4 Sports and Clubs December 9th, 2009 + Over the Edge
T-Wolves Sweep the House at Home Opener

The start of the UNBC Timberwolves
basketball season could not have come fast
enough for sports fans here in BC’s north-
ern capital. With the Blue Jays disgust-
ingly disappointing season still charred in
our memory and the Raptors playing well
enough to be early season favourites for
last place, the UNBC T-Wolves provided
a menthol fresh breathe of fresh air with
their dominant performances over the last
weekend of November winning all four
games against the Quest University Ker-
modes in front of huge overwhelmingly
excited crowds.

Women's Saturday

Saturday's women’s T-Wolf game was
also played in front of a hugely packed
crowd, however it was not such a star- stud-
ded affair as most of the UNBC elite had
spent their Friday night partying off the
basketball wins at the Generator. I was of
course at the generator also but spent all
my time sucking face with a beautiful lady
in a dark corner of the club and therefore
never had an opportunity to start working
on a crippling hangover. Nevertheless I was
sluggish and a basketball game is probably
the worst environment for nursing a hang-
over, especially at UNBC. They give all the
rowdies and all the kids thundersticks now
so even those who did not bring their own
drum from home can still make an excep-
tional amount of crowd noise... These are
the pains I go through for you, my dear
readers, to keep you up to date at the water
cooler.

For obvious reasons I showed up late to
Saturdays matchup against Quest Univer-
sity and walked in about half way through
the first quarter, luckily for me the scoring
difference was the same as it had been at
tipoff with the game knotted at 15. UNBC
destroyed the Quest Kermodes in this one
ending up on the alligator side of a 76-62
final score. Although its an impressive
margin, the final score does not reflect the
dominance issued by the women T-Wolves
as they had lead by much higher amounts
throughout the game but fell victim to an
unmotivated 4" quarter in which Quest
was able to make the score at least some-
what respectable.

Despite the first quarter ending in a tie at
21s, this game was over by half time as the
T-Wolves outscored the Kermodes by 23
points in the 2™ quarter. Never, in my illus-
trious sports writing career have I ever seen
a team go into a quarter tied and leave it up
by 23 points, it was remarkable. Of course,
Head Coach Loralyn Murdoch didn’t men-
tion the 2™ quarter in her comments at the
Thirsty Moose pub after the game (where
students and fans can go after any T-Wolf
home game to meet the UNBC coaching
staff) as she was too focused on her team’s
slow down during the 4", It’s her unwaver-
ingly demanding coaching style that has
made the women's T-Wolf team the most
dominating and successful basketball team
in the BCCAA.

Regardless, Quest was unable to produce
any ball movement on Saturday and the
T-Wolf players consistently intercepted
an alarmingly high percentage of Ker-
mode passes. The 2"! quarter did provide
an extremely tense moment amidst all
the UNBC scoring as energizer Christine
Kennedy went down with what looked like
an ankle injury late in the quarter and al-
though she stayed on the court she looked
very much in pain and headed to the bench
shortly afterwards. Kennedy was able to
return strongly in the 3‘! however accord-
ing to team officials this is a nagging injury
which she has been dealing with so it is a
situation worth paying attention to espe-
cially given Kennedy's fast style of play.

However, as with anything UNBC relat-
ed, rain only brought sunshine as Kennedy's

departure gave rookie Rebeckah Gaukel

a chance to log some minutes. Within 20
seconds of being on the court Gaukel hit a
phenomenal 3-pointer from a distance only
astronomers know the word for, and con-
tinued to play so impressively that she was
named the UNBC player of the game.
Along with Gaukel’s terrific game, fans
also got a chance to meet UNBC’s 1* year
guard: Jennifer Bruce, who is the only ath-
lete I have ever seen on UNBC’s home
court with hair more impressive than my
own. However what was once a terrific
basketball game turned into a frustrated
surge of dirty play by the Quest players.
This dirtiness hit a climax late in the third
when 2™ year guard Charlotte Lau viciously
knocked down the recently re-courted Ken-
nedy late in the quarter behind the backs of
the referees. Kennedy showed a remarkable
maturity and chill level as she got back on
her feet took a few seconds to calm herself
down and got back into the play.
Alarmingly, Quest's Coach Jordan despite
the education he received her at UNBC and
his excellent view of what his player just
did, let Lau stay on the court. His team was
out of contention for
the win; by leaving hi
frustrated starters o
the court landing dir
foul

someone could have

and malicious

gotten seriously hurt.
This early in the seasons
it is shameful for this
type of play to be con-

ducted but even more ——
shameful for a coach to
let it go without disci-
pline. Coach Jordan can
therefore be considered

to be completely over
his head in regards to
his coaching job he
has no control over his
players and no chutz-
pah to discipline their
atrocious behaviour. In
light of this information

I would like his UNBC alumni status re-
voked. Get on it. That aside, UNBC wins!
They always win and its always exciting so
make sure to be join UNBC’s biggest party
atmosphere at the Charles Jago Northern
Sports Centre on January 22-23,

Men's Friday

I've mentioned this before but apparently
it needs to be said again: dudes, when the
national anthem comes on before a basket-
ball game you take your hat off. I don't care
what Joe Cocker told you, sometimes its
super inappropriate to leave your hat on.
It's really simple; just reverse all the steps
that you took to put it on. If you are think-
ing no one notices that your hat is still on
your head while the anthem is being sung
you are mistaken. It shows an incredible
lack of respect to be wearing a hat during
the anthem and there's no good reason not
to take it off. Seriously a lot of chicks dig
bald dudes; and whom do you think your
fooling with the hat? Everyone knows your
wearing it because you're embarrassed by
what your head looks like, so what are you
accomplishing? Take the hat off and display
that receding hairline proudly, and patriot-
ically. I hope to not have to bring this up
again; now to the basketball.

Friday's matchup between our beloved
T-Wolves and the Quest University Ker-
modes was a blowout, with a final score of
109-87 for UNBC. This year’s T-Wolves are
loaded with depth and have a ton of talent
rested and ready on the bench at any given
point during a game, for example energetic
sparkplug Joel Rybachuk, who could eas-
ily be the starting point guard for almost
any other team in the BCCAA, plays his
backup role for the T-Wolves to perfection
UNBC men’s Head Coach Raimbault ex-

eS
a

plains: “we're lucky to have a ton of depth
at our guard spots. You don't see as many
guys playing into the 30's. We're happy with
what Joel's doing, It’s a nice luxury for me
to have a guy like that to bring in to change
the tempo of a game. He's a guy that can
come in and change the game as soon as he
hits the floor. Depth I think is our biggest
strength right now.’

Not that I gamble, but lets say hypothet-
ically I like betting on sports. Of course nei-
ther I, nor the illustrious foundation that is
Over the Edge, would ever condone such
a get rich quick scheme of low moraled
hedonism. But lets invent a fantasy world
in which being a University student doesn't
free up much time to make the money ne-
cessary for taking one's best girl out for a
Saturday night without gambling a little
bit. If I did bet on sports I would follow the
time tested and proven theory that gamblers
have been using since the first bar- bet of all
time: never bet on a team until after their

first long road trip of the season. There's all
kinds of science behind this, team chem-
istry, the bonding experienced on the road,

ass gas or grass, whichever the case it works
because road trips always seem to bring a
team together chemistrically.

Therefore, considering the T-Wolf sched-

ule started off with 3 weekends of away

games in a row, it makes sense for Coach
Raimbault to be “really happy with the way
all the new guys have come together and our
cohesion as a group in terms of team build-
ing and gelling. Its been really good for the
group to get out and be on the road, spend
the time on the bus, traveling and things
like that is really good to bring the group
together. So I'm happy with the chemistry
that we have so far.’ Now considering their
record during their 5 game road stand was
4-1 and according to all things science the
team will now get better because of the
road bonding, T-Wolf fans can be assured
that we are all in for a fantastic year.

A major factor I was particularly looking
for during Friday's home opener was how
well the T-Wolves would be able to play in
the paint after the departure of defensive
dynamo Jarret Borsoi, and I was elated to
see the tandem of 3“ year post Jessie Smith
and Rookie Kevan Madsen, 6’5” and 6’9”
respectively, playing so dominantly. Madsen
sent the T-Wolf fans into an exacerbated
frenzy in the 3“ quarter landing an enor-
mous block on the 64” hulking frame of
Quest's biggest player Brodan Robertson.

So this was all great: awesome depth,
great paint presence, the rookies gelling
nicely with the team, place your bets now
etc, but really anyone who was at the game
knows Friday night was all on Jose Araujo.
You, of course, all vividly remember read-
ing about Jose Araujo in previous pages of
OTE as the dude who Coach Raimbault

focused his recruiting efforts on and who

we're all very excited to have on the T-
Wolves this year.

Anything I said in that article has got to
be considered an understatement after his
electrifying display on Friday. Needless to
say his hand was about as hot as the inside
of a three cheese pizza pop fresh out of
the microwave oven, just like mom used to
make. Araujo started off hot from the sub-
urban 3 street and never cooled off, burying
the hapless Kermodes who had no possible
way of defending his unique uber-fade style
of 3-ball shooting that causes him to fall on
his back after almost every shot, it’s a little
flashy and a bit Steven Spielberg for my
taste but the ball goes in the net, the kids
love it, the ladies swoon, the T-Wolves win
so whose complaining?

Before I wrap this up and move on to the
Saturday game I want to give a shout out
to the kid with the trumpet during Fridays
games. It was awesome to see and incred-
ibly effective at getting the fans cheering,
stomping, clapping and all sorts of other
skull duggerous rabblerousing. Of specific
awesomeness was the Breakfast Club arm

ump at the end of every
trumpet interlude, twas
extremely well played.
World peace is going to
ave to take a back seat
At my next toast because
y next drink will be in
your name trumpet guy.
8 Speaking of drinking, I’m
= fe * oe deadline so lets
Pibelp each other out by
R moving quickly through
Saturday before your bus
arrives and you put this
paper down.
| Men's Saturday

A torrid start by fourth

year guard Matt Mills
ho notched 7 points
in the first 3 minutes

4,
ot

4,

of Saturday's game set
STOCK PHOTO the standard for the T-
Wolves and although
the spark that Araujo had used to carry the
team through Friday's game was completely
absent on Saturday, the T-Wolves cruised
through Saturday's matchup like a Cadillac
on a Sunday defeating the Kermodes 86-
64 and capping off the glorious weekend
sweep.

The Kermodes were temporarily able
to ride on the back of 2™ year guard Kyle
Thorau who had an impressive first quarter
for the Kermodes, and thanks to a buzzer
beating 3-ball from 2" year Quest forward
Joel Wollenburg the Kermodes ended
the first quarter up by 3. This was appar-
ently the greatest thing to happen in their
basketball franchises’ history as Wollen-
burg erupted in excitement and celebrated
the monumentous occasion wholeheartedly
with his teammates. They were eventually
able to calm down enough to finish off the
first half but that first quarter will be told
to generations of grandkids till the day
(your religious team captain here) comes
and takes us all the (your religious endplace
here).

Saturday's matchup illustrated the im-
portance that the UNBC bench will have
on the team’s success this season, Coach
Raimbault was particularly pleased with
the play of his backups stating “similar to
the guards we have a pretty good situation
with our big guys right now where we can
roll the bench and wear some other teams
down and Saturday was a good example
of that. Where Kevan Madsen and Didier
Sam came off the bench and sort of sparked
us in terms of energy,’

Coach Raimbault was also able to use
the skills on his bench to come up with dif-
ferent lineups to find mismatches on the
court. When asked about his bench’s talent

level and how this affects the starting line-
ups Raimbault explains: “it’s an interesting
scenario, it’s a nice problem to have. In terms
of different lineups Saturday we went with
four guards at one point. We have a lot of
guys that can definitely come in contribute
right away which is a big advantage. One of
the things we want to do is we want to play
up tempo and pressure defense, and hope-
fully in the 4° quarter our legs are a little
more fresh than our opponents.’

2" year guard Sam Raphael put his game
on an elevator and hit penthouse on Sat-
urday and was named the UNBC player
of the game. SammyRaph was electrify-
ing in the second quarter and throughout
the entire game putting up jumpers with
a confidence rarely seen in his usual quiet-
support style of play. It wasn't all rainbows
and sausages for SammyRaph however as
in the 2" quarter he may or may not have
gone up for a dunk and embarrassed him-
self by not quite holding on to the rock
long enough and ended up throwing the
ball hard against the backboard. But that's
neither here nor there; T-Wolves win and
he's the game M.V.P.

Kevan Madsen again had an impressive
day in the key starting off with an early
block in the 1% quarter followed by some
moderate taunting which is always a huge
crowd pleaser for fans everywhere. The
UNBC men’s team as a whole seems to be
playing with more attitude and vocality this
year, and being the responsible sportswriter
that I am, I asked Coach Raimbault about
this, he responded: “Our style of play is a
little bit more conducive to emotion and
energy. We have a pretty passionate group
and I think we play a fun style. The tempo
is very high and that’s the way we want to
play so I think its sort of infectious that
way.”

Considering UNBC fans love this style
of fast paced basketball and we provide the
loudest and most vocal fan base in the BC-
CAA it should make for some very loud
basketball weekends this season. This sets
up the most beautiful of life's circles as the
crowd feeds off the energy of the players to
become swept up in frenzied fandom, and
in turn the players feed off the energy of
their home crowd to bring more noise, as
Coach Raimbault explains “Our crowd is
awesome. Over the weekend it was a very
vocal and active crowd. The student body
was awesome. Our crowd is a big time ad-
vantage for us when we're here. They are
our sixth man, and are a part of the team in
terms of the atmosphere and the environ-
ment and obviously we feed off of their
energy. Considering the excitement that
was dished out over the pat weekend yall
are going to want to be sure to mark off the
weekend of January 22™ on your calendars
so as not to double book because you are
definitely going to be in the Charles Jago
Northern Sports Centre watching the most
dominant men’s team in the BCCAA play
in front of the leagues largest, and loudest
crowd.

Now before I let you get back to what-
ever other tool your using to avoid studying
for finals, I want to stress the importance
of a coach who wears a suit. Basketball
seems to be the last beacon of respectable
coaches. Thanks to the infamous cheater
Bill Bellichick football coaches now wear
hoodies and non-fitting trackpants, base-
ball coaches wear the team's uniform which
is super weird but accepted somehow, and
now it seems basketball coaches are start-
ing to slip. Sweaters are coming out instead
of blazers and ties, this is not a good thing.
Consider the record of teams coached by
coaches who wear suits, and those who
don't. I have no idea what that record is but
I will tell you that on the weekend it was
blazers 2, sweaters 0.