The Tribune

This past Thursday, Hockey Night in Canada kicked off its 54th season on the CBC. This year’s edition features a few fresh faces in former San Jose Sharks colour commentator Drew Remenda and former Canadian women’s national team captain Cassie Campbell as well as a new feature called “Think Hockey.

Despite key personnel losses, the McGill Redmen hockey team is set to make a run at their third straight OUA East division title. More importantly, the Redmen hope to get another shot at the CIS Nationals after last year’s campaign ended in heartbreak. Although the loss of star forward Doug Orr and last year’s captain Pierre-Antoine Paquet stings, Head Coach Martin Raymond remains optimistic.

It’s an unfortunate circumstance of our society that female sports almost always get tucked away behind their male counterparts. Even here on the largely egalitarian campus of McGill, women’s athletics still seem to lack the spotlight that Redmen squads receive.

The wind was howling Saturday afternoon at Forbes Field, conspiring with the McMaster Marauders to blow away McGill’s chance at an undefeated season. Two unanswered overtime goals, including a hat-trick marker for the Marauder’s Matt Morgan, left the Redmen on the wrong side of a 10-8 score.

The NHL pre-season isn’t a hotbed of competitive juices. Nor should it be used as a barometer for how one’s favourite team will fare in the upcoming season-more often than not, the best exhibition teams are the worst squads during the real games and vice-versa.

I guess I’m unpatriotic. Though, born and raised in Canada-and a lifelong fan of the gridiron game-I have never made a secret of my disdain for this country’s knock-off brand of football or its ramshackle convening body, the Canadian Football League. What mystifies me most about the CFL isn’t its poor management, weak talent pool, inferiority complex or laughable quality of play.

There’s an old cliché in sports: “You have to play 60 minutes to win.” McGill found out the hard way on Saturday that there’s still a lot of truth in that expression. Despite going into halftime with an 11 point lead, the Redmen failed to pull off what would have been a huge upset against the top ranked team in the country, losing to the Laval Rouge et Or 43-27 in front of 1,749 spectators at Molson Stadium.

If you’re a sports fan, you’ve stayed up at night fantasizing about scoring the winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals or hitting the World Series walk-off shot. If you’re a football fan, thoughts inevitably gravitate towards becoming a speedy wide receiver or a star quarterback.

The third ranked Martlets got off to a slow start in Friday night’s season opener at Molson Stadium. But a much stronger second half allowed them to escape with a 2-0 victory over the visiting Sherbrooke Vert et Or. Neither side had been able to find any rhythm or assert itself during the first frame.

Sports teams are notoriously tight lipped and cautious when making preseason predictions about success. Such is the case with the Martlets soccer team. While they didn’t engage in any interviews touting dominance over the rest of the field, the Martlets soccer team clearly has only one target for the season: a national championship.