Pucks clash with snorkels in 'breathtaking' sport

"From personal experience and based on what others have told me, it takes about a month [of playing] to get your breath hold up to where you can dive to the bottom of a pool, do something useful with the puck and then go back up to breathe.” – Brittany Haughton, president of the Guelph Underwater Hockey club.

photo: Brittany Haughton

Sports synergies are not at all uncommon, whereby two activities are combined to form a completely new sport altogether.

Frisbee golf comes to mind, as does the ever-popular phys-ed pastime from grade school: soccer baseball.

And, in Guelph, another sports synergy has captured the interest of many students: underwater hockey.

Ineffective officiating casts dark shadow over hockey finals

First, let me make one thing clear: I am not usually a proponent of criticizing officiating. In any sport.

If an umpire has a wide strike zone, expand your batting eye. If a referee has a tendency for calling soft fouls in the paint, ease up on the contact under the basket. If skating judges prefer jumps to footwork, you’d better get some more air.

Because, although there are rules in every sport, officiating remains highly subjective. It is what it is, and human error is inevitable in every case.

OT heartbreak: Gryphons fall to Thunderwolves in Game 1 of OUA West semis

Things just got a whole lot tougher for the Guelph Gryphons men's hockey team.

Despite a miraculous third period comeback that saw the Gryphs rebound from a 3-1 deficit to send the opening game of their playoff series with Lakehead to overtime, it was the Thunderwolves who came out on top as Andy Hyvarinen scored an unassisted goal just 2:01 into the extra frame.

Racing for a loose puck against Gryphons defenceman Tim Priamo, Hyvarinen came up with it as Priamo fell. The Thunderwolves winger streaked in from the right half-boards and beat Gryphons goaltender Scott Van Bommel high on the glove side to give Lakehead the series-opening victory in the teams' best-of-three OUA West semi-final.

The game itself was fast-paced from start to finish, with the Gryphons striking first when Pat Campbell banged in a rebound off a great rush from Matt Lyall, who was sharp all game for the Gryphons, along with linemates Alex Magera and JT MacDonald who got a rare start, but played well.

Lakehead stormed back in the second period, controlling most of the play and receiving goals from Dan Speer and Ryan MacDonald, sending the game to the third period with the Gryphons in unfamiliar territory: trailing.

As the final period began, it was Lakehead who struck first as Matt Caria beat Van Bommel on a well-placed shot that went between the legs of Campbell before slipping through the Gryphon goaltender's pads.

Desperately needing a spark, the Gryphons received it less than a minute later when Thunderwolves defenceman Ryan Baird took an interference penalty, sending Guelph to the powerplay. And on the man advantage, the Gryphons standout rookie trio of Thomas Kiriakou, Nathan Martine and Tim Priamo struck as Martine kept a loose puck in at the blueline, finding Kiriakou just outside the right face-off circle. Kiriakou faked a shot and then fired a cross-ice pass just outside the crease to Priamo who was streaking in from the blueline. The big Gryphon rearguard tipped home Kiriakou's pass to bring the Gryphons within one.

And exactly four minutes later, Kris Belan ripped home a shot from the slot to tie the game at three, sending both teams to overtime, with the Gryphons holding momentum and 'Wolves rookie goaltender Alex Dupuis looking shaken, and struggling with his rebound control.

Nevertheless, it was Lakehead's time to shine in the extra frame with Hyvarinen's game-winner. Priamo was visibly shaken after the play, feeling that he had been tripped by Hyvarinen, leading to the goal. Dupuis, despite playing just three games in the regular season, has taken the lion's share of playing time in the post-season and did just enough to keep the Gryphons at bay, stopping 27 shots for his third playoff win.

The series now shifts to Thunder Bay where the Gryphons will have to win the final two games at the Lakehead Thunderdome, a notoriously difficult place to play. While the Gryphs took two on the road in their quarter-final series with Laurier, the atmosphere in T-Bay will be far more hostile, clearly favouring the home side.

Come one, come all

Had a meeting with Barry Rooke and Aaron Levy (aka Ken Cheesy) yesterday about the future of Guelph Gryphons sports action on the radio for next year. Barry, as interim station manager at 93.3FM CFRU, the campus radio station, was the brains behind this year's sports broadcasting project that Aaron and I did play-by-play and colour commentary for, along with a host of fantastic guests. Aaron, who also hosts a weekly radio show from 1-3pm on Mondays (Anarcha-Feminist Kool Aid Acid Test), did some work as a football broadcaster in the fall and I came alongside to do basketball and the women's hockey playoffs shortly after.

Both Barry and Aaron are great guys and have been, along with myself, tirelessly committed to trying to bring listeners some Gryphons sports coverage on the radio.

The success of this year's sports radio broadcasting has gotten some people talking about ways to take it further and our meeting yesterday discussed ideas about how we can take sports broadcasting to the next level. We've built partnerships with Gryphons athletics and several varsity staffs and are now looking to move into the business aspects of production to further develop the project.

Without getting into a lot of specific details, I want to start with the main thing we determined: THE NEED FOR MORE VOLUNTEER HELP!!!!

The sports broadcasting is a project put on by volunteers working in conjunction with CFRU's staff and has the potential to not only create great programming but also serve as a great educational opportunity for anyone looking to get involved in any aspect of broadcast journalism.

For the fall, we're looking to exclusively cover Gryphons football, followed by men's and women's basketball and some hockey in the spring. If you're at all interested in participating in this project, as a commentator, producer, interviewer, tech support or anything related to radio production of athletics events, take the time to become a CFRU volunteer and we'll get you hooked up! The success of the project explicitly depends on our ability to attract volunteers.

Give it a shot, you might end up like me and find it to be something worth pursuing!

MT