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Basketball Martlets hoping to score a slam dunk against breast cancer with Thursday’s charity game

by Mari Mesri on

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This Thursday night, the McGill Martlets will take on their local rivals, the Concordia Stingers, in their first ever fundraiser game for the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation. The “Shoot for the Cure” event aims to raise between $1,500 and $2,500 for the cause.

The game is part of a larger initiative by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA). This is the fourth year of the effort, which has raised over $200,000 for the fight against breast cancer.  

“I believe this is a great way for us to use our sport as a tool to increase awareness about a disease that will one day impact the lives of these young women in one way or another,” said Martlets Head Coach Ryan Thorne.

“The WBCA goal this year is $100,000 and with every team in the CIS participating, that makes [McGill’s] fundraising goal roughly $2,500. All the players have been working, soliciting donations from friends and family, and the Intercollegiate department will also be doing their part by accepting donations at the door and matching what we raise to a maximum of $500. Concordia will be our opponent on Thursday, but together we will be using this game to battle a common foe.”

Ribbons will be available to donors and two dollars from every ticket sold will go to the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation. Fans are encouraged to wear pink. The event is scheduled to start at 6:00pm on Thursday, January 13 at Donald Love Competition Hall of the McGill Athletics Complex.

McGill’s very own a capella group Tonal Ecstasy will contribute a special halftime performance. McGill Athletics would like to extend a special invitation to breast cancer survivors along with a guest to attend the event free of charge.  Reservations can be made by emailing Alyson McPhee at [email protected].

Sports

Redmen send Bengals back home with tails between legs

by Sam Hunter on

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Alice Walker

McGill’s Olivier Bouchard curls off a screen, sets his feet for an instant, rises up, and, with a flick of his wrist, sends the ball sailing through the cylinder. That’s the image seared in defenders’ minds after Sunday’s game against the University of Maine at Fort Kent Bengals, which McGill won 76-49. Diminutive in height alone, Bouchard, McGill’s 5’10” starting point guard knocked down four of six three-pointers and shot eight for 10 overall, diving through the trees in the paint and launching floaters that arced just out of reach of the waiting Bengals.

Bouchard established himself early as a one-man onslaught, scoring McGill’s first eight points in both the first and the second half. In between, he showed his versatility by getting his teammates involved, with 10 McGill players scoring for the game. The balanced scoring, exceptional zone defence, and a dominant third quarter propelled the Redmen to a comfortable win.

In a turnover-heavy game-McGill finished with 20, UMFK 22. The first quarter was still exceptional: McGill coughed up the rock a whopping seven times in the face of the Bengals’ press defence.

“We haven’t done our press break [the last couple days in practice] so we weren’t ready for their press,” said Head Coach David DeAveiro. “Once we started running our press break we were fine. That’s still something we’ve got to stop doing; we turn the ball over too much.”

Bouchard had a different opinion. “We just woke up. We were literally asleep when they started running their press,” he said.

The Bengals led 16-10 with a minute and a half remaining in the first quarter, but mental errors allowed McGill to get back into the game. First, on a long rebound from a missed three-pointer, McGill forward Michael White was able to snag the offensive rebound and convert to cut the lead to four. After the Bengals bricked two free throws with 35 seconds left, McGill’s David McMurty drew a foul while shooting a three-pointer, making two of three attempts from the line. Finally, after a turnover by the Bengals, Simon Bibeau was inexplicably fouled, and made both shots to tie the game. Bibeau then poked the ball loose as UMFK attempted to put up a shot at the buzzer, maintaining the tie.

“I do take a lot of pride in those hustle plays: trying to get deflections, getting rebounds—I think I’m a more complete player when I do all that,” said Bibeau. “And obviously I try to score at the same time.”

In the third quarter, McGill tightened the screws defensively and held their opponents scoreless for seven and a half minutes, handily winning the quarter 25-10 and effectively putting the game out of reach.

The Bengals were vocally frustrated with the officiating, particularly when a number of close blocking and charging calls went in favour of the Redmen.

Late in the third, tensions boiled over. After McGill drew a touch foul for two free throws on one end, the Bengals’ Manny Odughela was called for a travelling violation when he attempted to spin through traffic on his way to the basket. UMFK Head Coach Eric Werntgen seemed unperturbed at first, but took both hands and gestured, towards no one in particular, two thumbs down. The refs took exception, or saw an opportunity to reassert control of the game, and quickly T’d him up. However, as Werntgen quickly explained, the two thumbs down gesture is the UMFK signal to trap the ball carrier. The technical foul was rescinded.

Last week’s male player of the week, Kyle Bernard, didn’t see much court time against the Bengals.

“He hurt his knee in practice. He probably shouldn’t have played because he didn’t practice for three days but he said he wanted to try it out,” said DeAveiro. “So this was like a test run for him.”

The Redmen play at home next against the Concordia Stingers this Thursday January 13. The Stingers beat McGill 72-68 in their last meeting on November 26.

Football

Incongruous feline nolo contendre gratuitous

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This is some dummy copy. You’re not really supposed to read this dummy copy, it is just a place holder for people who need some type to visualize what the actual copy might look like if it were real content.

If you want to read, I might suggest a good book, perhaps Hemingway or Melville. That’s why they call it, the dummy copy. This, of course, is not the real copy for this entry. Rest assured, the words will expand the concept. With clarity. Conviction. And a little wit.

In today’s competitive market environment, the body copy of your entry must lead the reader through a series of disarmingly simple thoughts.

All your supporting arguments must be communicated with simplicity and charm. And in such a way that the reader will read on. (After all, that’s a reader’s job: to read, isn’t it?) And by the time your readers have reached this point in the finished copy, you will have convinced them that you not only respect their intelligence, but you also understand their needs as consumers.

As a result of which, your entry will repay your efforts. Take your sales; simply put, they will rise. Likewise your credibility. There’s every chance your competitors will wish they’d placed this entry, not you. While your customers will have probably forgotten that your competitors even exist. Which brings us, by a somewhat circuitous route, to another small point, but one which we feel should be raised.

Long copy or short – You decide

As a marketer, you probably don’t even believe in body copy. Let alone long body copy. (Unless you have a long body yourself.) Well, truth is, who‘s to blame you? Fact is, too much long body copy is dotted with such indulgent little phrases like truth is, fact is, and who’s to blame you. Trust us: we guarantee, with a hand over our heart, that no such indulgent rubbish will appear in your entry. That’s why God gave us big blue pencils. So we can expunge every example of witted waffle.

For you, the skies will be blue, the birds will sing, and your copy will be crafted by a dedicated little man whose wife will be sitting at home, knitting, wondering why your entry demands more of her husband‘s time than it should.

But you will know why, won‘t you? You will have given her husband a chance to immortalize himself in print, writing some of the most persuasive prose on behalf of a truly enlightened purveyor of widgets. And so, while your dedicated reader, enslaved to each mellifluous paragraph, clutches his newspaper with increasing interest and intention to purchase, you can count all your increased profits and take pots of money to your bank. Sadly, this is not the real copy for this entry. But it could well be. All you have to do is look at the account executive sitting across your desk (the fellow with the lugubrious face and the calf-like eyes), and say ”Yes! Yes! Yes!“ And anything you want, body copy, dinners, women, will be yours. Couldn’t be fairer than that, could we?

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Chiddy Bang: The Preview

by Alexander Hamilton on

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Chiddy Bang has been on the scene since February 2009, but they didn’t release their first single, “Opposite of Adults”—sampling MGMGMT‘s “Kids”—until a year later. Over that time Chiddy Bang has generated a lot of hype, becoming a widely played university favourite and lauded as everything from “a hipster’s wet dream” to “the kings of the basement party jam.”

Chiddy Bang’s mainstream appeal comes no doubt from their careful combination of hip-hop, indie rock, and electro. Chiddy’s rapping is articulate, full of pop cultures references, and often politically charged as on “Sooner or Later,” while Xaphoon’s unique choice of samples from across a wide range of successful artists keeps the listener enthralled. On “Truth” they use a Passion Pit clip to great effect, while on “All Things Go” we have a riff from Sufjan Stevens’s “Chicago.”

“The Preview” is something of a teaser, filled out with mostly older songs, but enough to keep fans satisfied until the full album drops in 2011. The Pharrell-produced single “The Good Life” is the strongest new track, but songs featuring rapper Q-Tip and indie rocker Darwin Deez are also notable new additions. Although the album is nothing special, it hits where it counts with catchy hooks and refrains, and it looks as though Chiddy Bang will ride the hype for a while longer.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

Between a rock and a hard place

by Nicholas Petrillo on

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digitaltrends.com

Two years after the release of director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire comes 127 Hours, a film based on the terrifying true story of adventure seeker Aron Ralston (James Franco). Ralston inadvertently has his right arm pinned between a boulder and a cavern wall during an afternoon hike in the Utah desert. But the movie would almost certainly never have been made were it not for his gruesome method of escape: after five days in the wilderness, Ralston chooses to cut off his own arm with a multi-tool.  

Revealing this by no means spoils the movie. In fact, the very concept of a man cutting off his own arm to survive is the only thing separating this story from your standard “lost in the woods” news headline. To some extent we are all intrigued by this type of violence, even if it’s completely horrifying. Boyle must have anticipated that the legend of Ralston would become common knowledge before the movie was released, so he wisely chose to drop hints within the movie that foreshadow the amputation. One shot in particular shows Ralston packing all the necessities for a day’s hike, as the camera slowly pans in on his multi-tool resting in the cupboard.  

Ralston is resourceful and carefree. When he takes a spill over his bike’s handlebars, he quickly snaps a picture of himself lying exhausted on the ground. He even meets a couple of women on the trail and shows them his favourite areas off the beaten path. It’s all amusing until he slips into a small crevice and a rock lands on his arm. The rest of the film is a fascinating character study, a race against time. and a depiction of man versus nature.

We see Ralston use his multi-tool knife to chip away at the boulder until he realizes that he’s only wasting his energy, muttering to himself sarcastically that his blade is now “nice and dull.” We know the consequence of this, but all we can do is feel sorry for him as he figures it out for himself.

Ralston’s psyche slowly deteriorates, and with this come some very abstract dreams and hallucinations.  The hallucinations are bizarre, but provide valuable insight on what would otherwise look like the incoherent ramblings of a man nearing death. The film also touches on the topic of destiny as Ralston seems to think that every bad choice he has made in his life has consequently led to this rock landing on his arm. Millions of years before he was born, this rock was fated to crush his arm. Who wouldn’t beg, plead, pray, and repent to God in situations half as scary as this?

The camera holds nothing back. From the beautiful landscape to the hell Ralston endures in the cave, no details are spared (though at times you’ll wish they were). The film can be unflinchingly gruesome, but more importantly it’s triumphant, and ultimately very inspiring. It couldn’t have had such an impact were it not for James Franco, who deserves nothing short of an Oscar nomination for his emotional conviction to the role.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

by Nicholas Petrillo on

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Before the release of his latest album, few doubted Kanye West’s ability to one-up himself given his talent, money, and endless supply of industry connections. So it should come as no surprise that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is just as spectacularly excessive as we could have hoped.   

There are no distracting filler tracks, skits, or interludes because there’s not enough room for them. If a song isn’t speeding past six minutes’ worth of guest appearances, it’s stretched even longer to showcase an instrumental solo. The musical versatility, whether it’s African chant, orchestral strings, or well-placed vocal distortion, proves that Yeezy can make music that is atypical of the mainstream sound but just as radio-friendly.

Kanye’s lyrics are sometimes hilarious, sometimes contrite, but always intricately constructed. With the exception of guests Fergie and the RZA, every feature verse is powerful, as if each guest knew the negative consequences of a poor performance on such a highly anticipated album. By the end, Kanye’s struggle is much easier to appreciate than it was on his supposedly poignant 808’s and Heartbreak.

The album is ambitious, frenetic, and unrestrained, and the surrounding hype will leave both the casual fan and the music aficionado worshiping Kanye while they’re listening.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Mary Halvorson Quintet: Saturn Sings

by Matthew Kassel on

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This is tense, spooky music with a delightfully playful side. In Saturn Sings, her second album on the Firehouse 12 label, Mary Halvorson adds alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon and trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson to her already formidable trio with drummer Ches Smith and bassist John Hébert.  

Without Halvorson, that combination might recall the special musical partnership of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry (no, not the hockey commentator), and with her, it still does, as in the unsettlingly beautiful ballad “Crack in Sky (No.11).”  

If you can pull that off, it means a lot, but it’s not only a matter of instruments—it’s an aesthetic. In this group, Halvorson comfortably imbues her playing, composing, and arranging with styles and methods in and out of jazz to create her own sturdy framework. It’s the sound of Monk’s humour, noise rock, expressionism, hard bop, and Ornette Coleman’s insouciance. It might be a disservice to Halvorson, reducing her music to components, but the point is that those components have coalesced.    

Near the end of Jon Irabagon’s solo in “Leak Over Six Five (No. 14),” you hear some warped, spacey noodling, like a radio broadcast played backward at high speed. Is it Saturn singing?  No, it’s Mary Halvorson’s guitar.

Art, Arts & Entertainment

Zooming in on the magic of the everyday

by Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite on

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(3.bp.blogspot.com)

In his current exhibit at the McCord Museum, Hungarian-born photographer Gabor Szilasi documents “The Eloquence of the Everyday” over 30 years and two continents. Through both black and white and colour images, Szilasi focuses on a variety of features that make up the everyday: urban and rural architecture, private spaces, and loved ones.  

Szilasi’s exhibit is arranged into four sections: “Family and Friends,” “Montreal Architecture and Urban View,” “Rural Quebec in the 1970s,” and “Hungary.” In each section, Szilasi approaches his subjects from a unique vantage point that illuminates both the background and foreground; the placard for his “Family and Friends” section stresses the importance of acknowledging the setting of a portrait and allowing it to further represent the subject.  

This tactic is evident throughout the section, as Szilasi photographs local Montreal artists and writers as well as his own wife and daughter. The portraits taken of Szilari’s daughter as a teenager, juxtaposed with photos of her bedroom, are particularly compelling, as the viewer is able to instantly connect the person to the setting, and feels that they know much more about the subject than they would have otherwise. Szilasi’s portraits are more revealing upon second or third glance, as the nuanced details of the subject’s surroundings come into focus and complete the narrative.  

Szilasi maintains this theme throughout the exhibit, particularly in his section on Hungary. Taken in 1950s and 1980s Hungary, his portraits reveal a great deal about the political and social transitions the country went through in the intervening decades. Again, Szilasi lets his subjects and their surroundings do the talking and allows their personalities to shine through his lens.However, perhaps the most striking portraits in this exhibit are those displayed in “Rural Quebec in the 1970s.” In this segment, Szilasi combines photos showcasing architecture, domestic space, and portraits of rural Quebecers in what has been historically seen as a period of great change. The images of the modest bedrooms, kitchens, and offices of these rural residents are effective portraits as well, highlighting the negotiations between the modern and rustic aspects of towns like Saint-Honoré de Beauce and Saint-Benoît Labre. In some of these interior portraits, homeowners appear in the periphery of the shot and seem to blend into the room around them, further emphasizing the fact that humans are often defined by their surroundings.  

The final section, “Montreal Architecture and Urban View,” displays the changing nature of Montreal’s cityscape over the past 40 years. The images of familiar landmarks, while striking, are not as powerful as his portraits in conveying the struggles and simplicity of everyday life. Szilasi’s strength is clearly in his ability to draw stories from the pictures of people around him. The placard accompanying the “Montreal Architecture” section describes Szilasi as taking an “outsider” approach to photographing the cityscape. This creates a form of detachment from the subjects of the images and makes it more difficult to appreciate the nuances of the city that make up its identity. Without the incorporation of human subjects into these architectural photos, Szilasi’s vision is unclear and the section as a whole becomes less effective.   

Szilasi’s attraction to personal histories and his penchant for the towns of rural Quebec are the two highlights of his McCord exhibit. Through capturing the nature of the “everyday” from the 1970s to the present, Szilasi demonstrates his ability to bring the subject out of the photograph while at the same time bringing the viewer in. This combination leads to a deeper connection between the two, leaving the viewer feeling more in touch with the subject, their surroundings, and the extraordinary ordinariness of life.  

Szilasi’s “The Eloquence of the Everyday” is at the McCord Museum from October 8 through February 6.

Sports

Martlets Soccer – B+

by Rebecca Babcock on

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John Kelsey

Last year, a very young Martlets soccer team, which had only one fourth-year player, made it to the QUSL semifinals. This year, the team’s goal was to go to nationals. They started out on the right path with nine wins and five ties, dominating the other teams in their league, destroying teams like UQTR 5-0, UQAM 4-0, and University of Sherbrooke 5-1.

In the QUSL semifinal, the Martlets played Laval, who they had already defeated 4-2 earlier in the season. Unfortunately, like last year, their season ended in the semis as they lost 2-1. It was a heartbreaking defeat for the Martlets. They were ranked third in the country and were looking like serious challengers for the National Championship. Not making it to the CIS Championships was obviously a major let down for the talented squad.

Alexandra Morin-Boucher was honoured as an All-Canadian at the Women’s CIS Soccer Gala and led the QUSL with 11 goals. Also honoured as an All-Canadian, was first-year goalie Victoria Muccilli. Throughout the season she had four shut-outs, and only allowed six goals out of 43 shots.

While missing nationals was a disapointment, their season can’t be seen as a failure. They had an incredible regular season and were clearly one of the best teams in the nation.

The Martlets are still a very young team team with obvious potential. They are being recognized as one of the favourites to win next year’s nationals, which will be held at home in Montreal.

MVP: Alexandra Morin-Boucher

Player to Watch:  Victoria Muccilli

Sports

Redmen Soccer – B-

by Mari Mesri on

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Holly Stewart

After their second-place finish at the National Championships last year, the McGill Redmen soccer team entered this season with high expectations. The Redmen felt the pressure to succeed from the start, which took its toll as the team performed inconsistently all year. McGill concluded their 2010 campaign with a record of 7-5-1.

Although the second half of the season saw improvement, a trend of missed opportunities and incomplete plays defined their games. The Redmen were often left frustrated by scores not reflective of their dominating performance. With a victory over UQAM in their final regular season match, the Redmen secured a second place conference finish leading into the playoffs.  However, they lost 3-1 in their semifinal rematch with UQAM, bringing the season to an unexpected and disappointing early finish.

Conference all-star and midfielder Yoanne Capolungo was a valuable pillar for the team. He was a force to be reckoned with, controlling games with his speed, shot accuracy, and ability to read the field.  Joining Capolungo on the all-star roster was midfielder Olivier Babineau. Babineau and Capolungo played great offensively as they consistently created breaks for the Redmen strikers.  

On defence, Thomas Lucas and Graeme Tingey claimed all-star honours. They led a tough backline that covered the entire field.

The McGill Redmen will lose some players to graduation, including goalkeeper Jean-Lou Gosselin, but with a majority of the team returning, the Redmen expect that strong leadership from the veterans and development of the rookies will re-establish them as a national powerhouse next season.  

MVP: Yohann Capolungo

Player to Watch: William Hoyle

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