Category: Sports

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Hard-fought tie at home for Stingers

The Concordia Stingers, thanks in part to the offensive contribution of centre David Comeau, surmounted a 5-2 deficit in the third period to tie the Ottawa Gee-Gees 5-5 last Friday night, in a game held at Ed Meagher Arena.
“It’s never easy to play catch-up hockey, but our team never lost confidence, and that’s why we were able to come back in the game,” said Comeau, who scored twice for the Stingers, including the tying goal.
The Stingers started the game off on the wrong foot by conceding a quick goal to Gee-Gees’ winger Hugo Giguere, who skated around the Concordia defence and beat Stingers’ goalie Philippe Ozga at 2:59 of the opening period. The Stingers played a physical first frame but could not capitalize on their numerous scoring chances, with Ottawa goalie Derek McKlusky shutting the door.
The Stingers’ two best scoring opportunities of the period were foiled by McKlusky’s solid play, who first made a sprawling save on centre Gerry Gomez at 10:25, and then thwarted a two-on-one rush by wingers Michel Tremblay and Mathieu Fleury in the final two minutes of play, keeping the score at 1-0.
The Gee-Gees doubled their lead 6:35 into the second period when Christian Jensen served Ozga a nifty deke and beat him stick-side. However, just a little over two minutes later, Comeau got Concordia on the board by deking a stickless Ottawa defenceman and blowing a shot past McKlusky.
With only seven seconds remaining in the period, the Gee-Gees’ Giguere scored his second goal of the night after streaking up the left wing and lifting the puck over Ozga’s glove, making it a 3-1 game.
With Ottawa leading 5-2 a little over past the midway mark of the third period, the momentum shifted in favor of the Stingers, who scored three unanswered goals. With 6:54 remaining, Patrice Roy netted his eighth goal of the season to narrow the gap to 5-3. Fifty seconds later, it was Fleury’s turn to shake the mesh with a blistering slapshot that gave the Ottawa goaltender absolutely no chance. The Stingers crowned their comeback during a two-man advantage when Comeau scored the tying goal with 2:20 remaining in the game, sending it to overtime.
The best scoring chance in overtime belonged to Concordia’s Gomez, who fired a shot a few inches wide of the net with under a minute to go. With the tie, the Stingers were able to remain undeafeated against Ottawa this season, posting a 3-0-1 record against their East Division rivals.
“We just weren’t playing with the intensity we needed to play with (from the beginning),” said Stingers’ head coach Kevin Figsby following the game. “We found that intensity late in the third period, but the key thing is we found that intensity.”
“Tonight was a character point,” commented Figsby. “It was a point we needed to come away with…to stay ahead of the pack.”
With the point, the Stingers were able to increase their lead to two points ahead of the McGill Redmen in the East Standings.
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Second place falls to the wayside

Bad breaks, bad calls and a lot of frustration resulted in a 7-4 defeat for the Stingers by the McGill Redmen at McConnell Arena on Sunday with second place up for grabs.

After a fantastic first period, the Stingers simply fell apart early in the second due to some weak penalties called by a referee whose head was clearly in another rink, and a lack of discipline by the visiting team due to frustration arising from those calls.

As Concordia began the second with centre David Comeau already in the box, the ref decided to send teammate Mathieu Fleury to keep him company with an absurd high-sticking call right off the first face-off.

With a two man advantage, the Redmen jumped on the puck, when winger Greg Davis slipped it past Stinger goalie Francis Gourdeau just 48 seconds into the frame. Only 17 seconds later, with yet another Stinger in the box, this time Patrick Pelchat for cross checking, McGill’s David Burgess deflected the puck by Gourdeau to put the home team up 2-0.

Next up on the menu for McGill on a five-on-four advantage, was a tasty rebound for Davis, which he fed into the mesh, giving his team three goals in a span of only 38 seconds.

Shocked, Concordia proceeded to run around the ice for a few minutes trying in vain to get something going, when a few minutes later, defenceman Vince Labossi

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Cross-town rivals settle for a draw at McGill

New Concordia member Philippe Ozga got his second start in a row Wednesday night as the Redmen played host to the Stingers at the McConnell arena for a 2-2 tie. With only one point separating the two teams, second place was up for grabs.
Ozga and his teammates started strong, but were not able to take advantage of their three power plays. That boosted the Redmen, and after failing to capitalize on a two-man advantage, Jocelyn Perreault got a lucky bounced that squeezed through the netminder’s pads with less than 20 seconds left in the first.
At the beginning of the second, Concordia got a chance to even things up with a power play, but were not able to put one by goaltender Beno
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Stingers deal York defeat

The women’s basketball team secured a much needed 78-68 victory over the York Yoewomen on Friday night at the Concordia gym.
“The game gives us a lead on McGill for the last playoff spot,” explained head coach Keith Pruden.
The Stingers have been hard up for wins this season. They have six loses and two wins excluding today’s victory. This win puts them in third place over McGill in the QSSF conference.
Although Concordia has had the third place since the beginning of the season, a 64-60 loss to McGill on January 16 threatened this standing.
By watching the Friday night game you wouldn’t have known that the Stingers were down in the dumps in wins. Concordia took the lead quickly in the first half.
They played cleanly with little fouls until the end of the half. In the last few minutes they went from the ten-point lead that they had sustained for most of the half to a one-point lead and to having ten team fouls.
The Stingers went into the second half fighting. Although they gathered as many fouls as they did in the first they were able to regain their ten-point lead by the end of the half. Concordia kept on the board with some fast breaks and some important steals. According to Pruden a steal at the end of the half by third year guard Jennifer Neill really made it hard for York to come back.
Pruden said that his players “have to realize that they other team doesn’t want to lose either so they’re going to keep going to keep coming out at you. You have to adjust to that and we did that in the second half.”
High scorers in the game were Stinger post Kristina Steinfort with 24 points, Concordia co-captain Marie-Pier Veilleux with 23 points and Yeowomen Nastassia Subban with 21 points.
The stingers are feeling good with Friday’s win. As for the lack of play at the end of the second half Veilleux had this to say, “everyone goes on a run. We can’t be hot the whole game.”
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Men’s side end losing skid

Opportunistic baskets late in the second half allowed Concordia to pull off a much needed win defeating the Laurentian Voyageurs 71-68 last Saturday afternoon, snapping the Stingers’ three game losing streak.
“Our guards played tremendously,” said Stingers head coach John Dore. “They played good defense, they rebounded and ran well.”
The story of the game was in the second half where Concordia came out of the gate slow once again. However this time the Stingers were able to knock down baskets at the right place and at the right time.
Stingers centre Real Kitieu started the game having trouble gaining inside position on Laurentian. But he proved to be the go-to man, making the winning jump shot just shy of the paint with less than 30 seconds remaining to put Concordia in the lead for good.
“Today we played against a small team and we should have killed them,” said Kitieu. “But personally, I’m not comfortable playing with small guys like that so I was kind of out of the game. But at the end, I knew I had to step it up.”
Laurentian mounted a 52-42 lead midway into the second half but a clutch shot made by Stingers guard Jonathan Dresner seemed to rally the troops giving Concordia new life.
“Dresner is getting better and better and learning to play defense at this level,” said Coach Dore. “He has to learn what’s a good shot and a bad one but he’s going to score a lot of points before he’s finished here.”
Another solid contributor was Concordia guard Gavin Musgrave who silently went eight for 13 from the field scoring a game high 20 points.
The Concordia men’s basketball team now heads for an extended four game road trip starting with a game against Laval next Friday. The team will be back on February 9th to face off against the Ottawa Gee Gees.
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Yeomen drop ConU b-ball

The Stingers can’t buy a win as the men’s basketball team lost their third straight against a strong York team by a score of 72-64 last Friday night.
“We played with a lot of intensity and enthusiasm, something that has been lacking,” said Stingers head coach John Dore. “However, we lost to a very experienced and big team.”
Atrocious turnovers in the second half were one of the main turning points in the game. Concordia committed 15 in the half compared to only five by York.
“We made too many mistakes and turnovers cost us,” said Stingers forward James Aubourg. “Our problem is execution and it’s all about doing the little things such as screens and good passes that helps us win games.”
Another deciding factor in the game was Concordia’s inability to adjust to a zone defense implemented by York in the second half to slow down the Stingers’ athleticism and post play.
The game started out fairly evenly, with both teams shooting the ball well, good transition passing and strong defensive play. The first half ended when Stingers forward Aubourg nailed a three-pointer in the final seconds to give Concordia a 35-30 lead.
Concordia and York began the second half where they left off, with both teams exchanging baskets back and forth.
It wasn’t until the late stages of the game when York started to pull away, sinking the ball with immense accuracy handing Concordia their fourth loss of the season.
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ConU falls to Lady Vees

Hard work didn’t pay off at the Concordia gym as the women’s basketball team lost 60-68 to Laurentian’s Lady Vees Saturday.
“We would have rather won but we know we worked as hard as we could,” said Stinger co-captain Jessica Manchester.
The Laurentian team is ranked tenth nationally and first in the combined Quebec and Ontario conferences. Considering that Concordia is placed near the bottom of the combined conferences a loss by eight points was very good. This was much to the disappointment of the large group of York fans in attendance, who would have probably preferred a larger margin.
Despite the small deficit in points the Stingers had a scared look on their faces during the game as they faced this stronger team. Offensively they hurried passes that led to some turnovers. Concordia did have a strong press that stunted the Laurentian advance while the Stingers easily broke through the Lady Vees rather ineffective one.
High scorers in the game were Laurentian’s Shauna Conway with 28 points and Concordia’s Rosie Douglas with 14 points.
Head Coach Keith Pruden said that he is pleased with how the team played. He however continued “we could have won it and we should have won in my opinion, but thems the breaks.”
Pruden also expressed his displeasure with the referees. He said that a not called travel that in turn led to a Lady Vee to scoring a basket would have only given Laurentian a two-point lead if the travel had been called. An immense discretion, he concluded.
Meanwhile, Manchester hopes to put some more wins on the table. “We know we’re quick and that our pressure can hurt teams. Now we have to focus more on details, small details that make us lose games.”
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Time out: Baseball salaries go through the roof

This winter Major league Baseball moved one step closer to Armageddon. The gap between the rich and the small market teams increased significantly.
When shortstop Alex Rodriguez signed a contract with the Texas Rangers on December 11, it sent shock waves not only in baseball but also in all sports. The contract was worth about $252 million over 10 years.
What this means to small market teams like the Montreal Expos is it will be increasingly harder for them to compete with teams like the Rangers, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, the Mets and Yankees. Small market teams have little chance to acquire any big-name stars because any rich team would simply out bid them. Then the rich teams would be ones capable to win a championship. This wouldn’t be fair to the fans of any small market teams like the Expos.
To be paid $252 million is just unthinkable. No one deserves that kind of money. For a normal person living here in Quebec, who earns a $6.90/hour minimum wage paycheck, it would take that person over 6300 years to earn that much money. That is considering that person works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without having a chance to eat or sleep. And if you convert that into Canadian funds, it comes to about $380 million.
Even if Rodriguez was worth that kind of money, you know how much Vladimir Guerrero would be worth? At least $300 million. That is simply TOO MUCH!!!! That is not good news to Expos fans who’ve long deserved at least a post-season appearance after a number of fire sales, which got rid of many great players just because they were unable to afford paying them.
Therefore, if Major League Baseball isn’t careful enough to control player salaries very soon, it could lead to the end of baseball. Unfortunately the damage may already be done. They are too many greedy players and team owners who only care about money and crushing the competition. However, there’ll be no competition to crush if there’s no baseball at all. So, to Expos fans, perhaps whether their team will still be in Montreal is not the biggest problem but if there’ll be any baseball at all.
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McGrath named head coach

Gerry McGrath has been officially named head coach of Concordia’s football team for the first season of the new millenium.
McGrath, who took over for former coach Pat Sheahan who resigned last winter after 11 seasons with the Stingers, was a six-year veteran in the CFL. He was chosen at the end of last season by a committee which included player representation.
A former kicker, McGrath spent six seasons with four teams, including Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Saskatchewan. He is touted as being an offensive wizard and utilizes the passing game more than anything. McGrath has been studying the game for over 20 years and also coached at the Quebec junior and semi-professional levels.
Now 41, McGrath served as offensive co-ordinator for eight years behind Sheahan. Three of his students are now playing in the CFL, including Andr
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Stingers singing the blues

Toronto Varsity Blues’ Thomas Grochmal racked up a game high 30 points in a solid all around performance to handily defeat the hometown Concordia Stingers 81-73.
“We were sluggish, slow to move, our cuts weren’t as fluid as they were before,” said Stingers guard Gavin Musgrave. “They just played a better game then us. They won it fair and square.”
Concordia’s agility, strength and athleticism was apparent in the start of the first half as the Stingers went on a tear, accumulating a 15-6 lead five minutesin.
“We started out the game well, going inside to Real (Kitieu),” said Musgrave.
“Once we were up 15-6, we stopped giving the ball to Real. We tried to do other things and it didn’t work.”
Soon there after, costly turnovers by Concordia in the offensive zone coupled with aggressive defense by Toronto catapulted the Blues within two points of the
lead.
Toronto finally gained the lead about half way into the first half but was later recovered by Concordia with strong inside positioning drives by Stinger forward James Aubourg.
With the lead at 26-23 in Concordia’s favour, Toronto began distributing the ball extremely well with the focus on looking for a clean, outside shot.
It took little time before Toronto regained the lead for good.
The Blues started to double team Stingers top scoring centre Real Kitieu thus disabling one of Concordia’s main offensive producers.
“We got away from our game plan a little bit,” said head coach John Dore. “They made their shots when they had to, they passed well and defended very well.”
The first half ended with Toronto leading 39-34 following a buzzer beating three pointer by the Blues.
In the second half, Toronto continued their brilliant shot making and ball distribution on offence with smothering defense at the other end of the court.
Although regularly double-teamed, Real Kitieu started to show his dominance on the boards approximately five minutes in. Real finished the game making 10 of 22 shots, a team high 23 points, 21 rebounds and five blocked shots.
“It could have been better because I thought I had a pretty poor field percentage due to the double teams,” said Kitieu. “The game could have been completely different because of that.”
Midway into the second half, Concordia attempted to mount a comeback. However, every time the Stingers accumulated some points, Toronto quickly answered back with fire power of their own.
“We tried to press and get some turnovers but every time we got a turnover and made a positive, they responded at the other end,” said coach Dore.
The Stingers came as close at five points to the lead with the score of 68-63 with 5:24 remaining in the game but Toronto was simply too strong on this day.
“They played within the framework of their game plan and we didn’t play in the framework of ours,” said coach Dore. “We didn’t play to the level where we should be playing at.”
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Time out: Lindros the whino

Just when you though Eric Lindros had grown up a little, he proves us all wrong yet again.
The now broken, former captain of the Philadelphia Flyers has demanded from general manager Bobby Clarke to be traded to Toronto-or no one.
Let’s travel through the mists of time for a moment shall we. A struggling little team called the Quebec Nordiques had the first overall pick and selected Lindros
back in 1991. I’ll never forget when he walked up on that podium in front of thousands and refused to put on the blue, white and red jersey. But hey, who cares
about the thousands of hopefuls who would have given their left foot to play for any team back then, but poor Eric didn’t want to play for a losing team and
promptly demanded a trade.
Now 27, you’d figure that Lindros should have grown up by now and play where he’s sent-and be treated like any other NHL player who has been dealt. I guess he
hasn’t learned anything in the past nine years.
Lindros wants to go to Toronto, but hey, who wouldn’t. You can stay in Canada and still make large sums of money unlike other Canadian cities
(*cough*Montreal*cough*), they’re a contender for the Cup and he’ll eventually become a spokesperson for Chunky soup.
There’s a large stumbling block that prevents him from packing up his swag and heading to the great white north. Bobby Clarke now refuses to deal with the
Leafs because they’re offering him close to nothing for Lindros, which I’m guessing includes a pail of pucks, a couple of rusty nets and a few season tickets in
the nose bleed section of the Air Canada Centre.
I don’t blame the Leafs for offering nothing for the Big “E”. One game against the Devils and one of Scott Stevens crushing checks and he’ll be hosting NHL Cool
Shots with his brother Brett, who suffered the same fate a few years back. If he does go to Toronto, I’d pay him per game just so the Leafs won’t be financing
the league’s toughest and most expensive water boy.
concordiansports@hotmail.com
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Women’s team suffer similar fate to U of T

A lackluster performance in the first half by the Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team was the main turning point in a 65-56 loss at the hands of the
visiting Toronto Varsity Blues last Saturday afternoon.
“We stank the joint out in the first half,” said Stingers head coach Keith Pruden. “Toronto’s a good, talented, well coached team and if you don’t play the same
good basketball for 40 minutes, you lose.”
Although the Stingers played with more intensity in the second half, outscoring Toronto 34-26, the first half’s inconsistent offensive output was too much to
overcome.
“The problem in the first half was that we played soft defense and we weren’t doing things on offence that we normally do,” said coach Pruden.
Toronto started the game on an 8-0 run, with Concordia’s first points coming off the hands of Stingers forward Kirstina Steinfort who finished a strong game
with a team high 20 points.
Midway into the half, Concordia’s lack of mental focus and shot making proved to be the fuel that ignited the Varsity Blues into a stellar offensive and defensive
mode.
Toronto limited Concordia into making difficult shots for much of the half, while the Blues forged on with a face paced transition game and opportunistic
shooting.
The first half ended with the Blues leading by the score of 39-22.
The Stingers came out in the second half reenergized and things started to click, baskets were going in and the defense vastly improved.
“We came out much more sharper and played much better defense,” said coach Pruden. “We were very aggressive on offence.”
Speed and a tenacious defensive stance kept Toronto on its heels as Concordia continued to press and maintain possession of the ball.
At the 8:20 mark, Concordia dwindled Toronto’s lead to 11 points with hopes of a comeback, however Toronto continuously answered back with well-timed
shots.
“To Toronto’s credit, they hit some very tough shots to keep us at arms length,” coach Pruden said.
Forward Steinfort and guard Marie-Pier Veilleux led the way in the second half for the Stingers with the team shooting 46.9 per cent from the field compared to
Toronto’s 40.9 percent.
Concordia came as close as eight points to the lead late in the half but poor shot selection and some ill-fated individual efforts signaled the eventual end.
“It’s all mental stuff. We weren’t ready to play. We were flat mentally and when you’re not ready mentally, you’re not ready physically,” said coach Pruden.