If you're one of the few, the proud, the semi-geeky who follow Canadian university sports closely (guilty as charged here), this is holy flurking schnit worthy.
The CIS Final 10 men's basketball championship is being moved out of Halifax, where it had been exclusively played since 1984. Beginning in 2008, The Carleton Ravens, four-time national champs (thanks to a lot of Kingston/Napanee talent, it must be noted), will host the Final 10 for three years.
The handwriting on the wall for his move has been apparent for years. There had always been complaints about the expense of travelling to Halifax every year and the home-court advantage it gave to the the Atlantic conference teams, but it was the one place in the country where you knew you could get 7,000 to 8,000 people out to watch a championship game between two teams from different regions of Canada. In this country, where there's far less of a consciousness about collegiate sports, that's saying a lot.
I'll consider myself fortunate that I was able to cover a CIS tourney in Halifax while it was the fixed site of what was then the Final 8. It was, as I wrote in a 2002 piece for The Coast, a Halifax weekly, an Event. In hindsight, there was a kind of skin feeling you get when you know the atmosphere you're in is different and special from anywhere else.
The forces behind the decision know they're giving up something by leaving Halifax, but it's only right to give the rest of the country a shot. Ottawa's plans even call for using Scotiabank Place. Which is good, because that building still needs to be christened with a championship celebration, and its primary tenant isn't going to do that any time soon.
Incidentally, some people still don't accept the 10-team format that was brought in a couple of years ago. It was the type of thing you always see in academic and the world of spors administrators -- try to offer something for everyone, but in the end, you wonder if anyone's truly satisfied. The tournament added two more berths to try to resolve the dilemma over giving two spots to the host Atlantic conference and still have room for a wild-card berth should any top-ranked team stumble in its own conference playoffs. Never mind that it now meant the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds face winning four games in four nights, rather than three in three.
On the other hand, if the 10-team format had been around in '02, we might be talking about the five-time champion Carleton Ravens. That season, Carleton was upset in the Ontario East final by York, so its season was over. That happened again this year, but Carleton got a wild card and went on to win another national title.
OTHER BUSINESS
- Lost in the controversy over the "unwanted" timeout the Dallas Mavericks moaned about after Game 5 of the NBA Finals: it's a stupid rule to allow the team to inbound the ball at midcourt after a timeout. You take timeout after an opposing basket or free throw, you should have to imbound from under the end line -- like in every other basketball league known to humankind.
- A second CIS hoops note: the Brock Badgers are going to play a pre-season game against the Florida Gators -- the NCAA D1 champion Florida Gators -- in September, and it's sold out 2½ months ahead of time. Hat tip to good buddy Darryl G. Smart, Woodstock Sentinel-Review sports ed. and a Brock alum.
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