Rider Practice

Last week, in the midst of a busy spell on the academic calendar in jschool, I go to cover an event I've been waiting to do for years. I'm talking about Roughrider practice and it was more accessible than I imagined.

I had tried emailing the Riders communication guy, after days I received an email back. I had asked to talk to Graham Harrell, after exchanging emails, they set up a time to call. But phone interview was not what I had wanted, told them I wanted to take a picture, and that's when they told me to show up at noon the next day. That way I could speak with Graham in person, following practice.

For a Saskatchewan sports fan, especially one would like to cover sports for a living, Rider practice was a great site.

I showed up at noon, a nice sunny day for the middle of November, according to the score clock there was still 10 minutes left for practice. So in the meantime, I had to check in with the Rider's media person, and got to check out the end of practice as the team prepared for the Western Final.

I knew the cameraman for Global TV, so I talked to him and that helped me get comfortable with the environment, which was filled with the local sports media. There weren't very many people in the stands.

When practice ended I waited around a while, as Graham ran sprints and chatted with other players.

Once Graham made it over, he was a had a grin and proved to be a very media-savvy person. His answers were quick and pretty descriptive, he'd been through a lot of interviews while at Texas Tech.

Overall it was a great interview and I think he enjoyed my questions, which ranged from his Dad to Bobby Knight to Wes Welker to Micheal Crabtree. Afterward, Graham through to Weston Dressler, so that I could have some good action shots of him.

Then, the communication lady for the Riders told me that this was the process to take whenever I wanted to talk to a Rider, and said to come back whenever I wanted - awesome.

So the U of R Rams aren't done after all...

Tuesday morning the University of Regina Rams were cleaning out their lockers, but by late Tuesday afternoon they were back in the film room, getting ready for the U of S Huskies.

The Rams were eliminated from the playoffs last Friday when they lost to those same Huskies 42-17. But received a second life when Canada West Universities Athletic Association stripped the Manitoba Bisons of three victories for using an ineligible player.

The Rams will meet the Huskies in Saskatoon on Saturday (1 p.m., Griffiths Stadium) in one semifinal, while the Calgary Dinos will play host to the Alberta Golden Bears in the other.

In mid-October, the Bisons self-declared to the CIS — the governing body of university sports in Canada — that the had used an ineligible played for the first five games of the season.

After the CIS ruled the player was indeed ineligible, the matter was handed over to Canada West, which stripped the victories.

One of the victories went to Alberta (which improved to 4-4 and took the No. 3 seed in the playoffs) while one went to the UBC Thunderbirds, who finished tied with the Rams at 3-5. Regina earned the fourth and final playoff berth based on its 28-17 win over UBC on Sept. 26.


Here what Kevin Mitchell's Starphoenix article had on the subject today.

With playoffs just four days away, Canada West announced Tuesday that Manitoba -- which used ineligible receiver Julian Hardy for the first five games of the season -- forfeited two wins and had another (against Simon Fraser, which also used an ineligible player) declared no contest. That decision gave the Regina Rams -- whose season supposedly ended with last Friday's 42-17 loss to Saskatchewan -- Manitoba's vacated playoff spot.

The first-place University of Saskatchewan Huskies will now host the Rams, instead of the Alberta Golden Bears, Saturday at 1 p.m. Alberta plays at second-place Calgary.

The timing of the decision, which came a couple of weeks after Manitoba first disclosed the issue, continued to take fire Tuesday.

"This decision should have been made a couple of weeks ago; that's the bottom line," said Huskies' head coach Brian Towriss, who -- unsure which team he should prepare for -- waited in his office Monday night for a decision that didn't come down until Tuesday morning. "Whose fault that was, I don't know, but that's the only thing that should have happened."

From Tim Switzer of the Leaderpost:

The Rams appeared to have been eliminated from post-season contention after a 42-17 loss to the Huskies on Friday that left Regina at 3-5. While Regina’s record did not change with Tuesday’s ruling, the Bisons fell from 5-3 to 2-5. The Golden Bears (now 4-4) and UBC Thunderbirds (3-5) were each handed a win, while the third game was declared a no contest as the Simon Fraser Clan had previously forfeited the win to the Bisons after using an ineligible player.

The Bisons player who was ruled ineligible, receiver Julian Hardy, played at the University of Ottawa in 2001, but at season’s end he received a four-year suspension following a positive doping test. The suspension was to consume the final four years of his eligibility. In 2004, the CIS passed a bylaw that would allow for players to apply to have suspensions reduced when the national penalty changed, but Hardy was not informed.

Bisons head coach Brian Dobie said when Hardy joined the Bisons, the team knew he had been suspended, but did not check to see if the suspension used up eligibility or if he had applied to have the sentence reduced.

“How stupid is that?” Dobie said. “You can call us idiots, but you can’t call us cheaters.”

After discovering the error in mid-October, the U of M athletic department self-disclosed to the CIS which ruled Hardy ineligible. The university also tried to retroactively apply for a reduction of the suspension, but the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (which administers the drug tests) would not allow it. The Bisons then filed a compassionate appeal with the CIS but it was denied.

After exhausting those options, the Bisons were forced to accept the decision of a board of Canada West non-football schools to take away the victories.

Mayor's Debate

Regina's only mayor debate took place yesterday at the Centre of the Arts. The event was put on by the Regina Chamber of Commerce as a breakfast-luncheon style. The three candidates were there, incumbent mayor Pat Fiacco, Jim Elliott and Linda White.

No real debate actually took place as the event took the style of question and answer - no reply to others comments. So it was not overly eventful, I found Linda White's flip-flopping as the event's highlight. I'm still not sure what White is running on, first she blasted the city for its lack of housing and opportunities, forcing her to live in a hotel on social assistance. Later, she became a cheerleader for the city, saying Regina being the most amazing city in the world. "Ten years ago I was homeless and now I'm running for mayor." Fiacco followed up with an "I Love Regina, too."

Fiacco had a couple flashes of his showmanship. Jim Elliott proved to be consistent with his message about the community coming together to help their neighbors and being more sustainable environmentally. He also appeared to be against the way in which the city is intent on building in a business-first manner. But Elliott is almost bland in the way Fiacco is a showman, and it seems many are too scared of his bushy beard to view him as serious opposition to Fiacco.

Editorial team this issue

For this past issue of Ink I was part of the editorial team, my duties included laying out the 4th and 5th pages of the paper as well as doing streeters.

Streeters is basically getting public input in a particular topic. I took the assignment because talking to random strangers is not my strong suit. I had been dreading the streeters, but thankful my roommate loved the excuse to talk to strangers. So he came along and I thought we did good job. We must have circled the university twice and were able to gather mixed opinions on the Halloween question as a question for the radio program.

Borlase Story

So my first Ink story was on the death of Spenser Borlase and how it affected his team - the U of R Rams. Got some breaking news That the Rams are honouring Borlase with a locker-for-life and dedicating this season to his memory, which came from their Welcome(rookie) supper this week.

Some interesting points from the story:
-Borlase was a guy with a future with the Rams, he was being redshirted but so were 20 out of 24 newcomers, including former junior stars like Busby and Yausie (both ex-Saskatoon Hilltops and now starters with the Rams).

- Coach McCrystal is a busy guy. yeah apparently. Because when I asked the rams secretary to talk to him for a few minutes about Borlase, his reply was "does it have to be me?"

Atleast D coordinator Paul Dawson talked to me, but when I asked to take a picture of Borlase's locker there was some hesitancy, so I settle for a picture of a player's helmet with the Borlase decal on it. And Dawson also mentioned that Frank was a busy man but a good guy. So there's hope for the next story, maybe if the topic isn't so serious.

-McConkey and Bennett were good guys to talk to. Bennett brought out some good quotes. And man is he ever a big kid, I say kid because he's got the face of a 14-year-old but he's definitely over 300 lbs. While McConkey had some good stories to tell about the team, none of which I will repeat of course. They're both very good players. Both started as redshirt freshman last year. McConkey is currently leading the team in receiving with 236 yards.

Introduction

My name is Rene Lalonde, and I am quite grateful to be blogging about sports. Although I give a considerate effort to learn more about the world around me, sports has always been my passion and a constantly keeping up to date on the news in the sporting world. I will attempt on focusing on the Saskatchewan sporting scene, but will also take a look at the world of sports and the major pro sports in North America.

I Spent my internship this past winter in Toronto working at TSN, where I made and scripted highlight packs for SportsCentre. This will be my first blog, so I'll try experimenting with a few things. But this a subject that I'm very familiar with.

Thanks for checking it out.

P.S. That's a retro Montreal Canadiens shirt. No folks, not part of Leafs nation.