cancer research. On the men's side, the 12-2 Clan ( ranked No. 7 ) are flying high after knocking off No. 1 UBC 82-79 Wednesday Thursday (thanks, Peter !). That was the 13-1 Thunderbirds' first conference loss. They'll be out for revenge in today's rematch. The other interesting subplot to these games is that they're the final regul...

William Houston reported the other day that the long-anticipated CBC Sports Plus digital sports channel not only won't be launching this year, it may not launch at all. Houston cites carriage issues as one of the major problems, which makes sense considering the difficulties TSN ran into trying to get Rogers to carry TSN2 (and TSN2 had much more high-demand programming when it started than CBC Sports Plus was anticipated to have). This is disappointing news for Canadian sports fans as a whole, as more channels tend to mean more sports events are available. However, it may be particularly damaging to CIS fans hoping to see more televised university sports content. I've been following the CBC Sports Plus saga for several years now, and first spoke to CBC Sports head Scott Moore on the subject for a Queen's Journal piece on CIS TV coverage in March 2008 . At that time, he seemed quite optimistic that the CIS might have a plcae on the new channel, commenting, "I thin...

Everyone's favourite hitman contractor Mike Danton is supposedly joining [ Neate Sager , The CIS Blog ] the Saint Mary's Huskies to play Canadian Interuniversity Sport hockey. It's not clear yet [ Noah Love , National Post ] if he'll be able to play later this season or if he'll have to wait until next year, but he has already enrolled in the university. Danton during his days with the St. Louis Blues From a strict on-ice perspective, this is probably a good thing for the Huskies. Regardless of his legal issues and prison time, Danton at one point has the skills to play in the NHL. It may take a while for him to regain that form, and he may never be back at where he was, but he'll probably still be one of the most talented players in the league. Most guys in CIS are former major junior players who couldn't make it to the AHL or the NHL; some of the top CIS talents in recent years (such as UNB's Rob Hennigar ) have gone on to pro deals. Danton wa...

It's a sad day for CIS soccer. I have a full story on James' departure and its implications up over at The CIS Blog and The 24th Minute .

Join me and the rest of the cast from The CIS Blog for a live blog of the Vanier Cup contest between Queen's and the University of Calgary. Kickoff is set for 12 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Mountain/9 a.m. Pacific. The Final Countdown! Vanier Cup live blog, Calgary vs. Queen's

Just a quick note that I'll be live-blogging today's OUA playoff football games with a cast of characters from The CIS Blog , Always OUA and The Western Gazette , among others. Queen's takes on McMaster at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m Pacific, and Western takes on Laurier at 4:30 p.m. Eastern/1:30 p.m. Pacific. Both games are on The Score , and both live blogs will be posted here. Hope to see you then!

It should be a great day in CIS football, as the No. 2 Western Mustangs take on the No. 10 Guelph Gryphons live on The Score 's University Rush. I'll be live-blogging it here and at The CIS Blog with Neate Sager and Rob Pettapiece , plus anyone else who can make it out. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. Come join us then! Western-Guelph liveblog

It's quite the day for disciplinary stories. The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that Carleton has suspended their women's soccer team over a hazing incident. The team will not play against U of T and Ryerson this weekend, presumably forfeiting those games, and will not take the field again until the university's ongoing investigation is finished. This could be a big scandal. There may be hazing incidents I'm unaware of, but the last time I can remember an entire team being suspended was in 2005 when McGill forfeited its football season. Queen's Journal sports editors of the time James Bradshaw and Dan Robson ran an excellent piece on the matter, looking at the wider issue of hazing. Of course, that also wound up being the year featuring the Windsor Spitfires' hazing scandal and the fight between Steve Downie and Akim Aliu . The two incidents, coming so close together, turned into a big national story and put a spotlight on hazing in sports. Over time, that s...

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...

The University of Calgary announced [ Ben Matchett , University of Calgary Sports Information Director] today that they will cut varsity funding [ Neate Sager , The CIS Blog ] to the men's soccer and women's field hockey teams. There's a chance that those teams could still survive if they're able to raise funds through alternative methods, but it doesn't look good for them. Tennis and golf have also been lowered to competitive club status. By contrast, women's soccer will be returned to fully-funded status and women's hockey is applying to return to CIS play after winning the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference. After the changes, Calgary will have eight fully-funded team sports (men’s and women’s basketball, football, men’s and women’s hockey, women’s soccer, and men’s and women’s volleyball) and fully-funded teams in cross country, swimming, track and field and wrestling. This isn't all that surprising, as plenty of American and Canadian schools hav...

Former CFL president Jeff Giles is off to Hamilton. Giles is taking over as the McMaster Marauders' athletic director after Therese Quigley leaves this summer to go to Western. I have more details and analysis over at The CIS Blog .

This is rather spur-of-the moment, but myself and some of the other writers from The CIS Blog thought we might as well live blog this afternoon's men's hockey final between the Western Mustangs and the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds (which can be seen on all four Sportsnet regional channels and at ssncanada.ca ). Who will take home the University Cup? It should be quite the clash, so come join in the live blog below! Men's hockey final

I'm off to Ottawa later this morning for the men's basketball nationals, the Final 8 . It should be a great tournament. Four of the five of us from The CIS Blog are going to be in attendance and will be providing wall-to-wall coverage there, but I'm also planning to do some stuff at this site. In particular, I'll be involved in the live-blogging of all the Friday and Sunday games, and thanks to the magic of CoverItLive , you should be able to access those live blogs here, through Out of Left Field or through The CIS Blog . I have to return to Kingston for some Journal meetings on Saturday, so I won't likely be in on those live blogs (I think the guys are still planning to do them), but you can access those at The CIS Blog. Here's tomorrow's slate of games: #2 Calgary vs. #7 Concordia: 12:30 p.m. Eastern ( SSN Canada ) #3 UBC vs. #6 Dalhousie: 2:30 p.m. Eastern ( SSN Canada ) #4 Western vs. #5 Ottawa: 6:00 p.m. Eastern (Live on The Score ), also webcast...

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.

Apologies for the lack of posts around here lately: I'm currently serving as the Communications Coordinator for the 2008 Canadian Open 17U/18U volleyball championships , which means a lot of writing, editing and dealing with local media (yes, I've gone to the dark side) and not a lot of time to do anything else. We're working 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. days trying to keep everything going, and it can be a little difficult, especially given the scope of the tournament. Anyways, this is a pretty cool tournament with a lot of interesting stories, and it's also related to university volleyball: there's over 100 university coaches, scouts and recruiters here from Canada and the States to evaluate potential new talent for their programs. To give some background on the tournament, one of the lead-in stories I wrote is posted below: you can check out my other pieces on the tournament website . I'll try to check in with an update here whenever possible. There's also good tourn...