Saturday, May 10, 2008

CIS CORNER: DAN'S THE MAN...

Queen's Golden Gaels QB Dan Brannagan apparently didn't show too badly at the CIS East-West Bowl on Saturday in Hamilton, his hometown.

Brannagan threw 11 times for 78 yards, including a 50-yard strike to Mount A's Gary Ross which set up the East's first touchdown in its 25-12 win. (You know it's Canadian football when the score is straight out of Friday night co-ed slo-pitch.) Brannagan hitting the big home run ball against some of the best country's defenders, that's enough to tide over anyone who sees the world through Tricoloured glasses.

Bucholtz has more over at The CIS Blog. Our man Jody Kingsbury has the highlights.



(That's Western's Mike Faulds throwing into double coverage for an interception right before Brannagan connects on the 50-yarder. McMaster's new stadium looks like it's one of the best in CIS football.)

Once and for all, is it Dan or Danny for Brannagan? Each name has been used interchangeably during the QB's first three seasons at Queen's. It's absurd to think this fully explains Queen's propensity for being peaks-and-valleys on offence sometimes, but no one will know for sure until this gets hashed out.

(Obviously, if the Brannagans or any of Queen's offensive coaches, should read this, it's all in jest. Please bear in mind that Alex Ovechkin seems to have done well since clarifying that he preferred a shorter name.)

Putting away childish things -- it's in Corinthians, people! -- would mean going with the more dignified Dan for a senior quarterback to be. Of course, putting away childish things would also mean letting the hating-on-Western schtick die, and it's still way too soon for that, even if it's been seven years since that February morning when a rejection letter from Western's journalism school arrived at the Sager manse.

(Did everyone also see that veteran fullback Julian Radlein retired from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats? He has his reasons, but it's just twisted enough to think that he saw the handwriting on the wall when Mike Giffin was drafted from Queen's. One irony of Professor Giff going to The Hammer is that he wore the same number for the Gaels, 21, as the school's all-time leading receiver, James MacLean, who was went to camp with the Ticats twice earlier this decade and came up just short each time.)

5 comments:

Tyler King said...

It's Danny Brannagan. I asked him to do an ID for our station and that's the variation he used. I'm assuming he knows his own name (a la Barry/Larry White).

Anyone who uses Dan (i.e., apparently, the unskilled masses of the CIS Blog) simply don't know what they're doing. Like Leonard Nimoy on a jetski.

Yeah, you heard me.

sager said...

Well, his dad is Dan Brannagan, Sr., that's why.

But we would have looked at some of his teammates differently if he'd been throwing to Robbie Bagg, Bradley Smith and Scotty Valberg?

James MacLean wasn't Jimmy or Jamie and Tim Pendergast wasn't a Timmy for a reason.

(Leonard Nimoy on a jetski ... the cosmic ballet continues.)

Andrew Bucholtz said...

I used Dan because that's the name on the Queen's football site roster. It's also the version Mike Grobe's been using in his press releases, although Jon Lawrance can tell you about how accurate the names there are. I remember that it used to be Danny all the time too, but I figured he probably wanted it changed if they changed it on the roster, so that's the version I went with.

Tyler King said...

Well you're both wrong.

sager said...

Yeah, and what's your point?