To say the men’s basketball team’s most recent road trip was a challenging one would be an understatement. Not only were they playing away from home against the ninth-ranked team in the country, but they were doing so with only eight players dressed due to injuries.

It was closer than they might have liked, but both the men’s and women’s volleyball teams eked out five-set victories against the Ryerson Rams in Toronto Saturday.
The contest was the men’s eighth five-set match so far this season—more than any other team in the OUA. Setter Devon Miller said the Gaels’ continued inability to put matches away early is due to a lack of “mental toughness.”

The men’s hockey team was left searching for answers Friday night in Montreal after their third straight loss, a 10-1 drubbing at the hands of the McGill Redmen.

The men’s hockey team is having its best season in years, but appears to have hit a bump in the road.
The Gaels renewed their age-old rivalry with the Royal Military College Wednesday night in Napanee, losing 3-2 in a shootout despite having a 2-0 lead in the second period.
The team has dropped four of its last six games heading into tonight’s game at McGill University.

The men’s volleyball team won both of their home games this past weekend, defeating the Western Mustangs in five sets and the Windsor Lancers in three. Jeff DeMeza led the team in kills both games, earning 17 kills against Western followed by 14 against Windsor the next night.

The women’s and men’s volleyball teams both came away with victories against the winless Royal Military College Paladins Wednesday night at Bartlett Gym.
In the early match, the 2-9 women’s team picked up their third win of the year in straight sets against the Paladins, who haven’t won a set this season.

A landmark decision reached Monday could drastically alter interuniversity sport in Canada. Delegates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II conference voted 258-9 to begin a pilot program that could see Canadian schools join the NCAA.

Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) announced Friday Queen’s will host the national cross-country championships in November 2009. Queen’s is also set to host the OUA championships this fall and the Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU) world university championships in 2010. In a press release, CIS chief executive officer Marg McGregor said the CIS championships will serve as a test run for the worlds the following year. Queen’s has previously hosted the CIS championships in 1973 and 1977 and co-hosted the 1999 championships with the Royal Military College.

The ongoing battle between female Canadian ski jumpers and the International Olympic Commission (IOC) shows our society isn’t as far along in sporting equality as has often been claimed. Eleven months ago, a group of these aspiring athletes launched a human-rights lawsuit trying to force the Canadian government to lobby the IOC to add women’s ski jumping to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, or sponsor an equivalent competition at the same time. The IOC has so far refused, saying the sport involves too few athletes and hasn’t held enough official world championships.

Weekend results for the women’s hockey team left coaches and players wondering if their collective glass was half-empty or half-full. The team played the Brock University Badgers on Friday and Saturday night, with each game ending in a 2-2 tie. In both games, the Gaels held the lead in the third period but allowed late equalizers to split the points with Brock.

The men’s hockey team could be patting itself on the back for collecting its 10th win of the season, the first time the program has done so since the 1988-89 season.
But that’s not the way head coach Brett Gibson feels about the team’s two games in Windsor against the Lancers.

A sharp contrast in results marked the Gaels’ weekend volleyball matches. As the men picked up two wins against the Western Mustangs and the Windsor Lancers, the women suffered two losses.

The recently released report on steroids in baseball by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell contains detailed assertions that Roger Clemens used steroids. The assertions are substantial enough to suggest that he should be permanently barred from the Hall of Fame. The report uses sworn testimony given to federal agents by Brian McNamee, Clemens’s former personal trainer, stating that he repeatedly injected Clemens with anabolic steroids between 1998 and 2001.

The men’s volleyball team didn’t get much of a winter break as they undertook one of the most grueling stretches of their season. The Gaels played nine matches in 11 days, beginning with a tournament in Florida against American schools and concluding with a silver medal in the Excalibur Classic against CIS teams. Middle hitter Chris Vandyk said the high level of play made the Florida trip stand out for him. “Florida was fantastic. The competition was really good,” he said. “It was a great opportunity to play against consistently high-level teams.”

Despite mixed results for the men’s basketball team last weekend, one player enjoyed enormous individual success. Second-year forward Mitch Leger scored 20 points in a 70-60 loss to the University of Toronto Varsity Blues on Friday night before tallying 30 points against Ryerson University on Saturday to propel the Gaels to a 79-74 victory.

The women’s hockey team appears to be turning the page from its early season struggles, earning two road victories over York University and the University of Toronto last weekend.
Second-year forward Liz Kench scored two goals and added one assist over the two games, while goaltender Katie Boyd made 60 saves on the weekend. Kench is now sixth in league scoring with 11 goals and 23 points in 19 games.

The men’s and women’s basketball teams returned to action with mixed results last weekend with games against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues and the Ryerson Rams.
Both Gaels’ squads lost against Toronto before a packed Bartlett Gym Friday, but rebounded to beat the Rams on Saturday night.