CIS CORNER: JUST TO WHET THE FOOTBALL WHISTLE

• The Whig-Standard's Claude Scilley had a feature the other day on Queen's Golden Gaels tailback Marty Gordon, who's coming off knee surgery. This is why we kept bringing up Marty Gordon all summer.
  
  The Gaels have an exhibition game this afternoon vs. McGill, the old rivals from back in the day. This should have been commemorated with a Top 5 of Kill McGill memories, but too many involve establishments on Rue Ste-Catherine. Here's a couple:


1. 1992, Kingston: Gaels' path to the Vanier Cup nearly ends in the first playoff game when the underdog Redmen, who were down 17 points at one point, block Jamie Galloway's punt in the last minute and return it for a touchdown. However, the touchdown is negated by an illegal block, and the Gaels pick off the Hail Mary seconds later. The rest of the march to the Vanier was cake by comparison -- Queen's won the next three playoff games by a combined 64 points, including that shutout in the Vanier (never done before or since).
2. 1996, Montreal: The good guys lost, but that didn't mean we still didn't get to rush the field. There's the Molson Stadium security, helping Queen's students down to the field. (It was McGill's homecoming, so their students were only outnumbered at the game by about 3-to-1.) How nice of them. Yours truly -- or more to the point, Captain Morgan, who had taken the wheel about the time the bus to the game was going past Gananoque -- was in no mood to wait for assistance. Turns out it's about a 12-foot drop from the stands to the field. Gravity hurts, frosh!
3. 1997, Kingston: As the game wound down (Gaels 21, McGill 7), student security guards started to line up to keep the people in the upper level of the student section from rushing on to the field. Somehow, we broke through, lost our balance (Purple Jesus does that to your equilibrium and rolled down the grassy hill next to the stands. Made it!


• There are concerns the Acadia Axemen might have to shift its home opener to Halifax if the new FieldTurf isn't installed and playable at Raymond Field in Wolfville. Acadia plays Mount Allison on Sept. 8.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.