Review of CKDU Sports March 23

Review of the big show on March 23.

Trevor Steinberg- Head Coach of Saint Mary’s Huskies Ice Hockey. His team is off to nationals in Thuder Bay as AUS champs and the #2 seed in the tourney.
Guy Carboneau is a good coach and should not have been fired, the problem in Montreal is with the personnel, not the coaching.
Regarding the media opinion that the AUS Championship doesn’t mean anything because both teams qualify for nationals, “there is a banner and a championship at stake so anyone saying it doesn’t matter wouldn’t understand what it is these guys fright for every year.”
Due to their victory over UNB, they get to avoid the pool with Alberta. Alberta and UNB are the best two teams in the country so they get to watch those teams beat up on each other in the other pool. (SMU, the 2 seed, is in a pool with Western and Mcgill)
Players embrace the favourite role, think they can beat anybody, will give the team a huge confidence boost.
Team is healthy going into nationals, although the coach is not happy about having to get up at 3am on Tuesday morning to make the flight to Thunder Bay. (nationals are being held at Lakehead U)
With regards to fighting in the NHL, “..fighting helps govern the game and takes away from the stickwork...but if one of my players throws a great hit on a player from the other team, there’s no reason for the other team to send a guy out to fight, we have to get rid of that type of fighting. “
Coach feels there are immature kids who feel they have to get that last punch, they are showing a dis-respect to the game. When a fight is over it’s over. Refers to George Larouque as a guy who fights, but knows when the fight is over and it’s time to let the linesman break it up.
(sidenote..I was desperate to play Tom Cochrane’s “Big Leagues” after this interview but I couldn’t get the turntable to play..damn it!!!”

Rachel Wise- Coordinator of Water Polo Association at Dalhousie, they just held the biggest water polo tourney in the maritimes in the past 30 years.
Rachel said there were 16 teams in the tourney, including teams from Newfoundland.
Newfoundland took the gold medal. Old timers team from Halifax won silver. Dalhousie Black team won the bronze.
Good attendance, stands were full at Dalplex on Saturday.
High scorer of the tourney was Greg Corex and he scored 24 goals

for the Old Timers team. Travis Campbell of Dal was the MVP goalie.
Age range was 18-mid sixties. “Those old guys used allot of skill and strategy..they’re crafty.”
Lost all their games to a team from Laval a few months back. “They were tough.”
Mcgill has a similar program to Dal and she is hoping that next season they will be able to set up a tourney with the Martlets.
Anyone interested in joining the association can look at the facebook group or e-mail Rachel at waterpolo@dal.ca

Steve Sarty- Steve is the new Athletics Director at Saint Mary’s.
“Honour to follow in the footsteps of Larry Uteck and David Murphy”
Regards to his philosophy, “ I certainly want to win, but winning is not the ultimate goal. A culture is important..it’s important to develop young people during their formative years and teach ethics and morals....we have a responsibility to develop young people that will make the university proud.”
With regards to AUS football expansion, “It would be a great dynamic to add a fifth team...UNB would be ideal, they have a great field to watch a game. “
On the possibility of ensuring Laval plays SMU once every year. “It would be nice to see if we could do that every year.” Mr. Sarty has not looked at that issue yet.
Starting his job on April 1, his first item will be addressing the athletes at the Athletics Banquet and having a staff meeting with coaches.
Will be looking at sponsorship and trying to develop new partnerships.
Not aware of any outstanding issues or problems that need to be addressed right away. Steve thinks that with the bad economy it could be difficult to secure sponsorship dollars.

Review of Monday's CKDU Sports

Highlights from the big show today. Thanks again to Steve Betts who provided insight and analysis on the World Baseball Classic last week in TO.Thanks to Halifax Mooseheads insider Chris Trembley, Dalhouse Tigers Bball Coach John Campbell, and thanks again to Dan Reed, the voice of Tigers bball, for his excellent q and a regarding the Raptors. Below are the highlights from each conversation with today's guests, enjoy!

Steve Betts• Canada didn’t show up to the field vs Italy. Italy not as bad as everyone thought would be, some solid players at the top of the lineup.• Pitching definitely hurt Canada. One of their starting pitchers threw a fastball in the low eighties! • Justin Morneau and Matt Stairs had a very disappointing tournament.• Canada’s heart was in it but just no hitting from the 5 spot on, and the pitching made up of guys who play Single A and Double AA, just wasn’t enough to compete.• By far Venezuela had the most energetic fans.• Steve picks the Tampa Bay Rays will win the AL East, followed by the Yankees and Boston in that order. Does not think Toronto will be a factor. The division could come down to the effectiveness of the closers on each team, Mariano Rivera is starting to show his age.• Tampa Bay has a winning formula, Yanks made great additions with Burnett, Sabathia, and Texeira. . Sox did not do enough over the off season to add to their roster. • Arod’s acceptance from Yankee fans will basically come down to how productive he is throughout the season.• Steve thinks the Phillies are still the team to beat in the NL. Believes the Cubs will be the hard luck kids again this year. • Steve picks Japan to win the WBC, citing too much pitching and speed.

Chris Trembley• Mooseheads were snake bitten in their late season charge to make the playoffs. In their pivotal game at PEI on Wed. they outplayed the Rocket but just could not put enough pucks in the net. • Mooseheads were worried early in the season that it could be a non playoff season, team realized they were without any great players outside of Logan Macmillan.• Mooseheads were never really overmatched they just lost allot of close games.• The Mooseheads did not get much out of their goaltenders this year. Mark Gettman did not perform as well as he should have between the pipes and there were not enough goals scored to make up the difference.• General Managers announcing they want to bring an end to “staged”” fighting in the NHL is just an attempt to silence the media. Fighting is an integral part of the game and you can’t just change the fabric of a game overnight.• The linesmen don’t get in and break up fights like they used to because the dynamics of hockey fighting has changed over the years.

John Campbell• Referring to the Tiger’s first round loss to UBC, Coach Campbell said UBC came out very focused on defence, locked down Simon Farine, other players did not step up, and some early defensive lapses by the Tigers killed them, “They really outplayed us from a technical standpoint and an effort standpoint”.• Recruiting will focus on finding physical inside players, felt the team did not have enough of a physical presence in the post at times throughout the season.• Wants to get the Tigers to the point where they are the top team heading into AUS playoffs, and wants to compete for a national championship, not just participate.• Teams at the national tournament had allot of inside strength, whereas teams in the AUS this past year were very guard oriented.• Regarding their consolation round game vs Concordia, the Stingers felt very slighted by the seeding they received (7th) as the Quebec champs and a team that had been ranked highly all season. Came out with something to prove vs Tigers. Tigers had too many turnovers in first half and could not get any scoring outside of Simon Farine.• Coach feels he needs to get a guy in recruiting who is 6’5’/6’6”, can play inside/outside, is a physical presence and can bring some grit.• Dave Nutbrown, the former Head Coach at Acadia, brought allot of technical defensive instruction to the Tigers and was the primary reason the Tigers were the best defensive team in the conference. Nutbrown has also been a big help with the post players.• Josh Beattie has a tremendous work ethic and is a natural shooter. • Carleton has players on the bench who could start for many Canadian teams and Carleton will be back next year and competing for a national championship even with the loss of valuable senior players.

Dan Reed• UBC had too much depth for the Tigers to deal with. AUS teams are not quite good enough at this point to compete nationally.• Regards to the question whether or not the Raps should have kept TJ Ford, Dan said the Raptors should have never given up Charles Villeneuve for TJ Ford. Villenueva could have been a very valuable player for the Raptors.• Raptors have put together a bad team, made so many bad choices including Andrea Bargnani over Brandon Roy in the draft, and selecting Joey Graham over Danny Granger.• Calderon kills the Raptors defensively. Calderon is a good point guard, but the 2 and 3 positions have to be stronger to make up for his weaknesses. However, he’d rather have Calderon than TJ Ford.• Andreas Barganani will never be an impact player like Dirk Nowitski, but could settle in eventually as a Mehmet Okur type.• Raptors have always been a soft team. Chris Bosh crumples with contact. Loves Chris Bosh, but you have to trade him and get value, and rebuild the team.• The Brian Colangelo method of building a team has failed. They need some hustle players and guys who can rebound. Teams like the Bobcats and Grizzlies have brighter futures than the Raptors. • Sam Mitchell was a bad coach. The only thing that saved his job was the Coach of the Year award. Wishes they would have fired Sam prior to the season and gone after Mike Dantoni.• Colangelo will be back because he is a proven front office guy and a history of success. He’s made some mistakes, but he’ll fix them and start over. Jay Triano will not be back next year• “The Raptors have proven to be inept in any kind of strategy.”• Marc Ivaroni, the fired coach of Memphis, is available and would be an excellent head coach for the Raptors, as he has a history with Brian Colangelo and is a disciple of Mike Dantoni.• Anthony Parker has lost athleticism and explosiveness, cannot get separation from his defender and is no longer a legitimate NBA player.• Shawn Marion is no longer the matrix, he’s an enigma. Likes him more than Jermaine O’neal. If you can resign him for a low contract then do it but you cannot give him too much money.