Media furore about Mike Danton playing CIS about prison record, not age

(Cross-posted from cisblog.ca.)

Thankfully, the media is not in charge of setting CIS eligibility policy.

There is some told-ya-so with the predictable, kneejerk media uproar over Mike Danton joining the Saint Mary's Huskies. No preening pleased-with-himself pundit was going to pass up taking a run at Danton. Not fulminating over a felon of a former NHLer playing Canadian university hockey, that is like getting a breakaway and dumping the puck into the corner.

Recruiting Danton flew in the face of someone's ideal of CIS hockey, even if that is not supported in actual fact. As Rob said in the comments, if this was a 29-year-old named "Mark Denton," no one would care. That is why CIS should stay the course and ignore the reactionary drive-by media.

Another truth: Danton's age and experience (92 NHL games) are being used as a crutch to cover up the real source of discomfort.

Some of the coverage panders to — perhaps reflects — society's prejudices about ex-cons rejoining society. It also shows the discomfort about confronting how the hockey world was such an enabler for David Frost. People don't want a reminder of what the despicable Frost got away with, so Danton and now SMU are being guilted by association.

That's the only conclusion there is after seeing the major cherry-picks some sportswriters resorted to this week.

The Globe & Mail, which cares so much about CIS it has stopped covering it regularly, has had three articles in the past two weeks pertaining to the average age of university hockey players. Edmonton Journal scribe John McKinnon called Danton a "ringer" and dredged the Jarret Reid saga that occurred more than a decade ago at St. FX. Damien Cox of the Toronto Star apparently couldn't be bothered to ask what the rules are: "Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't 161 games of pro hockey somehow make a player still able to play in the CIS? Could Chris Chelios play for U of T if he so desired?" (Answer: No, and by the way, there was a player in CIS, Jared Aulin, who had 224 NHL and AHL games under his belt when he made a comeback in Canada West.)

McKinnon didn't bother to explain why Saint Mary's should be judged over what happened more than a decade ago at another university in Nova Scotia. What is this, guilt by Grade 3 geography?

No one out of McKinnon and The G&M's reporter James Christie and columnist Roy MacGregor condescended to actually quote a coach of a Top 10 team. They also did not point out something about Saint Mary's coach Trevor Stienburg noted by a Halifax writer, Rick Howe:

"Interesting sidebar story about Trevor Steinburg growing up in Ontario and his father's parole board job. Steven Truscott lived in the Steinburg home for awhile after his parole. Truscott of course was eventually cleared of any involvement in the 1959 death of Lynne Harper."

That might have been something to mention as part of the "ethical debate."

The heart of the matter is the media could inveigh against the average age in CIS hockey and of having players with pro experience each year at University Cup time, but they don't. Only now is it suddenly a big deal. Last March, UNB coach Gardiner McDougall's national champion V-Reds last season included 26-year-old Dustin Friesen. Coach Clarke Singer's runner-up Western Mustangs had three 25-year-olds on their roster.

By the way, if this is such a "dirty little secret" in Cox's phrasing, how come it's on the Internet?

Cox or MacGregor could have said something then. They didn't, because it did not involve Danton. As Rob put it:

"Everyone who's crying over how unfair it is, how it's men-vs.-boys ... they really don't care that Danton is older than 'normal'; they care that he was just in prison for trying to have someone killed."

To hazard a guess, if asked coaches might have pointed out Danton is a rare case. The current setup works. It's favourable to CIS coaches and is player-friendly, a rarity in amateur hockey.

If coaches have a problem, it probably speaks more to their competitive nature. Basketball coaches did not like it last year when CIS gave former Syracuse guard Josh Wright a year of eligibility back when he joined the Ottawa Gee-Gees. They were worried what it meant for their team, pure and simple. They didn't go off half-cocked about the rules.

Also, if you ask an 18-year-old what his goal is in hockey, and chances the answer will be, "To play as long as I can." Any player that age who could hack it in CIS, which McKinnon calls "clearly a step up from major junior," should have his pick of junior teams.

Come to think of it, committing to play CIS straight from high school instead of waiting a few years could be foolish. It cuts 2-3 years off someone's competitive hockey-playing life. No wonder guys stay in junior and keep their options open. Duh.

Perhaps that is too practical and pragmatic for media types. Their vision seems to be of some puck-chasing 21st-century analogs to Harold Lloyd in The Freshman populating CIS rosters. You wonder if the improved quality of play in the university game makes them nervous, since it makes it harder to justify giving it token coverage.

Instead, they talk to people who refuse to accept what they knew and loved 20, 30 years ago is gone (what a metaphor for the newspaper industry). For pete's sake, Christie's main source was retired Mount Allison AD Jack Drover.

Please. Talk about counting on the average reader's unawareness of CIS. Drover is the stodge who presided over the death of men's hockey and basketball as CIS sports at Mount A and the crippling of the football program. He folded the hockey team at Mount A over concerns of "increased professionalism" in AUS, for crying out loud.

" ... the controversial move by St. Mary's (sic) raises the hackles of Drover and others who oppose ex-pros and mature Major Junior A players being allowed to play Canadian university hockey, effectively freezing out recent high-school graduates.

" 'Most students are 18 to 23, and mostly from the regional area where the university is located," said Drover, who coached for 25 seasons and last summer retired as athletic director. 'The rosters of CIS men's hockey teams do not represent this principle. Measures must be taken to resolve this.' "

Drover did not elaborate on why why this "must" happen outside of his desire to turn the clock back to 1979:

"There has to be a decision of the athletic directors that the roster has to represent the student profile ... You get more student support if the roster (represents) the student profile instead of recruiting with the buzz phrase 'daycare provided.' "

First off, that crack about "daycare provided" is pretty rich. The student-athlete who brought the most media attention to Drover's old school, Mount A, the past couple years, football star Gary Ross, has been rightly celebrated for balancing football and school with being a married father of three. You can't have it both ways, Jack.

The way Christie's article is written also does not make if clear whether one (untenable) solution is actually being considered seriously, or was thrown out off the cuff by a source or the writer.

"One solution would be to ban ex-pros altogether and to deduct one year of university eligibility for each year of major junior hockey played. CIS executive director Marg McGregor indicated the Danton situation will cause hockey coaches to discuss eligibility guidelines at the national championships in March."

So, agreeing to weaken teams and accepting a lower calibre of play will increase attendance and student support? Also, a four-year major junior player would get one season of eligibility. Who would even bother to come?

Furthermore, there is zero cause-and-effect between the makeup of a team's roster and student support. If students aren't turning out, it's part the team's record, part poor marketing, part greater demands on students' time and part the revolution taking place with sports consumption. (That link comes from, guess where, The Globe & Mail.)

In the U.S., whether players represent the student profile is a non-factor. Go count how many of those Boise State Broncos are from actually from Idaho.

In Canada, there are dozens of basketball, football, soccer and volleyball teams whose roster fits the quote, unquote student profile. That doesn't spur student support. Winning and convincing people the gym, rink or football stadium is a fun place on a Friday or Saturday drives fan support.

It's better if a team can win with hometown kids, but it's not an end-all. It's a more-power-to-them that Carleton's Dave Smart has built a basketball dynasty with scarcely one player from outside Eastern Ontario.

By Drover's logic, Bruce Langford's Simon Fraser Clan hoops juggernaut isn't playing fair since main cogs such as Kate Hole, Laurelle Weigl and Matteke Hutzler are from Alberta and Ontario. Yeah, that's some real skulduggery, getting ambitious athletes to leave their regional area to play for a powerhouse. What's that called, again? Oh, yeah, coaching!

Meantime, men's hockey coaches work within the unique symbiotic relationship between the CHL and CIS. The CHL gets a bargaining chip in their bid to keep players away from the NCAA. Athletes have a post-junior playing option. University coaches also get the benefit of working with more physically and emotionally mature athletes.

What's not to understand? There is no way of getting the toothpaste back in the tube until such time arrives that there is a total shift in how university athletics is supported in Canada. That is way off on the horizon.

MacGregor says CIS being a destination of choice for Canadian athletes is are "All goals any Canadian will support," but we aren't putting our money where our hearts supposedly are. If that people would be pounding on their elected representatives' doors asking why we aren't funding full athletic scholarships.

Please keep in mind this is coming from a site which would benefit if CIS hockey was as big as the NCAA. Imagine if Taylor Hall, everyone's No. 1 pick in the 2010 NHL draft, was spending his draft year playing for the Windsor Lancers instead the Windsor Spitfires.

Here are the really bad parts of MacGregor:

"(W)hile this is admirable, it has the effect of sending players 20 and older into the university ranks, making it difficult for a 17-year-old freshman to crack a lineup made up of players who have already played major-junior hockey and are already mature men.

"In the case of 29-year-old Danton ... this gap between man and child is even more alarming. The notion of a still-growing high school graduate challenging a mature man with three years of NHL hockey to his credit is simply preposterous. No wonder the academically and athletically gifted Canadian high school graduate looks south before looking around home."

Seventeen-year-old freshmen (an American term, ironically) seldom crack the lineup anyway since 22-year-old seniors are bigger and stronger. By MacGregor's logic, let's restrict all CIS sports to teens, even though undergrads can easily be 22 or 23 without having done an extra year anywhere.

Ten minutes of clicking through HockeyDB reveals the truth. The "17-year-old freshman" (MacGregor) and "the kid who graduates high school on time and would like to attend university at the age of 18 and perhaps play for his school" (Cox) does not exist. Did you notice the subtle cheap shot there, implying all CIS players are academic deliquents?

The average age of Saint Mary's team this season is 23.1. The youngest player, second-year forward Andrew White, was born in 1988.

The youngest regular in the eight-team AUS in 2008-09, Dalhousie's Shawn Frank, turned 20 midway through the season (Jan. 6). The youngest player in Canada West, Alberta's J.P. Szaszciewicz, turned 20 five months before the season started. There were a handful of teenagers in the larger OUA. Strange as it sounds, if someone that age could handle the pace of the CIS game, they would be playing junior hockey somewhere.

It would have been nice if MacGregor had faced those facts, or at least done some simple math:

"As for 'professionalism,' the rules are mild — one year of eligibility lost for every year of pro — which still leaves Danton with two years eligibility for university hockey.

"A 31-year-old varsity player?"

Actually, if Danton suits up this season, his eligibility runs out in March 2011, when he is 30. That doesn't mean other 31-year-olds can't suit up for CIS teams, but someone that old playing university sports is just such a rarity.

This is getting to be a wordy and belated post, apologies. There was some uncertainly whether it was needed on a niche site such as ours. Ultimately, there had to be a response, since the traditional media blew this out of proportion and painted a false picture of hockey and Canadian Interuniversity Sport. Danton going to SMU isn't really a sports story. It's about how society accepts ex-convicts, which is more of a news story.

Not everyone would take the chance Steinburg (pictured) and Saint Mary's athletic director Steve Sarty are taking. As a disclaimer, this is more of press criticism than an endorsement.

Saint Mary's has staked a lot on Danton. There probably will have to be some boundaries for dealing with the media. Stienburg will have to put boundaries on how Danton, a former NHL agitator who was good for a 100-plus penalty minutes a season, conducts himself on the ice.

You do not have to be onside with this, let alone nominate them for sainthood. However, it would be great if the media worked to get past their prejudices, its guilt about the Frost saga, and tried some clear thinking. They could have at least made a token effort to understand the new reality of CIS hockey. Instead, they ended up doing a lot of talking and zero listening. Shame on them.

Related:
Former university coach assails Danton ruling; CIS team rosters, currently without age limitations, should better reflect the student profile, Drover argues (James Christie, The Globe & Mail)
Using Danton as a ringer is disgraceful (John MacKinnon, Canwest News Service)
CIS needs to use common sense about allowing 29-year-old former pro to play (Roy MacGregor, The Globe & Mail)

Bill Hicks speaking truth from beyond the grave ...

Bill Hicks kicked off some 16 years ago, but not before being way out in front on having Jay Leno pegged.



Here's the full bit. The comedian Payton Oswalt probably had the killer sum-it-up for Leno: "It doesn't even feel like a bad guy winning, it feels like a guy winning who doesn't even know why he wants to win the thing." You would expect no less from someone who shilled for Doritos back when he was only making $3 million per year at a time when that was still a lot of money.

Meantime, 19 years later, wherever Johnny Carson is, he finally has an answer to, "Just how pissed off are you?"

Just Call Him Bullet Head

By Rizwaan Zahid
Gilbert Arenas is simply the latest professional athlete to be tied in with firearms one way or another. The difference is, the rest of the athletes brought one to clubs, houses etc… not their own locker room.

There are many other nicknames we could give to Gilbert, including my personal favourite, 007, instead of Agent 0. Worse thing is, Arenas made light of the episode thinking this is perfectly normal conduct of a professional athlete. Not only has Arenas probably ruined his stint with the Wizards, he has likely tarnished his career to a degree. Arenas had barely played at all the last two years and just when he seemed to be getting back on track playing in 32 games so far this season, Arenas has put himself in the category of failed potential.

What is it about athletes and firearms? You’d think they would be able to hire security guards with the money they make but apparently not. T.J. Ford recently said that he believes many NBA players have guns for protection. Where does the problem lie? I would think enforcement. Ford says he doesn’t take his gun outside his home, a policy that David Stern prefers the players take. Prefers? Perhaps it’s time to order certain rules in the NBA outside of the court. The association is not merely an organization but a league of highly paid players many of which need to have rules set so they do not break them. On the other hand, rules are meant to be broken, and broken they will be. Despite my belief that Stern needs to enforce more rules for the players, I do agree with his suspension of Arenas for the incident. The problem is however, he suspended him after Arenas mocked the incident, not right after the incident occurred.

That is the real issue. A man bringing a gun into a locker room of other athletes who are part of a team. Team being they key word. It’s hard to see Arenas being part of a team anytime soon. At least a winning one.

Blog blast past: Top 5; How I Met Your Mother's greatest sports episodes

The 100th episode of How I Met Your Mother airs tonight. It promises to have singing and dancing — despite Marshall's chronic case of dancer's hip! — the WWE's Stacy Keibler playing a bartender at MacLaren's. From May 18, 2009, here is the series' top five sports-related episodes (as the title likely implies).

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (Season 2)

The gang has a tradition of getting together for Super Bowl Sunday. Ted and Marshall like it for the football, Robin and Lily enjoy the commercials and gambling addict Barney needs to keep track of his multiple wagers. However, their ritual is threatened after the owner of the bar where they hang out, MacLaren's, dies and his wake is at the same time as the game.

No one seems to have ever met the owner and Future Ted can't seem to remember his name in the retelling. Was it Mark or Mike? Carl, the bartender at MacLaren's whom Ted once believed was a vampire (because he always wear black and they only see him at night), guilts them into attending by saying they'll never be allowed back in the bar if they don't attend.

It turns out that memorial services are the one time when Barney does not "suit up." He tells everyone he plans on "going out of this world the same way I came in, buck naked; open bar for the fellas, open casket for the ladies." Unfortunately, they have to go a full 24 hours before they can get together to watch a Tivoed game, meaning they have to keep from learning the score while living in New York City, the media capital of the world.

This presents problems since (a) Robin is the media, as a news anchor at little-watched Metro News One; (b) Marshall is speaking to Lily's kindergarten class, and one of the scamps demands a bribe to keep silent about who won the game; (c) Ted has to go to a sports bar to pick up hot wings for the belated Super Bowl party and (d) Barney is a gambling addict.

Barney races around the city trying unsuccessfully to learn the score, even after bumping into Emmitt Smith. "The game was yesterday?" the NFL's all-time rushing leader says. "After you win two or three of them, you kind of stop paying attention."

Ted sets out to get the hot wings after using an old pair of sunglasses, headphones, a cereal box, duct tape and a hole punch to MacGyver up a device called the Sensory Deprivator 5000 that will prevent him from hearing or seeing the score of the game. Unfortunately, everyone's best-laid plans fail, and they all end up learning the score, but that doesn't stop them from having a good time.

LUCKY PENNY (Season 2)

Since HIMYM is a love story told in reverse, it's apropos to include an episode that is told entirely in flashbacks. Ted and Robin (at this point, they were dating) try to figure out who's at fault after he misses a flight to Chicago to interview for his dream job. They were late getting to the airport because Ted had to go to court to pay a ticket he got for hopping a turnstile at a subway station.

It turns out Ted jumped the turnstile because he was coming to the aid of Barney, who was stuck on the train after losing use of his arms and legs. It turns out that Barney, to win a bet with Marshall, ran the New York City Marathon without training, which comes back to haunt him only after he finishes the 26-mile, 385-yard race.

It turns out Barney ran the marathon after borrowing a bib from Marshall, who was injured and unable to compete. It turns out Marshall was given to rubbing petroleum jelly on his nipples to prevent chafing before going out on training runs. (Runners actually do this.) It turns out that Robin crashed at the apartment one night. In the morning, she opened the bathroom door, only to find Marshall, getting ready for his run, rubbing petroleum jelly on his nipples and repeating to himself in the mirror, "You are ... Marshall! You are ... Marshall!" to himself. Robin takes this to be a warmup ritual for another form of exercise and says, "Oh my god!" Startled, Marshall falls and breaks his toe.

It turns out Lily told Marshall about preventing chafing, so it's her fault.

INTERVENTION (Season 4)

Not a sports episode, but it addresses how HIMYM's Canada references are either uber-knowing or totally stereotypical.

Referring to a dirty Canadian sex act called an "Old King Clancy" is an example of the former. Robin Scherbatsky's TV demo reel including footage of her covering a bass fishing derby in the middle of a blizzard on a "snowy August first in Medicine Hat" is an example of the latter.

Marshall and Lily are moving out of the apartment they had shared with Ted and start discussing who should be responsible for what portion of their damage deposit. They point to the hole in the wall near the door, flashing back to the time when Robin got loaded on Molson and started acting really Canadian, re-enacting Game 6 of the 1994 Stanley Cup final while wearing a Roberto Luongo sweater and goofing around with a stick and a puck. The obvious setup is that she put the hole in the wall with a shot. Marshall challenges her to shoot the puck through the open door, but when she does, Lily catches it. The two exchange words, with Robin chi, "I'll give you summer teeth, some are here and some are there." Ted separates them, causing Barney to yell, "Ted! You never break up a girlfight!" — and punch a hole in the wall.

(Bonus points to the writers for putting Cobie Smulders, who's from Vancouver, in the Canucks' old black sweaters instead of their current blue ones, since it was a flashback.)

In another episode, Robin dates the sports anchor at Metro News One, an ex-hockey player named Kurt "The Ironman" Irons, who takes her to a Canucks-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. She comes back the next day all agog after her brush with Canadian celebrity.

Robin: "I met Mason Raymond ..."
Everyone: (stare blankly)
Robin: "... of the Vancouver Canucks!"
Barney: "What's the opposite of name-dropping?"

THE BRACKET (Season 3)

Throughout Season 3, Barney was plagued by a mystery woman who kept sabotaging his attempts to pick up women. This leads him to create The Bracket in the style of the NCAA basketball championship — "the top 64 women I've slept with, divided into four regions ... in order to figure out systematically which one has the most cause to hate my guts."

LITTLE MINNESOTA (Season 4)

Late fall is often a lonely time for Robin, the Canadian expat. (In the first season, stuck in New York over U.S. Thanksgiving, she and Ted try to fill the void by volunteering at a homeless shelter, but end up eating turkey dinner at a strip club with Barney.)

Marshall takes pity on Robin and invites her to a bar that is strictly for people from Minnesota, warning her that she'll be kicked out if they learn she's Canadian. Robin blends in extremely well, telling people she's from Bemidji and stealing Marshall's story about where he was when on Jan. 17, 1999, when Gary Anderson missed the field goal that would have sent the Vikings to the Super Bowl. (Whenever anyone in the bar is reminded of that day, they all say, "Damn!")

However, when she breaks Marshall's record on the fishing video game in the bar, that's the final straw.

Marshall: "She's Canadian! She's Canadian! She's not from Bemidji and she doesn't know anything about the Vikings."
Robin: "I do too."
Marshall: "Robin. In the 1999 NFC championship, which the Vikings lost ..."
Bar patrons: "Damn!"
Robin (a beat too late): "Damn!"
Marshall: "... who was the kicker who missed the field goal?
Robin: "... Rashad Tarkenton?"
Marshall: "Gary Anderson. Who is now retired and owns a fly-fishing business ... in Canada."

Robin sheepishly leaves, but not without defending Canada's honour (and ironically, this aired the day after the Bills in Toronto disaster).

"I'm proud to be Canadian. We may not have a fancy NFL team, or Prince, but we invented Trivial Pursuit — you're welcome, Earth. Plus, in Canada, you can go to an all-nude strip club and order alcohol. That's right. From Moose Jaw to the Bay of Fundy, you can suck down a 20-ounce Pilsner while watching some coal miner's daughter strip down to her pelt. Jealous?! In Canada, people don't care where you're from. As long as you're friendly and loan them a smoke or hand them a donut. I'm proud to be Canadian. I wish I was there right now."

Marshall then puts things right by taking Robin to a bar for Canadians called The Hoser Hut, where the patrons not only sport toques and hockey sweaters and act overly apologetic.

Marshall: "Wait, I bumped into him, and he apologized to me and gave me a donut?"

The episode ends with Marshall singing karaoke to Robin's early-'90s Canadian bubble-gum pop song, Let's Go To The Mall.

What most people don't know, and really no one born after 1976 should know, was this was not the first sitcom to satirize the Vikings' inability to win the Super Bowl. Apparently, a few days before the Super Bowl was played in 1975, there was Mary Tyler Moore episode where Lou Grant lost Ted Baxter's money after betting on the Pittsburgh Steelers to beat the Vikings.

Of course, the Steelers won that game and have gone on to become six-time Super Bowl champions. The Vikings remain stuck on zero.

And that, kids, is the story of why the Vikings are cursed. (Not really.)

(Here is the intro for the original piece.

Kids, back in 2009 there was a sitcom called How I Met Your Mother. Watching it was kind of a rear-guard action. The age where people watched a situation comedy on a broadcast network at a certain time every week had long become obsolete, but you still blocked out time for the season finale. It had relatable characters and the L.A. Times, a newspaper published in the now-underwater city of Los Angeles, called it the "most modern and consistently fresh traditional sitcom of the last few years." It also liked to weave in sports references, be it Ted Mosby saying the only thing he talked to his dad about was baseball, or your uncle Marshall playing "BaskIceBall," where he and the other males in his family of mayonnaise-guzzling Minnesota giants put on skates and pads and basically just whaled on each other. Sometimes, whole episodes even revolved around sports and as your Uncle Barney liked to say, it could be "legen, wait for it, dary!")

Blog Blast Past: From Springfield to Saskatoon, the CIS is covered in yellow

The Simpsons marked its 20th anniversary on Sunday. From Oct. 24, 2008, here is a favourite post from this site's run — a post likening each Canadian Interuniversity Sport football team with a Simpsons character.

There are two things this site would like to believe it knows cold: Canadian university football and The Simpsons.

If only there was a way to combine both, for great fun and significantly less profit, eh? The wait is over. Of course, this has been done before. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and hey, what better way to wile away a Friday afternoon?It's a first for Canada, so please, click through.


UBC THUNDERBIRDS: KENT BROCKMAN

There was a time ... a time before Brian Towriss moulded Saskatchewan into the big Canada West powerhouse and before Daily Kos, et al., turned political reporting on its ear, when the local anchorman reigned supreme, much like T-Birds football in the late '70s and '80s.

Nowadays, neither UBC nor Brockman are important as they once were. Each has clued in about their growing obsolescence. That kind of explains why they are so eager to welcome their new ant overlords from the NCAA and toil in the underground sugar caves of the Division II Great Northwest Athletic Conference, with academic and athletic powerhouses such as Northwest Nazarene and Western Washington. Hey, it's better that way than having to accept the riffraff — columnists from Politico, a Canada West applicant such as University of Northern British Columbia — as equals.

Why has it come to this? At the risk of being unpopular, this reporter puts the blame squarely on you, the viewer.

SIMON FRASER CLAN: ARNIE PIE

A one-note act who spends most of his time at high altitude. Arnie/SFU can give the traffic report or win games solely on the strength of defence and special teams like no one's business. Take him out of his comfort zone and bad things will happen, whether it's his voice going all jabberwocky that one time he got to be in the anchor's desk, or mustering only 391 yards total offence in road games against Regina and Saskatchewan. Resents UBC/Brockman for hogging the spotlight locally, but needs them and must learn to accept that anything they do will be treated like a mere traffic report. Face the facts, SFU.

(For future reference) OKANAGAN SUN: SCOTT CHRISTIAN

Are apparently just waiting for UBC/Brockman to leave, then the job is theirs.

ALBERTA GOLDEN BEARS: APU NAHEESAPEEMAPETILON

"Thank you for coming, I'll see you in hell," more or less sums up a program which last won a championship in 1981, when people still used punch cards and rocked out to Cheap Trick's Dream Police while washing and waxing a Camaro Z28 in the driveway. Apu/U of A is far too busy to achieve a modicum of football proficiency, between winning octuple national championships every year in all manner of team sports or putting in a 112-hour week at the Kwik-E-Mart. Since Albertans were generally bigger Bushies than the rest of Canada acrossover the past eight years, there is a better than off chance some of the U of A faithful have offspring with names such as Lincoln, Freedom, Condoleezza, Coke, Pepsi, Manifest Destiny, Apple Pie, and Superman.

CALGARY DINOS: SNAKE

Projects a kind of outlaw, Frank and Jesse James mien. This is not such a bad thing since as we all know, women and CIS Top Ten voters are equally entranced by bad boys. Has a long-standing history with Apu/Alberta that can never be resolved, since he always seems to be back on the street within 24 hours ("we'll try to make it 12") and Apu treats the taste of hot lead as a badge of honour. Calgary/Snake always makes out OK. Being located in Southern Alberta means lucrative post-graduation employment for Dinos athletes and if the bottom falls out of the oil industry, there's always petty larceny: "Ho-ho! Goodbye, student loan payments!"

REGINA RAMS: PRINCIPAL SKINNER; SASKATCHEWAN HUSKIES: AGNES SKINNER

The Prairies ain't big enough for these two to find enough space to co-exist comfortably. Skinner/Regina has problems with inadequacy caused being unable to meet the exacting standard set by Anges/U of S, who is happy to rub it in — "but I'm not principal of the line, mother." ... "And ya never will be!"

Principal Skinner for Regina was settled on after some debate over picking Comic Book Guy ("their coach is always pointing out everyone else's flaws but seems oblivious to his own"), but it needed to be a team that has many issues with its "beloved smother — I mean, mother." Agnes Skinner suits the Huskies to a T, since she's sharp-witted, domineering and everyone is kind of afraid of her, plus she would prefer having the place to herself again.

Some would point out that Macy's and Gimbels learned to get along. Gimbels is gone, long gone. Regina is Gimbels.

MANITOBA BISONS: NED FLANDERS

No one would have been surprised to find out that some of the players on their 2007 Vanier Cup team were actually 60 years old. Maintaining decorum and discipline has never been their strong suit, which is a big reason why they're on the verge of missing the playoffs one year after a national championship, but U of M/Flanders thinks everything is just okeley-dokely. Now, were you drinking Slice or Yoo-Hoo?

QUÉBEC

LAVAL ROUGE ET OR: NELSON MUNTZ

Gimme the ball — and your lunch money! A figure of menace in the neighbourhood who has eight beatings scheduled for Saturdays and Sundays across September and October. Nelson/Laval's fans are convinced that someday they will have a quarterback who, when none of his receivers are open, will arc a high pass and run downfield to catch it for the touchdown, then exclaim, "I've got to give up smoking." Of course, that would require offensive co-ordinator Justin Éthier to open up his conservative playbook, wouldn't it, R&O fans? It takes a co-ordinated effort of the entire neighbourhood to take Nelson/Laval down, but for the time being, they can only be dealt with one-on-one.

Some day they will look in the mirror, say, "Ha-ha!" and then reflect, "Wow, that really hurt. No wonder people don't like giving us our due for four Vanier Cups in nine seasons."

CONCORDIA STINGERS & MONTRÉAL CARABINS: JIMBO & KEARNEY

They don't have the universally acknowledged reputation for intimidation that Nelson/Laval does, but to continue with the Quebec conference as schoolyard bullies motif, they are bona fide badass, the muscle.

Sometimes it can come back to haunt them, whether it's the campers turning on them during the Kamp Krusty episode, or the Carabins being the most heavily penalized team in the country by more than 20 yards per game in 2007. They might stick to their own turf, but you ignore them at their peril, because if Nelson/Laval ever steps aside, they could rule the roost with extreme prejudice — and lights-out defence.

McGILL REDMEN: LISA SIMPSON

Wear red, have a future Olympic women's hockey team goalie in their midst and can't wait to grow up and join the real world, where 0-8 seasons are forgotten and you're respected for being gifted and talented (ya, right). Just can't understand why people are reluctant to give respect to the Grammar Rodeo Head Buckaroo, or a quarterback and receiver who set all-time records thanks in some part to the reality that having no running game or defence means McGill has little choice but to throw on almost every down.

Lisa/McGill does get your respect, ultimately. The reality is she will end up being your boss. Beyond that, just as L. Simpson's moral outrage never flags, Redmen QB Matt Connell somehow keeps getting up despite playing behind an offensive line that is an absolute collander. They just need to invent some kind of bully repellent. That would keep blitzers from pouring into the backfield like Canadiens fans racing to get a good standing-room spot in the old days at the Forum.

BISHOP'S GAITERS & SHERBROOKE VERT ET OR: LENNY AND CARL

The two teams in La Belle Province's Eastern Townships are not necessarily joined at the hip, but are seen together so frequently that they might as well be. The nature of their exact relationship has never been fully explained, but as Marge says, "Let 'em work it out on their own time." Lenny (Bishop's is in Lennoxville, get it?) and Carl are certainly bit players, who cannot carry the show themselves, per se, but every so often they'll surprise you. Witness Gaiters tailback Jamall Lee's record-setting season, Vert et Or receiver Samuel Giguère's tryout with the Indianapolis Colts, or the cheer Lenny and Carl came up with when the town almost got a NFL expansion franchise, the Springfield Meltdowns. (Lenny: "I've got Melts fever!" ... Carl: "And I've got Downs syndrome!")

ATLANTIC CONFERENCE

SAINT MARY'S HUSKIES: FAT TONY

There is no getting away from the Huskies — they like to dip their finger into everything, much like the head of the Springfield Legitimate Businessmen's Club. Being a national powerhouse which plays six games a season against the rest of the AUS can also be like playing five-card stud with eight queens in your hand.

Fat Tony/SMU's awe-inspiring scope and reach has long outdistanced their size of their tiny four-team fiefdom, but they're loath to move, because hey, did the czar leave Russia even when people were really ticked off at him? That means having to be apologetic after pummeling Mayor Quimby with a baseball bat in public or pinning a 105-0 score on Mount Allison back in 2001. "SMU, how could you?" ... "What? Whaaaat?"

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER X-MEN: BARNEY GUMBLE

The life of the party, who enjoy it when you "buy them a beer ... two bucks a glass" (which is probably not far off from Antigonish bar prices — we miss our days of $2.25 Stellas during Happy Hour at the pub during our student days down east, especially since said Happy Hour was actually four hours long). They can occasionally be remorseful afterward. Barney/St. FX's existence can seem meager, but you're a fool to think so. They always have their moments, some coming at the expense of Fat Tony — taking pictures of Legs' sister, or during basketball season. When they're clean and sober, you have to watch out for them to snatch up a conference championship every so often, because as was the case at the Springfield Film Festival, the prize is a lifetime supply of beer: "Just hook it to my veins!"

ACADIA AXEMEN: EDNA KRABAPPEL

Just generally disappointed by how everything has gone, but still sneaky-hot.

MOUNT ALLISON MOUNTIES: MARTIN PRINCE

Be careful, you'll break their calculator, by which they mean their heads! Bright, erudite, multilingual and well-read, but thanks to to the Atlantic-Quebec interlock, they are vulnerable to beatdowns from Jimbo (Concordia) and Kearney (Montréal).

ONTARIO

TORONTO VARSITY BLUES: RALPH WIGGUM

Not that long ago they were this close to sleeping in the yard, when they didn't have a home stadium. At times they have seemed utterly out of it and their chances of ever winning a game seemed as likely as a sighting of Snagglepuss ("he was going to the bathroom"), but as time has gone along their mildly idiot-savant tendencies have resulted in a few bits of brilliance.

"Ah, you've done good by winning two games this season, Ralph. Now you know what you've got to do — you've got to burn the house down! Burn them all!"

YORK LIONS: POLICE CHIEF WIGGUM

Often inept, comically so, and being outscored 471-32 over an eight-game season would make anyone want to fill his gob with a Gummi Bear sandwich. Is source of comfort to Ralph/U of T, however, and for that, seems like an allrightnik.

OTTAWA GEE-GEES: BART SIMPSON

They have been labelled as being underachievers and proud of it, perhaps unfairly, because inside the mind of a banged-up 4-4 football team is the heart of a 10-year-old mastermind of mischief. They've got a certain confidence and devil-may-care attitude and even when they're not on their game, they still have enough potential that makes you believe they're going to do something awesome. However, if indeed they do lose to Guelph tomorrow in the OUA quarter-final, they will know how George Washington felt when he had to surrender Fort Necessity to the French in 1754.

(For future reference) CARLETON RAVENS: MILHOUSE

Everything's coming up Ravens! Five national championships in men's basketball, a No. 1-ranked men's soccer team and a national ranking for the hockey team in only its second full season, plus Mom just got a new boyfriend in Capital City. Proximity to Glebe section of Ottawa also gave them a front-row seat for the demolition of the south-side stand at Lansdowne Park. "I was watching it. First it started to fall over ... then it fell over."

Milhouse/Carleton believes they can be players, despite their track record. Best friend of Bart/Ottawa because of, well, geographical convenience. Also has a crush on Lisa/McGill.

LAURIER GOLDEN HAWKS: HOMER!

Have relatively few inhibitions, is up for beer-fueled mayhem (see those: "We've Got Big Hawks" T-shirts) and do not give a damn about the consequences of their actions. Homer/Laurier's detractors, the Frank Grimes types down the road at UW, wonder how they can simply coast their way through life and go no worse than 6-2 every season, but it seems like they have a vast army of alumni and various Springfieldianites who make their life ridiculously easy.

It seems like every week they get in a jam, but by the end, Homer/Laurier are always right back in their traditional position as the most beloved team in the OUA. No one hates them, because it seems like they've found the balance between working hard and hardly working.

GUELPH GRYPHONS: MARGE SIMPSON

Always seems to be OK, reliable, right in the meaty part of the middle of the OUA standings, but there's a feeling of wasted potential there amid the portraits of Ringo Starr and the explosiveness of Justin Dunk, Jed Gardner and Nick Fitzgibbon. Has a long and complicated history with their neighbours just down Hwy. 401, Homer/Laurier, and that can sometimes come out in weird ways.

Sometimes it can take the form of odd outbursts, whether it's staying up all night baking or leaving about 20 points on the field in a close season-opening loss against none other than the Golden Hawks. Has trouble finishing off anything — like selling a house when she worked at Red Blazer Realty, or putting away an 0-3 McMaster team after being up by 13 points in the fourth quarter. It makes you wonder how talented they really are, but someday they will cast off the shackles of their OUA oppressors, and you know it's gonna be good.

WATERLOO WARRIORS: PROFESSOR FRINK

They'll make you laugh, they'll make you think, they like to run and then do the thing with the person ... have an IQ of about 185, but always seem to be missing one or two key elements that cause their inventions, or their myriad trick plays, to go boom. Frink/Waterloo, which has grown accustomed to being on the outside looking in since the OUA cut back to a six-team playoff championship, has spent this week using the Gambletron 3000 to figure out out how Laurier will do in its playoff game against McMaster ... "and the winner is Laurier by two ... hundred ... points?!" Can explain why pi is exactly 3, to which Homer/Laurier says, "Mmmmmmmm ... pie."

McMASTER MARAUDERS: KRUSTY THE CLOWN

You gotta hand it to McMaster. They give off the the vibe that they're not what they once were, but when they want to, they can turn to outside help — like bringing in Stefan Ptaszek from Laurier as coach — and come up with some fresh material. They are somewhat haunted by demons — an estranged father, losing at home in the playoffs to Queen's two years ago, but you don't dare take you eyes off them. They can still put on a show, whether it's the Krusty the Clown 29th anniversary special or a 29-point thumping of Windsor in a game they had to win to make the OUA playoffs. With Ptaszek's offence, bear a strange resemblance to Homer/Laurier.

WINDSOR LANCERS: GIL GUNDERSON

"Oh, this can't happen today, not to Windsor!" Those loyal to the Lancers always start out earnest, full of hope and are way too hard on themselves when their team can't close the sale. The wolves sure are at Ol' Gil's door, since he hasn't brought in enough of the green to make the last two payments on his hot plate or managed to make the playoffs in the OUA the past two seasons. You know the drill: "Damn! That felt like a .500 season!"

Gil/Windsor is also oblivious as to when someone has worn out his welcome. Freeloading off the Simpsons for more than year is analogues to not removing a coach who has only won one-third of his games over 11 seasons.

WESTERN MUSTANGS: MONTY BURNS (But to you, it's Mr. Burns)

If Gil has been stepped on by capitalism's boot once too often, Western/Mr. Burns has often been only too obliging with the stomping.

The old-money team of the OUA has more cash than God and has been around nearly as long, with more than a few fawning Waylon Smitherses in the media only to willing to do their bidding. The school's preppiness makes for a healthy blend of the rich and the ignorant. Is still a force to reckoned with and has a sense of entitlement that no championship drought or having held on to outdated shares of stock can zap, because their mind will draft back to 1971 ... '74 ... '76 ... '77 ... '89 ... or '94.

The bottom line is that Queen's can have its football and its academics, but Western will always be first in fratboys who call each other "brah!" while they're eying girls who treat skin as a layer of clothing, even in the dead of January.

QUEEN'S GOLDEN GAELS: SIDESHOW BOB

Smugger than smug, overeducated eggheads who end up spending a lot of time near and around prisons, thanks to being in Kingston. Looks down on snotty elitism but ignores their own and will refer to a family member who didn't go to Queen's as having spent "four years at Clown College." Is convinced of their superiority, despite at various turns having been foiled by Krusty/McMaster, Homer/Laurier, archnemesis Bart Simpson/Ottawa as well as Lisa Simpson/McGill, to whom they're fairly indifferent ever since changing conferences after the 2000 season.

Sideshow Bob/Queen's has cultivated a sense of propriety over all he surveys and looks down on most of it, be it TV's bottomless chum bucket that has claimed Vanessa Redgrave, or most of Kingston that's north of Princess or west of Alfred St. One day Bob will have his revenge, and he will lower taxes, brutalize criminals and rule you like a king (see Baird, John). Sure he will.

(Glove tap to Hey Jenny Slater, which did this for the NCAA a while ago. Make sure you check out The CIS Blog. Andrew, Duane, Greg, Mike, Rob and Kinger each have hand prints all over this.)