After last week’s National Championships the final nail was hammered into the varsity season and we’re left grasping at straws to find noteworthy information to impart on you.
Fortunately, as is always the case, we will be saying goodbye to several athletes that did us proud in their final seasons with their respective varsity teams. This offers us, well me actually, one last opportunity to suck up to said athletes.
For example, this being my final year at Concordia, I was glad that I finally took the time to catch a few football games. After attending less than a handful of games in the prior three seasons combined, finally making it a point to go on a regular basis gave me the chance to see the likes of Mickey Donovan and Troy Cunningham in their final efforts. Although the Stingers lost to Laval in the QUFL semi-final, Cunningham walked away as the Metras Trophy winner as the CIS’s outstanding lineman. Donovan, in the meantime, was the President’s Trophy recipient as Canada’s outstanding defensive player.
It will be interesting to see how the Stingers cope with their departures.
Another team that stands to be decimated by the departure of key players is the much under-publicized women’s basketball team, which made it to the provincial championships this season.
It was the last hurrah for veterans Pascale Morin, M.J. Raposo and Graziella Charles. Raposo was the recipient of the Sylvia Sweeney Award, which represented the first major award that Concordia had ever won for women’s basketball. The team will be looking for more on-court leadership from players like Emilie Ruel and Stephanie Ramonas next season.
The interesting thing to watch next season will be what choice is made by those players who are still contemplating their future and will only decide over the summer.
