Monday, November 3, 2008

Ovular domination ends so soon, but continues so strong

So, Queen's dominating ovular-ball-game-teams went 1 for 2 this weekend. (For non-Queen's sports stuff, scroll down).

Our football team had a pretty shitty performance at Richardson in the semifinal, falling to the University of Ottawa GeeGees 23-13, ending Yates and Vanier dreams.

This brings up my major problem with this first-round bye business. Yes, it's nice to not have to play a game when everyone is, but it makes for some serious focus issues. Games allow teams to center and focus in a way that practice can't. Queen's hadn't played a game for two weeks before the game against Ottawa, and they came out absolutely flat. A play-by-play rundown of the game can be found here. I was hoping that the punt-block safety at the end of the game would be the momentum turner our boys in gold needed, but unfortunately they just never got it going and fell into shambles. Dream season turns into nightmare I suppose.

Our rugby team, on the other hand, continued it's kickassery with a convincing smashing of the Western Mustangs, in a repeat of the game I traveled down to London to cover (see game report here and here). Western played the exact same game it did during the regular season, but Queen's didn't react. This gave Western no opportunity to exploit Queen's being a man-down, and the Gaels pushed forward for a 19-8 win, setting up a second final featuring the Gaels. They'll be playing in Markham against the McMaster Mauraders next weekened - I encourage all Queen's sport fans to travel down on the fan bus to watch what must be Queen's best varsity squad.

In pro-sport news:

Spurs are rolling! 'Arry is fucking fantastic, we took a 2-1 win over Keano's new side Liverpool at the lane over the weekend. Mind, it was on a late goal by Pavlyuchenko, and the other Spurs goal was a Carragher (sp?) own goal, but whatever, I'll take it! 7 points on 3 matches is a definite improvement from the start of the season, where the Lilywhites couldn't be counted on to get 3 points from 7 matches. On a related topic - how on-target were Phil's predictions?? Jesus!

The Leafs (I hate to, but I have to put it in*) had an amazing comeback against the Rangers on Saturday, one that actually got me out of my seat. I like the Rangers (see below), don't get me wrong, but that was one hell of an exciting performance. The Leafers have been putting on a pretty decent show this year, and I couldn't be more pissed.

The Sens took one point out of the weekend after a shootout loss to Tampa, leading to an incredibly interesting article on the Sens Army blog regarding the game and our shootout lineup which, frankly, is retarded. Also, I've come to like Ruutu. The world might be imploding.

Finally - my dominance in NHL 09 has been qualified by a tournament win. The Rangers (Yours truly), Sabres (Apps), Capitals (Eric) and Flames (Conal) went head-to-head in a round robin/knockout tournament over the weekend. The Rangers were weak on defense, but the offense was their saving grace, allowing 10 goals but scoring 13 in the round robin, this compared to most games ending 1-0 or 2-1 over 3 games. The final was fought out between the Rangers and Sabres and, in a dramatic overtime plagued by ill discipline by the Sabres, the Rangers put the game home to take the first ever NHL 09 gold. Another tournament should follow, here's hoping the result is the same!**

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* That's what she said
** This entire paragraph was unneccesary

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