Automatic Finals Bid Gives Carleton An Unfair And Unnecessary Advantage
CHRIS O’LEARY THE GATEWAY (UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA)
EDMONTON — There’s a foul smell coming out of Ontario and for once, it’s not Sarnia. Or Hamilton. Or Renfrew. The smell, if you can’t quite figure it out, is the wind being let out of the sails — or maybe more appropriately, the air out of the Spaldings — of the legitimacy of CIS basketball. You’ll have plenty of time to get used to this pungent odour, as things won’t really start to stink until the 2007- 08 season, when Ottawa’s Carleton Ravens begin their three-year stint as hosts to the men’s national basketball championship tournament.
The Ravens, winners of the last four consecutive national titles, will bring the 24-year stay the tournament has had in Halifax to an end next season, and will be in a position to win the national championship for at least another three years, thanks to some shrewd negotiating on their part.
Included in the Ravens’ winning bid to host the tournament from 2008–10 is an automatic berth each year in the tourney, that’ll be played out at Scotiabank Place, which houses the NHL’s Senators. A team-specific berth in the tournament is something that’s unheard of in men’s CIS basketball. The Atlantic University Sport conference was given an extra berth in the tournament in each of the 23 years that Halifax has hosted, but that left the spot open to one of eight potential teams every season. A similar system should have been put in place here, giving the Ontario University Athletics conference an extra bid — instead of just the Ravens.
An automatic berth for a powerhouse team like the Ravens might not seem like a big deal to some, but it threatens to destroy any parity that exists between the Ravens and every other team in the nation. If you thought Carleton — a team that’s lost two regular season games in the last four years — was tough, wait until they have three summers of this significant recruiting advantage under their belts. Forty-point victories could quickly become the norm for the Ravens, as every top Canadian high-school kid that doesn’t go to the NCAA will want to suit up for coach Dave Smart.
The host team gaining an automatic berth may be new to men’s basketball, but it’s nothing new to CIS. In the last year, the Pandas soccer and Bears hockey teams gained automatic berths in the national championships they hosted; however, these tournaments regularly change venues, which helps to prevent teams from monopolizing all of a league’s talent (though hosting hockey for two years in a row certainly didn’t hurt the Bears’ recruiting).
That said, this isn’t a slight against Carleton. They were smart enough to push for the automatic berth, and the folks at CIS were foolish enough to give it to them. Maybe CIS CEO Marg McGreggor’s eyes lit up when she saw the cash that Carleton, with the assistance of Senators’ owners Capital Sports Properties, Inc. offered up as part of their bid — a combined $825,000 over three years, according to the Globe and Mail. For that kind of money, she probably would have given the Ravens her right arm if they had asked for it.
At any rate, all the stakeholders are happy: CIS got its money, the Ravens got to pull the tournament out of Halifax and subsequently secured a spot in the tournament for each of the years they’ll host. It’s too bad their satisfaction will have to come at the cost of the league’s integrity.
