Monday 3 August 2009

Weekend Articles

Carleton alumnus Aaron Doornekamp was in the middle of flare up in Italy in which he was sucker punched (video evidence available see link below). Great job by Neate Sager covering this incident and resulting heavy press on the CISBlog ** LATE NOTE: Neate included a link to an interview with Aaron done by Sun Media's Eric Koreen

Belleville's Jamie Vanderbeken vies for a spot on the British national basketball team Vanderbeken preps for London plus an article from Inside the Games

Windsor officially announces two sets of games against Ohio State and Georgia Tech at home

Friday, August 28 – Windsor vs. Ohio State 6:00 pm

Saturday, August 29 – Windsor vs. Ohio State 6:00 pm

Saturday, October 3 – Windsor vs. Georgia Tech 7:00 pm

Monday, October 5 – Windsor vs. Georgia Tech 7:00 pm

All games at St Denis Centre.

Also, a group of Lancers won the St. Cecilia Summer League championship earlier this week in Detroit winning the final vs. Adrian College by 10. Lancers Head Coach Chris Oliver: "Great job by our veterans who not only played but also coached the team throughout the summer league.... in the championship game, we defended very well."

Finally we were very happy to get a mid-summer update from Calgary's Wayne Thomas who does such a great job keeping us informed about the Dinos and Canada West... Gary Howard Roast Taking Shape Dinos Basketball and the Dinos 6th Man Club will be hosting the Gary Howard Roast Wednesday, October 28
Cardel Centre - South. The roast will feature 'tributes' from Gary's former players, coaching rivals and colleagues, media, beloved referees, and long-time friends. All attendees will have a shot at the '1 minute microphone', in order to give us a Gary Howard vignette, and a thorough recollection of all 'Howardisms' is expected. Proceeds from the event will help establish the Gary Howard Endowment for Dinos Basketball. Coming just prior to the Canada West season opening series ... Dinos vs. Winnipeg Wesmen Fri/Sat, Oct. 30/31, this will be a fitting tip-off to the 2009-10 season. All alumni, friends, supporters, and basketball fans are urged to plan for this event. More information from this writer or Coach Dan Vanhooren - UC Dinos.... Don Newton To Enter U of A Hall of Fame The University of Alberta will include Dr. Don Newton, former Bears player and Dinos Head Coach, in their 'Sports Wall of Fame' induction ceremony for this fall. The event will take place on Oct. 1, 2009 in Edmonton. Newton joins former Bears teammate and another former Dinos Coach, John Dewar, as a member of the U of A Wall of Fame.... Local Referee Moving Up Michael Weiland, a top local basketball official, recently was awarded a FIBA (International) referees 'ticket', which will enable him to move up to working games in Europe, and, possibly, in U.S. Colleges. Weiland, at 28, one of the youngest -ever officials in Canada West and CIS, has ambitions to 'hit the world stage' as his father John did on so many occasions in the 1980s-and '90s. With Weiland possibly heading off to follow his dreams elsewhere, the refereeing pool in Calgary looks even more depleted ... for years there have been pleas from the refereeing association for more young recruits with some basketball background. According to insiders, there is an approaching crisis for all the Calgary leagues, with too few refs and too many games to work.... As far as the Canada West is concerned, you would hope there would be young talent to move up on a regular basis, but it hasn't happened as frequently as we might wish. Weiland will be missed, if he were to leave, but, with opportunity knocking, who can blame the young man for taking his best shot at 'the bigs'? Notes ... Lethbridge Pronghorns, reportedly, have lost most of their Toronto contingent, which would be the majority of their starters from last season. Coach Dave Adams will be looking to local talent to re-tool the 'Horns program. Quinn Van Gaalen, a fiery combo guard, should help as he returns from injury, Jeff Price, transfer point guard (Calgary), and last year's big rookie addition, Derek Waldner, an aggressive rebounder, will be the key guys. Jamie McLeod has been coordinating the coaching at the Dinos Summer Camps, and, according to Coach Vanhooren, the 5th year guard is doing a terrific job. " Jamie is an ace ! He is so mature and so confident ... we are very lucky to have his leadership", said Vanhooren. McLeod, a late addition to the roster last summer, was a stalwart for the SAIT Trojans, and a graduate of Western Canada HS., and he did an admirable job of quarterbacking the Dinos to a Canada West Title last season.... Brady Heslip, an outstanding shooting guard from Ontario, who looked impressive at the Dinos ID Camp this spring, disappointed the Dinos coaches by declaring for Guelph Gryphons of the OUA, but we notice he is now possibly headed south of the border, after putting on great shooting displays in several AAU games recently... Michael Page, the somewhat off-beat 6'7" shooting guard, who played at Brandon, then led the ACAC in scoring at Lakeland, returns to Canada West with the Manitoba Bisons. Bombs away ! Early indications would point to a great rookie crop in the Eastern loop of Canada West ... Count Calgary and Alberta as the two biggest winners in the high school recruiting wars.
Dinos ... Jarred Ogunbemi-Jackson, Andrew McGuinness, Dan Tilleman, Patrick Walker, Jordan Boyd ... 3 blue chippers at the guard spot and an intriguing young post man.
Bears ... Jordan Baker, Rob Dewar, Todd Bergen-Henengouwen, Ken Otieno, Nikola Manojlovic, Colin McKinnon ... Coach Greg Francis adds 3 posts, and 3 good-looking Alberta swing men. Baker and Dewar from the NEDA Program.
Lethbridge ... Sean McCormick, Kyle Wilson, Taylor Norum ... all Calgary -area players with some talent
Look for a more complete analysis of the new Canada West rosters once all the dust has settled.

2 comments:

sager said...

Thank you for the kind words, Mark.

Sun Media's Mike Koreen talked to Aaron Doornekamp for a follow-up, for any readers who are interested.

Anonymous said...

About l'affaire Doornekamp...
it's unfortunate that it had to take a near brawl in an exhibition game to get some attention for our national basketball team.
Whoever said bad publicity is better than no publicity at all wouldn't have been too far off the mark in this particular case.
Had that game Saturday night concluded without incident there would have been virtually no mention of the game anywhere in this country with the exception, of course, of dedicated b-ball blogs such as this one.
And to me, that is a sad statement of how little the game seems to matter in Canada...at least to the all powerful media types.
If this type of incident occurred with our junior hockey nats or the Olympic hockey team the media would be all over this story, naturally.
And you wouldn't hear the end of it for several weeks to follow.
But because this was only about our nearly anonymous national basketball team, this story will get play for 48 hours and will quickly be discarded.
The ONLY reason we heard anything at all about the men's basketball team today is because one of the players got slugged in the face....a classic case of "if it bleeds, it leads " journalism.
And that's a bloody shame.