The winners, the losers
An unscientific guide to the best and worst in university sports
Top men’s basketball
No question, the title belongs to defending national champs the Carleton Ravens, who have won six of the last seven national championships—and the one year they didn’t win, they were knocked out in double overtime in the semifinal. Coach Dave Smart, a former CIS star himself—he led the squad to an 87-game regular-season and playoff winning streak from 2003 to 2006—leads the defence-first, slow-the-game-down-to-our-pace powerhouse. He’s the top coach in the league. “They weren’t on the map before Smart got there,” says CIS sports blogger Neate Sager. “They gave him a lot of latitude to run the team and he built a very impressive program.” Once it started winning titles, all the top recruits wanted to join Carleton. This fall, the Ravens went 3-1 against NCAA Division 1 opponents in pre-season play.
Top women’s basketball
The Simon Fraser University Clan, which have won four of the last eight national titles. For a decade, women’s basketball has been an SFU-UBC show—but SFU is defecting to the NCAA next season. In fact, women’s basketball is dominated by the West. (There hasn’t been a national champion from east of Manitoba in 18 years.) SFU is one of the only schools where the women’s team plays after the men’s team—the program is that popular, and has that much prestige.
Top rivalry
St. Mary’s versus St. FX: Battle of the Saints. These Catholic schools, with strong sports programs and long histories, have a genuine dislike for one another, says Monty Mosher, sports reporter for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. There is a city-country element (the Huskies represent Halifax, the regional hub—“the city that stirs the drink,” says Sager—while the X-Men are way out there in . . . Antigonish). But the larger issue is that they are frequently the two best athletic programs across the board in the region and go nose to nose in everything from basketball and football to lacrosse and cross country, says Mosher. You don’t see anywhere near this kind of passion for university sports in Vancouver or Toronto.
Worst team name
The Gee-Gee’s—which, according to University of Ottawa lore, is either the lead horse in a horse race or stands for the school colours, garnet and grey. Either way, the name stinks.
Honourable mention: The Winnipeg Wesmen, for being single gender in 2009—yep, the women’s teams also wear the name. While we’re on it, what is a “wesman”? The school is neither located in the west of the province nor of the country.
Dubious mention: The Cape Breton Capers, who clearly didn’t even try. Makes Fredericton’s St. Thomas Tommies sound inspired.
Where is the Guelph Gryphons cross country running team. The women’s team has won the past four CIS titles and look poised to take home the trophy again this year with their number one ranked team. The men are no different looking to pull in their 10th title in the past 13 years. What a program. Alot of the credit goes to coach Dave Scott-Thomas for his remarkable work woth the athletes. GO GRYPHONS!!!
What about Laurier?
The Wesmen name originates from the name of The University of Winnipeg’s founding college, Wesley College.
Nice to see university sport get a review here.
Western’s teams finished in the Top 5 in their division in 36 of 38 sports last year and in the market-driven men’s hockey, men’s basketball and men’s football made it to the national semifinals (and national finals in men’s hockey and football).
A clarification – RE: Da’shawn Thomas – he signed to the practice roster, not the full roster, and therefore it’s not like a former professional coming to the CIS. There are rules preventing that for a reason… do different than a player attending an NHL camp and – even after spending time with a semi-pro team, for example – coming back to play at the university level after being cut… players lose eligibility based on their forray into semi-pro sports.
I don’t think the Gee-Gees nick name stinks at all. It is much more colorful than mundane names like the Lions,Ravens,Rams and other common animals.
The name has cultural connotations in the Ottawa Valley, where farmer settlers from Ireland called their work horses gee gees going back to the nineteenth century. They borrowed the name from race track slang in the British Isles.There a gee gee is the lead horse in a race, or the first horse out of the gate. Francophone farmers in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec soon adopted it too. So, the name works in both English and French at Canada’s bilingual university.
Of course GG also stands for the school colours, Garnet and Grey. It is compatible with other Universities that use their colours as nicknames, such as the R&O of Laval and the Vert and Or of Sherbrooke.
The Gee-Gees have been around for more than a hundred years , won many championships, and nobody should mess with a fine old name steeped in tradition.
How about the University of Manitoba Bisons, for improper plurals
I agree, I’m proud to be a Gee-Gee! I love the originality of the name.
GO GEEGEES. I’m disappointed that this review fails to mention that, while the GeeGees do lack a varsity team that dominates it’s sport entirely, many teams at the school rank consistently within the top teams in Ontario (especially club teams like baseball, waterpolo, ultimate frisbee, and rowing). The football team is always in contention for the vanier cup, the women’s soccer team barely loses a game, and ofthe men’s basketball team is a mere step behind the nationally renowned ravens. And those are just a few of the highlights of GeeGees sports teams…
This list of teams was extremely exclusive and barely scratched the surface of Inter-University sports. Perhaps a more comprehensive and fair look at the state of CIS competition would give more accurate insight into the world of Canadian varsity sport programs.
Finally, an issue that I am passionate about. I’ve appeared for data of this caliber for the last a number of hours. Your website is drastically appreciated.