Morning rounds

Football

• Western got 21-of-22 first-place votes in an OUA pre-season coaches and media poll. Waterloo sportswriter Christine Rivet was apparently the one.
  

  "It says here the football team to beat this year in the 10-team Ontario University Athletic Conference is the Laurier Golden Hawks.
  
  " ...Quite simply, the 2009 Hawks will field their best outfit since their Vanier Cup championship four years ago.
  
  "Of course, the Golden Hawks’ season hinges on a Week 2 pairing when they travel to London, Ont. to tussle with the Mustangs."

  Dismissing Ottawa's Brad Sinopoli as just a "first-year starting quarterback" might be a bit cavalier, though. (K-W Record)
  
  
• Ouch. Calgary's OT loss to Saskatchewan was presaged by a time-count violation that wiped out a game-winning field goal by Aaron Ifield. Since that's a 10-yard penalty in the final three minutes of the game, they were taken out of scoring range. (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix)
  
  
• The Winnipeg Sun's Canada West preview lists each team's potential record, but when we tally them up, we get 31 wins and 25 losses instead of 28 of each. Our Grade 3 math dictates that for every W, there must be an L. (Sun Media)
  
  
• Someone else believes McMaster can finish fourth in the OUA, but it is their hometown paper. (Hamilton Spectator)
  
  
• The 17th column this season about how much pressure Western is facing. (London Free Press)
  
  
• Ottawa middle linebacker Mike Cornell is being held out of the Mustangs-Gee-Gees game on Sunday with a back injury. It's nothing serious.
  
  
• Queen's knows it cannot let Guelph's Justin Dunk throw for 449 yards like he did in last season's Gryphons-Golden Gaels game. It's so refreshing to read a game preview which, you know, actually mentions players on both teams by name. Kind of important for the fans. (Kingston Whig-Standard)
  
  
• One potential banana peel for Windsor: They are pretty thin on the D-line. (Windsor Star)

Basketball

• cishoops.ca is a one-stop for everything about Canada's men's hoops team qualifying for the 2010 world championship. How about Aaron Doornekamp helping make life difficult for a NBA forward, Charlie Villanueva, down the stretch last night?