CIS CORNER: GGs GIT-ER-DONE IN MONTREAL

Notes on our teams of interest in The 613 ...

HOOPS

• Gee-Gees: Losing 78-69 to Toronto at home Saturday night (cishoops.ca has the full details) likely didn't teach the U of O anything they didn't suspect about their team on some level. They've known that their bench and secondary scoring is a bit thin and that was exacerbated by small forward Sean Peter sitting out the game with a hip injury. Josh Gibson-Bascombe also went out late in the game with an injury (after scoring 32 points), which bears keeping an eye on.
  
  The bottom line is the Gee-Gees (15-4) will have to be road warriors in a potential OUA East semi-final against the U of T (14-4). Even beating Carleton in the season finale on Feb. 16 wouldn't help, since U of T has a soft remaining schedule and the tie-breaker edge.
  
  So what rule of thumb is the trump card in three weeks' time? The reality that it's hard for one good team to beat another good team three times in one season, or that the Gee-Gees' one bugaboo has been winning on the road?
• Ravens: Carleton kept on keepin' on with 21- and 23-point wins over U of T and Ryerson. Stu Turnbull had a team-high 51 points across the two games.
  
  Again, the Carleton women's team being 6-14 belies a good story ... they should have a good chance of winning a playoff game against Queen's (which is having an off-year). Ten players scored in Saturday's 70-37 romp over Ryerson, led by Kelly Lyons (15 points) and Kelly Killoran (13).
  
  Coming within two points vs. Toronto on Friday, that's almost a big win.
• Gaels: First thing that jumped out about the game summary from Saturday's 74-67 win over York was that Mitch Leger took a lot of a shots (20 of Queen's 58). He made only six, but Queen's has a chance to let him find his stroke.

HOCKEY: GGs GIT-ER-DONE IN MONTREAL

• Gee-Gees: Ottawa, especially Kevin Glode, who scored in both road wins this weekend, rose to the challenge with wins at McGill (2-1) and Concordia (3-1) that took them from the fringe of the playoff race to in position to have home ice in the first round. They also did Carleton and Queen's (especially Queen's, which likely frittered away a first-round bye by losing to Ryerson) a huge favour by beating Concordia.
  
  There's a rant about this at The CIS Blog about the discrepancy in the standings on the CIS website.
  
  As best as anyone can figure out, here's the standings:
  
  1) Trois-Rivieres (division leader): 39, 3
  2) Toronto (division leader): 27, 2
  3) McGill: 35, 2
  4) Ottawa: 28, 2
  5) Queen's: 27, 1
  6) Carleton: 25, 2
  
  7) Concordia: 23, 3
  
• Ravens: The 7-1 losses to Trois-Rivieres shouldn't be that big a faith-shaker for Carleton, unless they're running out of gas ... the Stingers still have to play Trois-Rivieres twice. Carleton's last two are at home.
• Gaels: It's still win-and-they're-in for Queen's next Wednesday vs. RMC, only now it's referring to the playoffs, not the No. 2 seed.
  
  It's apropos Queen's best chance in years of finishing first would go up in smoke in a loss to Ryerson, who won 6-5 on Saturday. (Queen's still makes the playoffs if they can avoid a similar pratfall against RMC on Wednesday in the Carr-Harris Cup game.)
  
  Queen's, which got a three-point effort from captain Jeff Ovens in a losing cause, could always count on a couple easy wins per year over the likes of RMC and Ryerson. Now the Rams are finally getting serious about their hockey. Queen's administration has to make more of a commitment to the program, especially since the newbies, Carleton and UOIT, aren't going to be milquetoast about building up their teams.
  
  Nice little score for the Queen's athletic department, the hockey team and the CFRC crew: The YouTube clip of Brady Olsen pulling the ol' how's-she-goin' and going in to score from last week's game against RMC was played on TSN on Thursday.
  
  
  
  It's only come to our attention now since, living in Ottawa, there was no point in watching TSN that night. Heaven forbid people should ever be able to choose between a Senators and a Leafs game on a weeknight. You can't put that power in the hands of civilians, you know.
  
  This is part of the argument for why the CIS should be pulling out all the stops to get some of its basketball and hockey games on the proposed amateur sports network that the Canadian Olympic Committee wants to establish.
  
  In 2008, you're nothin' if you don't have highlights. Perhaps the cable sports networks, especially the ones that are going to be broadcasting national championships, would like to get some CIS content in their highlight packages, but they need a little production value and need something they can easily capture while on a tight deadline. If there was CIS hockey or basketball on a digital channel every Friday and Saturday, you'd see more highlights on TSN and The Score, and that might spark more widespread interest.
  
  For the record, the clip of the Olsen goal was up on The CIS Blog on Tuesday.

(Credit for the clip goes to our man Tyler King.)