Sporting Madness

York Lions head coach Warren Craney made two interesting hires today , picking Michael Faulds as the team's new offensive coordinator and Eric Laflamme as their new defensive coordinator. Although it's his first coaching job at the CIS level, Faulds needs no introduction to CIS football fans; he finished up a stellar quarterbacking career at Western last year and holds the CIS all-time passing record with 10,811 career yards. He led the Mustangs to back-to-back Yates Cups in 2007 and 2008, took them to the 2008 Vanier Cup, where they fell to Laval, and brought them back to the Yates this past year, where they lost to Queen's. He also played for Team Canada at the Global Junior Championships. There was some talk that a CFL team might consider giving him a shot, but nothing seemed to materialize. This move would suggest that Faulds' playing career is at an end. His CIS coaching career may just be beginning, but Faulds already has some experience in the field. He has ...

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 .

I found this [CIS press release] a couple days ago, but it's taken a little while to sort through the maze of regulations involved. Basically, the York Lions men's soccer team, which was top-ranked in the country as of the last coaches poll, forfeited four games through self-disclosure of an ineligible player. The ineligible player is one Andrea Lombardo of Toronto FC fame, which raises questions of why he was allowed to play in the first place. In any case, York had to forfeit four games and York's men's head coach is Carmine Isacco , who has previously been the Toronto FC goalkeeping coach (his York bio page says he still is , but the Toronto FC roster page has Eddie Kehoe listed as goalkeeping coach). Just about every recreational TFC fan knows about Lombardo, so you'd expect that most CIS soccer coaches (who would be likely to follow Canadian soccer, at least generally) would also have caught on. It seems logical that Isacco, who was a TFC staff member last y...

The 8-11 women's team, fresh off an upset of the 13-6 Laurentian Voyageurs, almost made it two in a row against the OUA East-leading York Lions (16-3 heading in to tonight's game), but came up just short, losing 71-66 in overtime. Queen's trailed 29-21 at the half, but outscored York 22-14 in the third and held them even in the fourth to force the extra frame. It really didn't need to go that far, though. With less than a minute to go and the score knotted at 60, Queen's star forward Sarah Barnes hauled down a defensive rebound and started a fast break, but point guard Teddi Firmi missed a tightly contested layup that could have given the Gaels the lead. On the ensuing Lions drive, Queen's forward Anne Murphy fouled York's Emily Van Hoof, who led York with 21points on the night. Van Hoof went to the line, but missed both shots, perhaps thrown off by the noise from the stands. They were the only foul shots she missed all night in a 9-for-11 effort from the li...