Big East teams seem to love coming to Ottawa.
Sources say the St. John's Red Storm will be coming to the nation's capital for one of the cross-border college basketball games around Labour Day weekend that have proven very popular.
St. John's is coming off a 16-18 season and a first-loss to Richmond in the CBI post-season tournament. The Red Storm would be the third team from their conference to come up in the past four years. Louisville came up in 2006 and Villanova visited in '07. There's no word yet about dates. Having the Ravens and Gee-Gees play a doubleheader at Scotiabank Place on Labour Day Saturday worked very well last season. However, Scotiabank Place is booked for an Aerosmith concert that weekend.
There is also talk that Carleton has a game arranged with the Towson Tigers from the Colonial Athletic Association. (All this author knows about Towson is that it was Elaine Benes' alma mater on Seinfeld.)
Also, the Toronto Raptors are coming for training camp. Doug Smith had it on his blog some time back:
"Oh yeah, did I tell you that we’re coming to Ottawa for sure for training camp next fall?"C'est la vie for Ottawa sports coverage that there has not been a story in either daily. You would think someone on the Senators asked for a trade.
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Its like pulling teeth to get any basketball coverage from the 2 dailies in Ottawa. The only time it makes it in there is:
a) star NBA player's latest arrest
b) the Ravens have won +50 in a row
c) Former Media Puppeteer Roy Mlakar had something to sell out at SBP
I'm not saying Stevenson or Panzeri should work some sort of hoops beat, but a column a week on the Raps would be nice, even if its jettisoned in from the Toronto Sun or Star. I mean, they dropped Brodie (local paid man) for Crash Cameron (national syndicated guy paid like local man) from Edmonton for the TV/Media thing once a week (if that now) and have that 'scrapyard' nonsense...surely there is room for some hoops.
It's not my place to comment on the decisions the Ottawa dailies make, since I work for one of them.
Thing is, living in Ottawa doesn't keep you from keeping up with the Raptors online. Doug Smith's blog is very good in that regard.
To be perfectly fair, neither Carleton or Ottawa U's athletic web sites has made mention of this...nor has St. John's for that matter.
The best reporter on CIS basketball in Ottawa by far is Wayne Kondro.
If he gets wind of a story like this, I'm sure we'll hear something, once dates and times are confirmed.
To be perfectly fair, neither of the local universities nor St. John's for that matter, have made any mention of of an upcoming game on their respective websites.
In fact, Carleton has yet to post its 2009-2010 schedule....Ottawa U has.
Once concrete details about who is coming up and when are worked out, you'll hear something...from Wayne Kondro, most likely.
Well, the source has never steered me wrong.
Remember who had Brander Craighead from Barrhaven getting a NCAA Division 1 football scholarship when the other paper never bothered to talk to him.
Kondro's excellent. Neate has written some very good stuff on basketball when the Sun actually lets him write about hoops. This is the paper that didn't even send the guy who covers university sports to the Capital Hoops Classic or the Final 8 last season, they sent Shane Ross, who I thought was a news reporter.
The same sources who said St. John's is coming also mentioned that Towson is coming to Ottawa. Towson announced July 8 it is playing Carleton and Ottawa (Aug. 17-18), along with two Quebec schools. They have it on their website, here's a cisblog.ca post.
As for cis basketball to be fair in ontario anyways it does not get alot of media attention.As for a weekly coloum in the snm about a toronto team i am not sure how well that would go over.I do think there should be more coverege but not at the risk of that meaning it replaces some ottawa area sports.I would like to see more high school and local college basketball coverege before a weekly raptors coloum.
Mr Sager
Are you sure the raptors are comming back this fall.The reason i question it is they were here last fall would it not be strange to go to the same city back to back.
Thanks for asking. It just so happens that Doug Smith mentioned it on his blog again on Sunday.
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