The Golden Gaels men’s and women’s lacrosse teams showed their skills this past weekend as the women played a preseason tournament and the men kicked off their seasonal campaign.

Detractors will say that activities involving frisbees do not constitute sport. It’s what people do on Sunday afternoon in the park with their dogs. But pessimists overlook the growing global popularity of Ultimate Frisbee—the sport is now played by an estimated 100,000 people, in more than 30 countries worldwide.

With the roster finalized and jerseys handed out, the Queen’s Golden Gaels baseball team readied themselves for their first test of the season last weekend. However, they were not ready to begin the 2004 campaign just as they had last season’s—with a split.

The men’s and women’s cross-country teams have seemingly traded places from this time last year.
Last season, the men were a young team, and their strong group of rookies took them to a surprising fourth place finish in the OUA and tenth place at the CIS Championships.
The women, on the other hand, easily took the OUA Championship after an undefeated regular season, and ran some brilliant races at the CIS final to finish second in Canada.

Even the presence of The Tragically Hip couldn’t inspire the Gaels football team in their Saturday afternoon game against the Guelph Gryphons. Hip members Rob Baker and Gord Sinclair made the ceremonial kickoff—possibly an omen foreshadowing the significance that kicking would play throughout the game. After another game marred by mistakes, the only thing “tragic” is that the team has now begun its season 0-2 for the first time in two years.

The Varsity Mens’ Rugby team opened its season on Saturday with a tightly contested match against the Brock Badgers. The game’s result looked in doubt until the final play, when Queen’s second-year fly-half Dave Poettcker slotted a dramatic 30-yard penalty to give the Gaels a hard-fought 22-21 victory.

Kingston Field has endured two weeks of training camp punishment by sixty men with cleats on their feet and a fire in their bellies. After last year’s disappointing loss to Western in the OUA semi-finals, the Queen’s Rugby Football Club is eager to field a more disciplined and fit team for the upcoming 2004 season.

Both the men’s and women’s Queen’s soccer teams brought their preseasons to a close last weekend with the Old Four tournament at Richardson Stadium. The Gaels played host to McGill, Western and Toronto, and while neither team finished in the top half, their games boasted some strong performances and good signs for the upcoming seasons.

The Golden Gaels football season began on Monday in the same fashion in which it ended last November—with a closely contested but disappointing loss. The eighth-ranked Gaels travelled to Windsor and came home with a 30-28 defeat.

In their professional lives, athletes exist in a parallel world where the black and white rules of the game pass for reality. In baseball, a ball is a ball and a strike is a strike. No question. But outside the stadiums and arenas, baseball players are also citizens. They live in a world of politics that does not resemble the rigid regulations that define their professional lives. When this outside world invades the field of play, as it did this past summer for Blue Jay’s slugger Carlos Delgado, the reaction from fans can be explosive.

Golden Gael contributions to the Olympics extend beyond the athletic field and into the executive branch. In June, three Queen’s graduates were named to the leadership team of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The moment John Curtis and Oskar Johansson have been working towards for the past four years is fast approaching. Athens is on the horizon, and they can’t wait.
The Queen’s alumni will be sailing in the Tornado class of the upcoming Olympics, taking place in Athens from August 8-20. The duo, currently ranked first in Canada, third in North America, and fifteenth internationally, learned that they had qualified for the games on June 23.

The chorus of boos at the Air Canada Centre that greeted Rob Babcock’s first draft choice as the Raptor’s general manager last Thursday represents an expression of the general malaise felt by Toronto fans in recent months.