Weekend Musings: CIS and The Return of The Roar

There was a national championship tournament going on this weekend that had drama, intrigue, upsets, big comebacks and exciting play....and it wasn't March Madness.

Playing out a long distance - not just geographically - from the public's gazing eyes in Thunder Bay, Ontario was the Canadian University Hockey Championships.

With almost no fanfare or media hype, six teams representing the Atlantic, Ontario and Canada West conferences all vied for the Cavendish Cup and in the end it was only the University of New Brunswick who were able to come out on top.

The round robin style of the tournament lent itself to some exciting action. The six teams were broken up into two divisions with each team playing a game against the other two. After the round robin was to be completed, the top team from each division would play in the championship final.

This was further complicated due to the tie-breaker in the standings being goal differential, meaning that coming into their final game of the round robin, Western (my alma mater, Go Stangs!) not only had to beat St. Mary's to get into the championship game, but because of their previous results, had to beat them by at least three to finish ahead of them and take first place in the group.

After one period the score was 2-1 St. Mary's, essentially a four-goal deficit to climb out of and after two periods it was 2-2, leaving a slim shot at making it to the next day's championship game.

But all of a sudden, Western opened the third period with a fury of action and ended up scoring five consecutive goals to win the game 7-2, sending them to their first championship game since they last won the title in 2002.

Unfortunately for them - and the home fans - the Mustangs weren't able to face off against their arch rival Lakehead Thunderwolves who lost to UNB the day before. What would have been a spectacular final turned out to still be a pretty darn good one as Western erased a 2-0 deficit to tie the game in the third period, but were ultimately defeated 4-2 (including an empty netter) in a thrilling final game on Sunday afternoon.

Now is not the place for my rant, but as a former university hockey (and other sports) broadcaster, I've always believed that CIS hockey doesn't get the recognition it deserves for being a high calibre brand of the sport. Furthermore, the league shoots itself in the foot by not offering the level of athletic scholarships available in the USA and therefore limiting itself with the kind of talent it attracts.

That being said, there were several high NHL draft picks playing in this tournament and nearly all of the players had previous spots on CHL rosters before they hit the age limit.

For a combination of skill, speed, rivalries, emotion and pure love of the game, it doesn't get much better than University Hockey.

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Tiger is back....
Ok, so he's been back for a while, but by coming from five shots back on Sunday, needing a long birdie on the 18th, in the dark and getting it to win his sixth Bay Hill Invitational by just one shot, he's REALLY back.
Tiger has now won tournaments in 14 straight years (Arnold Palmer, the host at Bay Hill, holds the record with 17 straight) and owns a career winning percentage of 29%. That is insane for a golfer to win almost a third of every event he enters....just insane. Watching Tiger on the back nine on a Sunday when he's in contention is one of the most spectacular things in sports.
...Augusta and The Masters is only a few weeks away, beware.

So much for Justin Pogge being the Maple Leafs goalie of the future, he looked absolutely awful in a 7-5 loss to Boston on Saturday night. He was constantly out of position and didn't seem to be able to read the play with any level of consistency.

Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks was fined $25,000 over the weekend for using Twitter to criticize the refs after a Mavs game. He then did a double zinger by posting the following to his page:
"can't say no one makes money from twitter now. the nba does )"......zing!


The Raptors all of a sudden have won four games in a row and are starting to look like the team people thought they could be when they started the season 3-0 before major disappointments along the way to fall out of the playoff picture. In yesterday's OT win over Chicago, Chris Bosh had 31 points and 15 rebounds, Andrea Bargnani had 28 points and Jose Calderon had 22 points and tied an all-time franchise best with 19 assists.
This year is pretty much a wash with the Raps seven games out of the last playoff spot with only nine games to go, but it could be a sign of what to expect next year if Calderon can stay healthy, Bargnani continues to prove he was worth a first overall pick and Bosh decides to commit to Toronto for the long haul.

With just seven games or so to play in the regular season, the NHL's Western Conference is unbelievably close at the bottom with just four points separating 7-11th place. The most surprising contender for a playoff spot would be the St. Louis Blues who almost nobody picked to be even close to the mix this year.
A group of young guns (Patrick Berglund, T.J Oshie, David Backes and David Perron) have all stepped up and played beyond their years to get them to the cusp of the post season. While I don't think they would have a matzah ball's chance at a seder to make it past Detroit or San Jose in the first round, it would certainly be a great story if they finished in the top-eight.

The Final Four is set...Villanova will face North Carolina in one semi-final while UConn will face Michigan State in the other. I'd be really scared to play Mich. St. right now, not only because they're playing out of their mind, but also because the Final Four just happens to be in Detroit, a practical home game for the team whose campus is just 78 miles away.

I just realized something odd about one of those Guitar Hero commercials from yesterday that I posted....A-Rod is in big trouble stemming from his steriod confession, Michael Phelps is in hot (bong?) water over his racy smoking pic, Kobe Bryant was accused of and went to trial for rape several years back, and Tony Hawk...well, he's a skater, so you know he's done somethin'.
Is Guitar Hero inadvertantly going after the coveted 18-34 felon demographic?