Linking the country: game previews everywhere!

Football
  • Here's an exhibition game score that won't make you sick and kill you: Calgary 20, Alberta 14. Again, though, without first-stringers for much of the contest (Eric Glavic threw seven passes and left with 85% of the game to play), one wonders how important these scores are. (Calgary Herald)

  • Staying with the Dinos, the first-place votes in this coaches' poll tell us Blake Nill considers Saskatchewan to be the best non-Calgary team in the conference. (Canada West)

  • Would you like some OUA Optimism Rankings, which are "entirely arbitrary and based on absolutely nothing"? Then you're in luck: Arden Zwelling has 'em up on his blog at the Gazette. (Western Gazette.)

  • File this under "changing the culture at York": after their gigantic loss, coach Warren Craney already knew what he plans to tell his team: "While some of you play Playstation, the Laval players are in the weight room." Favourite stat from the game? York had 9 rushing yards to Laval's 326. (Le Soleil)

  • CFL.ca has been doing their own CIS football previews. Any word on who's writing these? I've only seen them credited to "CFL.ca staff." apparently just re-running the football previews from the CIS site. Never mind; I hadn't read the "official" previews, so I didn't recognize them. (CFL.ca)

  • Stefan Ptasek has encouraging (or pressure-filled) words in Larry Moko's preview of tonight's Mac/Queen's opener (don't forget our liveblog!). Said Ptasek of QB Kyle Quinlan, "We'll sink or swim with his ability to get it done. He's ready to be a marquee player in this league." (Hamilton Spectator)

  • Calgary-Saskatchewan on Saturday is going to be a good one. (The Star-Phoenix)

  • It's a shift from the pocket to press row for former Guelph QB Justin Dunk. (Guelph Mercury)

  • David Grossman has a decent piece on York and Toronto. (Toronto Star)

  • Shane Kelly's apparently unaware of the Laurier-Western rivalry. Says coach Gary Jeffries, "He’s just going down to London." And odd-QB-out Luke Thompson will play free safety. (The Record)

  • CP's Dan Robson has a CIS football preview in the Globe. (Globe and Mail)

Basketball
  • The Carleton men's team is suffering from something, says Wayne Kondro, since they've now lost twice to NCAA teams. Or, you know, it's August. (Ottawa Citizen)

Hockey
  • The Golden Bears' defeat of the Martlets in this year's national championship made TSN's top 10 sports streaks since, before that game, McGill had won 86 in a row. (TSN)

  • Brant Hilton, an all-star rookie goaltender in 2007-08, has left Regina after three seasons for an opportunity with the Mississippi RiverKings of the Central Hockey League. (Regina Cougars)


Volleyball
  • Former Thunderbird Liz Cordonier and her partner Jamie Broder received a silver medal after finishing second in the senior women's category at the beach volleyball nationals. Cordonier finished 11th in our player rankings. (Vancouver Sun, via @ubctbirds)
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9 comments:

  1. Also unfortunate in the Grossman article was the manufactured controversy, which I'm surprised you didn't cal him on.

    Essentially, he imagined a scenario that isn't even on the radar screen at either school and then asked people to respond to his loaded question. It was one step short of "How long since you stopped beating your wife" territory.

    It was classic Grossman in every way: Why write a straightforward article when it would be much better to sensationalize it?

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  2. John,

    Fair enough, but it's the Toronto Star, you need that angle to get a non-pro sports story into the paper. People have wondered about York (more York) or U of T. He also did mention each has or will have a new facility for football.

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  3. Honestly, I didn't read enough of his article to notice the "manufactured controversy." It was a very lazy link on my part.

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  4. I mean you need an angle to draw eyes and Grossman did that superbly.

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  5. Using an angle to draw eyes is only credible if there is at least some merit to the angle or some rumblings in recent weeks. Since there was neither, it comes off as tabloid journalism in a mainstream paper.

    It's par for the course with Mr. Grossman; one need only look at the way he plays both sides of the fence every time there is a transfer ruling at the high school level for an example of his tabloid style. Transfer approved = article asking why the association didn't do their job. Transfer denied = article asking why the association isn't letting the poor kid play.

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  6. There is merit to it, insofar as newspapers are geared to a general audience. People must look at the situation with Toronto and York and say, "Something has to give."

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  7. I'm not sure why something has to give. This isn't like Carleton cutting loose football to fund a number of other worthy athletic goals. They are the largest and third largest schools in the country and both have substantial athletic funding, good facilities and more already on the way.

    I'm not one of those naive people who thinks that coverage of amateur sports should always be positive but I do take issue when something so blatantly contrived is front page of the sports section.

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  8. You know, I am sure Mr. Grossman would graciously discuss this with you if you approached him. I've found him to be approachable over e-mail, impersonal though that medium might be.

    I'm not in Toronto and don't see the print edition of the Star so I wasn't aware it was sports front. Perhaps that's a positive their editors thought it was important enough, rather than sticking it on S8.

    Dave Feschuk made a great point about U of T football -- they hide behind academic standards but Queen's, smaller school with an outdated football facility, is just as tough and it does fine.

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  9. Don't mistake me for an apologist. I think both programs have been nothing short of pathetic over the past decade; I just don't think the gist of the article has merit.

    I have tried to discuss some high school related issues I had with Mr. Grossman over the years, both in person and via e-mail. Perhaps he treats his media peers with respect but I am but one of many (!) high school coaches (former, in my case), who all-too-frequently was the recipient of sarcasm, deflection of blame (for his mistakes), irrelevant lectures, and condescension.

    At least other sources are willing to discuss the merits of his articles, instead of treating us as the unwashed masses who dare to question the emperor.

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