CIS Corner: Canal War, Round III

Notes on our athletes/teams of interest from The 613 .... the women's basketball Gee-Gees face Simon Fraser in the first round of the CIS Final 8.

HOOPS

• Gee-Gees 96, Toronto 81: The JJs (Rogers 22's Kris Ruiter's splendid sobriquet for Josh Gibson-Bascombe and Josh Wright, who had 28 and 26 points, along with combining for 11 assists) give Ottawa more than a puncher's chance vs. Carleton in Wednesday's OUA East final.
  
  Carleton defends so well and keeps its focus over the entire run of a 40-minute game better than pretty much any other team in Canada. That could be a tipping point between them and the Gee-Gees on Wednesday, but nevertheless, Ottawa was lights-out over the middle two quarters, outscoring an overmatched U of T team 61-27.
  
  Here's the liveblog, for those who like to eat the bones.
  
  
  
  Nemanja Baletic gave the Gee-Gees a bailout with some good work inside early in the game.
• Ravens 105, York 57: According to one of our commenters, Ravens forward Aaron Doornekamp showed no ill effects from the foot injury which kept him out of Carleton's game vs. Ottawa last weekend; he had 16 points, while Mike Kenny had a team-high 21 (seven 3-pointers) and Mike Moser Trophy shortlister Stu Turnbull had 18.
  
  York point guard Tut Ruach, who had 16 points, deserved much better than going out on a nearly 50-point loss. He'll long be remembered for leading the Lions past Ottawa and Carleton in the '06 playoffs, and orchestrating a first-half surge which had the Ravens on the wrong end of a 61-22 halftime score in January 2007
• Windsor 68, Gee-Gees 51: The Ottawa women, who will be the No. 8 seed at the Final 8, made it respectable in the OUA final, with Émilie Morasse scoring 18 points. Windsor is just too good and had staked too much on winning the OUA (for their sake, hopefully not too much) to possibly lose.
  
  More than one Lancer, during the on-court interviews, said winning was the least they can do, to help alleviate some of the economic stress in southwestern Ontario. Sports doesn't repair such losses, but it can be salve in tough times, as Windsor forward Alisa Wulff (17 points) noted, "Our team are blue-collar workers, that's what Windsor does and that's what Windsor people do."
  
  The Lancers have become a rallying point for people in the hard-hit sun parlour, just as the OHL's Windsor Spitfires have this winter. It's hard to imagine that happening with many CIS basketball teams, female or male, in Canada. How can their coach, Chantal Vallee, not be national coach of the year?
• Napanee native Matteke Hutzler was Simon Fraser's top scorer in both of their wins at the Canada West women's final four, scoring 22 vs. Alberta and 15 (to share the lead) in their gold-medal game victory over Regina.
  
  
  
  That can be considered an instance of the Sager bump, since she was referenced in an Ottawa Sun feature last week on Alberta centre Anneka Bakker, who's from Ottawa. Alberta ended up winning the bronze medal.

HOCKEY

• Carleton, which went down 5-4 to Trois-Rivieres in double overtime in the decider of their second-round playoff series after a 50-save effort by Alex Archibald, keeps making headway. Making the playoffs in Year 1 was an accomplishment. Coming within a goal of being in the conference final was another step forward. Former major junior players such as Andrew Self, Ryan Berard (two goals on Sunday) and Chris Boudeau-Mifflen have been able to adapt to the university league, which one would figure has to look good to a prospective player.
  
  The Ravens made an inspired comeback, coming from three goals down on the road to force OT (Rookie Derek Wells scored the tying goal in the third period; as previously noted, he seemed to come up with big goals in both series).
  
  
• Ottawa has home ice for next week's semi-final series vs. Carleton, which is for a spot in the CIS women's championship. The Gee-Gees TCB'd with a 6-1 rout on Saturday; goals eight seconds apart in the second period by Jodi Reinholcz and Ashley Burrill decided the game.
  
  Meantime, Manitoba and Guelph, ranked Nos. 4 and 5 in Canada, have to win their conferences to go to nationals (over Alberta and Laurier, good luck). Whoever goes between Carleton and Ottawa has nothing to apologize for; they didn't make the rule.
  
  The Quebec league's quality is obscured by McGill being so damn good. Ottawa and Carleton each played Guelph at a tournament in Montreal in January. Both games went to a shootout, so while one game never says it all, they're probably somewhat on par with the Gryphons.
  
  It's not clear what is the solution. Hockey probably wouldn't go for a Final 8 format due the cost of travelling to play only one meaningful game; expanding the tournament is probably a non-starter since it already involves a five-day trip.

Editorializing ...

Today's line story in the print edition of the Ottawa Sun about A.Y. Jackson Secondary School cancelling its senior boys basketball season -- one year after it won the Ontario championship -- was the whole notion of high school vs. community sports programs ("club teams").

The latter are in ascendancy -- it's now unheard of, in Ontario, for a good basketball or volleyball player to play only for her/his high school. The best in athletics all train with the Ottawa Lions, whose stadium is a 20-minute walk from my house. Donnie Ruiz, the former CFL defensive back (and he starred for Laurier!) who's now a personal trainer and works with a lot of young athletes, had some thoughts about how, for a young athlete, it does matter to have that sports connection with her/his school.

"To see that it was cancelled is sad. With city basketball, generally you have all-star teams -- a couple guys from A.Y. Jackson, a couple from another school ... But the identity that comes with high school basketball is valuable. It's good for the morale of everyone to be able to associate your school with basketball, soccer or track and field. It's a big part of the morale, even for someone who doesn't play sports.

This is coming to a head all across Ontario ... what is the purpose of high school sports? There isn't a ton of development that can be done in a short season, so basically whoever has the jocks who play outside school -- or the kids who at that age, can play anything -- wins.

In Ottawa, it seems like there should almost be two divisions for track and field -- one for the kids who train with the Ottawa Lions and one for everyone else (assuming there's anyone competing who doesn't go to the track club). Ilya Abelev, the 16-year-old wrestler who just won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Youth Games, can't compete for an OFSAA gold medal this winter because the school he's attending has not had a wrestling team for several years. In Ontario, some elite female hockey players are barred from representing their schools. (The basketball player Devoe Joseph, though, could play on a national under-19 basketball team without losing his eligibility.)

With regard to basketball, Adrienne Coddett, teacher and coach at Woodroffe High in Ottawa, notes that a teenager can play 30-50 games with his club team. Throw in a high school season, which can run up to 40 games if your team goes to a lot of tournaments and, in her words, "that's an NBA schedule."

Ruiz hits on a major point, though: People do play the team sports popular in schools -- basketball, football, volleyball, rugby, soccer, whereas hockey kind of takes on a life of its own -- do feel need to be socially high-ranked. For a baller, there is better competition available with a club team, or a regional team in the summertime, or in the case of football, playing in the National Capital Amateur Football Association. However, the kids still want to play for their school. It's good to be seen as an athlete.

True, there are always those who just do it to prove something to themselves, or because they feel something within. They're called the track and field team.

Meantime, the educators have to deal with teacher burnout, yearly budget shortfalls and the fallout from the so-called Common Sense Revolution that ripped the heart out of public education in Ontario in the back half of the 1990s. There is also a much more heterogenous student population than they ever could have anticipated, which can cause communication problems. I'll say this much, though -- there's no way you can overpay the people who makes the decisions about this stuff.

Campus Corner: Gaels, RMC may take Carr-Harris game downtown...

Notes on our players and teams of interest from The 613.

• Gaels hockey: Our own Tyler King has a scoop at CFRC Sports detailing how there are plans to play the 2009 Carr-Harris Cup at the downtown K-Rock Centre.
  
  It would be the first time that the annual RMC-Queen's hockey grudge match is not played on either school's campus. It's a good idea. Playing in the opulent new rink, especially if it's promoted well, should entice more Kingston hockey fans to check out university hockey, which is — all together now — Canada's best-kept shinny secret that doesn't involve why Chris Pronger really left Edmonton.
  
  It would also be a somewhat suitable replacement for RMC's discontinued series with the U.S. Military Academy, which was played at the Memorial Centre. Queen's needs to build a buzz around the men's hockey team, especially at a time when the sport has to justify its existence in the face of potential restructuring of the school's varsity program.
  
  Gaels hoops: This year's Cinderella entry into the CIS Final 8 — you heard it here first — has firmed up their schedule vs. NCAA teams. The men's hoops Gaels will host Northeastern, from the mid-major Colonial Athletic Association, on Aug. 25, followed by a game vs. D-3 Anderson (Ind.) University on Aug. 28 and a Sunday, Aug. 31 game vs. the University of Buffalo.
  
  The school's press release mentions that swingman Travis Mitchell is among the Gaels' returnees. There was some talk late last season that he might transfer to Sheridan College, but perhaps that's not to be.
• It's unclear how many of us are aware there is a basketball tournament called the 2008 FIBA Americas U18 Championship for Women ... Steph MacDonald, a guard from Ottawa who's set to play college hoops at Canisius (she was the subject of an Ottawa Sun Schools page feature), has had 10 and nine points in Canada's first two games, the most recent a loss to the United States yesterday. Canada, 1-1 thus far in the five-game round-robin, play Argentina today. Anyone who's interested may follow the event here.

Six degrees ain't just the overnight low in Ottawa

Check out the results from Event 19 at the Canadian high school rowing championships today in St. Catharines. For those of you keeping scoring at home, that's a 1-2-3 finish consisting of a boat from ol' high school (Allisha Campaigne and Meredith Papps from Ernestown, near Kingston), a pair from the current city of residence (Glenn Hay and Lindsay Heubner from Glebe Collegiate in Ottawa) and a crew from Port Dover, which falls under the old Simcoe Reformer beat.  

In the same vein,  high school track star Karelle Edwards set a meet record in the hurdles at the East Regionals last Friday — one week after a certain someone profiled her in the pages of the Ottawa Sun. Karelle erased a mark set in 2002 by a runner from, you guessed it, Napanee.

HOUSEKEEPING...

As you can see below, Duane Rollins has come aboard as a contributor to the site.

Duane brings a lot to the table, which you'll see in the weeks to come. (Way to put him under the gun right off the hop, Sagsy.) He knows his stuff cold, plus this is a chance for him to promote his CIS football website.

I'll also be on Tyler King's sports show, Offsides, around 4:30 p.m. on CFRC 101.9 FM (cfrc.ca) out of Kingston. Please tune in.

UP AT 6: GREENZO CATHEDRALS; A SMALLER CARBON FOOTPRINT IN THE BATTER'S BOX

The closer I got, the more those feelings grew...

• Sitting there in anticipation of Jays-Yankees game that was rained out planted a strange thought -- will there ever be a time when pro sports leagues, either for the sake of P.R. or due to political pressure, shorten their season on the vague pretense of helping the environment?
  
  Baseball has to get in a 162-game schedule in 182 days in order to get through three rounds of playoffs before it's too cold to play. That meant the "ludicrisosity," in Mike Wilner's made-up word, of scheduling baseball games in Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland and New York City on March 31. It was random chance that it rained (St. Louis' opener was wiped out), but don't miss the point.
  
  The push is on to start consuming less of everything. Why couldn't pro sports be a leader and be better off for it? It's two-fold with baseball. The crackdown on PEDs -- mainly amphetamines -- is probably going to have an adverse effect on the quality of play, since players need those to have the energy to get through the Long Season. A long time ago, Bill Lee suggested playing a shorter schedule with more time between games if MLB was really serious about getting rid of amphetamines.
  
  MLB could easily start the season on April 7, which is when it used to start. That's enough time to play a 140- or 150-game season in a 165-to-175-day timeframe. The players would get more rest, it's easy P.R., it's probably creates more demand to attend a particular game. Plus the players would have to take a hit on their salaries.
  
  The NFL could dial it back from 16 games to 14; neither hockey nor the NBA needs 82 to figure out who should be in the playoffs. The PGA can just shut down entirely, especially considering how many of those golfers have their own places burning jet fuel. Anyways, just a half-baked thought from a guy who got 65 in Grade 10 science.
  
• Man, people who work in radio really do have to get up early ... who were the two people, who soon as the Ottawa Sun sports poll went live at 3 a.m., actually voted "no" to the query, "Should the Senators' on-ice effort be questioned?"
  
  Looking at you, two of the Three Guys On The Radio. Well, who was it then? Mr. and Mrs. Mighty SOPO? Or did a couple of the subsection of the Sens Army who like to rant about how a team with a European captain will never win a Stanley Cup misunderstand the question?
• The captain of India's soccer team, Bhaichung Bhutia, is refusing to take part in the Olympic torch run in protest of China's crackdown in Tibet. Apologies in advance for being the cracker who saw this and conjured up an obvious Russell Peters joke: "We'll do anything to avoid physical exertion!"
  
  Seriously, though, Andrew Bucholtz has a post about boycotting Beijing without turning the athletes into pawns. It should get its own post here later on this week.
  
• There used to be a journeyman pitcher named A.J. Sager whose career was about as memorable as the journalism career of his namesake (so far). It turns out he was in rare company -- one of the very few players whose only career hit was a triple. And he hit it off Pedro Martinez! How about that?
  
• In the same self-absorbed, narcissistic way, that means hoping the Vikings do swing a trade for QB Sage Rosenfels -- as in Sage R., eh? The Vikes get the Monday Night Football treatment against the Packers in the season opener. The early line is Farve minus-27.5 for how many more times the announcers will mention the retired Packers QB than the actual Vikings quarterback, whoever it is that night. (The last part proves the point.)

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

YOUR FIRST OF MANY BEDARD POSTS IN 2008...

Erik Bedard's pitching line from his Mariners debut: one run on three over five innings, four walks and five strikeouts, 106 pitches, only 59 for strikes in an eventual 5-2 Seattle win.

A subtext to the Bedard story will be how he gets on with the media there, considering he's the new guy and he's living in a fishbowl. Geoff Baker blogged that Bedard "wasn't very forthcoming" after the game. Jerry Brewer, who's a fine writer, will have a column later today that should fill in more of the picture.

Bedard managed to get out of the fifth inning with a 1-1 tie intact.

Baker talked to some of the left-hander's childhood pals from Navan for an Opening Day Seattle Times feature. The Erik Bedard in that story seems pretty easy to relate to: Small-town guy, with a bit of a shy side, kind of a private person. Speaking from experience, that kind of reserve can often be taken for being aloof if people want to look for warts or aren't interested in getting to know you.

CIS CORNER: PASSING OFF...

Deferring to cishoops.ca's coverage of the Final 8 seems like the wiser choice -- Mark Wacyk and an army of hundreds should have it covered pretty well. Meantime, I'll call attention to some linkage from this morning.

• Streaming Sports Network Canada (ssncanada.ca) got some major pub today with a mention in the Toronto Star.
• Colleague Chris Stevenson, as he always does, lends some perspective on Carleton's success, putting against a backdrop of parity-happy pro sports. (Who would have known, if not for Chris, that Senators coach Bryan Murray coached a little basketball in his day?)
  My contributions to the Sun's coverage consist of a feature on the newly minted Mike Moser Memorial Trophy winner, Aaron Doornekamp of Carleton (in both tabloid and broadsheet form), plus a feature on the "glue" of the Ravens, point guard Ryan Bell.

I'll check in from time to time here and at The CIS Blog, but duty to the ant overlords come first. And hobknobbing. Lots and lots of hobknobbing.

CIS CORNER: ESS GRAD IS LIKELY A MOSER WINNER

The cat is already out of the bag, so there's no harm in passing along word that it looks like the pride of Odessa, Carleton Ravens forward Aaron Doornekamp, will capture the Mike Moser Award as top CIS men's basketball player.

It's up at the Sun (now), along with the tournament preview which was about 95% the work of Mark Wacyk at cishoops.ca, Blair Gable with the photography and the brave but determined lads down at the sports desk. There will be more in Friday's edition.

It's kind of staggering to see Aaron reaching such heights as someone who grew up in the same corner of the world and attended his high school, Ernestown, several years earlier -- and who knows what it means to Dave Smart to have one of his nephews and prize proteges honoured.

Who knew it would ever reach this point back in the winter of '95-96? At that time, Rob Smart was starring for the senior basketball team at ESS (one time in Gravenhurst, he scored 36 points in the first half, then said at halftime, "let's try to get everyone on the scoresheet," and almost did, except for one klutzy red-headed kid with no hops who shouldn't have even been there). Dave was helping coach the junior team which had Mike Smart and Ben Doornekamp. The senior girls team won the Kingston-area league with Amy Doornekamp playing post for Stu Turnbull's dad, Tom, while across the parking lot at Odessa Public School, Nate and Aaron were honing their games. There was a Canadian hoops dynasty taking shape right under our noses.

(As for the scoop, well played, sir. Picture Steve Garvey clapping into his glove after Reggie Jackson hit his third homer in the final game of the 1977 World Series.)

BOAL-ING FOR NCAA'S TOP PRIZE

This week's typing in the Sun focuses on Melissa Boal and Lindsay DiPietrio, a pair of Ottawa minor hockey products who are tearing it up with the women's team at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Boal is on the 10-player shortlist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, which goes to the top women's player in the NCAA. Other nominees include some relatively big names such as Canadian Olympians Meghan Agosta and Sarah Vaillancourt as well as Swedish Olympic hero Kim Martin. The story's about Boal, but the hook is she's done this with someone she played with off and on as a kid (alternating years since they're a year apart in age) feeding her the puck.

THE 'SPIN ON THE JAYS

Deadspin has their Toronto Blue Jays preview up as of 20 minutes ago. The point gets made: If the Jays can win 88-92 games and be in the mix deep in September, that's enough.

"Let the other dumb bastards miss the point by acting like the playoffs is the be-all, end-all. If it happens, it happens. Right now, knowing there's another slightly above average Blue Jays team taking shape down in the Florida sun is just enough to get through the last weeks of the Canadian winter."

Much obliged t0 Will Leitch for posting this on the shared birthday of Kathie Sager and Amer Murad, the Official Mother and Brother-In-Law of Out of Left Field.

Meantime, if you meet The Tao of Stieb over the next couple days (that's their screengrab, by the way), take them out for a coffee.

BRAND-ED FOR SUCCESS...

Today's Sun column is on Brandon Heembrock, a 17-year-old 'keeper who's to play for Toronto FC's youth academy this summer.

Related:
This kid looks like he could be real 'keeper (Sun Media)

SKILLS WITH THE PIL...

A couple weeks yours truly profiled Ottawa's own Courtnay Pilypaitis, a point guard for the Vermont Catamounts, for the Sun. Well, last night she had the first triple-double (18 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists) in the program's history to lead Vermont to a win over Hartford, the top team in their conference.

It's like a reverse of the S.I. cover jinx or something. Beating Hartford, doesn't that call for a little Brass Bonanza?