Instagram is insta-crack

Instagram on my phone.

    I tried to resist as much as possible, but bit by bit I am getting taken down by the power of Instagram.

    Due to working in media and communications, I find I pile up way too much screen time dealing with the social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter. I long resisted going on Instagram.

    I constantly see people in their late teenage years and early 20s buried on their phones even during nights out to the nightclubs and Instagram was the platform they were usually hooking into.

    I started my account in late 2014 and didn’t really actively start using it until about a year ago.
    I found it to be a useful platform to share my action shots from sports.

    I have found I am taking more selfies, which is something I don’t really do a lot of.
    I try to use Instagram the way veteran colourful hockey executive Brian Burke uses Twitter and follow virtually nobody.
    I have slowly worked my way to following 13 different entities due to the fact you can follow people and organizations.

Sage Watson’s Instagram profile on my phone.

    I am still in the process of studying how people and organizations conduct themselves on that platform.

    I check out how people conduct themselves that don’t have a big public profile to those in the other end of the spectrum in Canadian track and field star Sage Watson.
    She caught the attention of the tabloid and paparazzi type media in Europe since the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, due to her extremely attractive looks.

    Watson is an old friend I have known a long time from Medicine Hat, Alta., and it amazes me how she gets glamorously portrayed in the tabloid press in Europe causing her to have over 51,000 followers on Instagram.

    Recently, I have found the charm to Instagram at least for myself.

    Out of all the social media platforms, Instagram is the one I find I am most often triggered in a good way.
    I constantly see pictures of people in happy times at least when I have gone on the account.

    Besides pictures of high moments in sports, I see pictures with people in happy settings like parties, a night out, going to the beach, attending weddings, graduations and a whole host of other fun activities.

The Instagram news feed on my phone.

    I used to see an influx of these photos on Facebook around a back of years from 2007 to 2014.
    People used to use simple digital point and shoot cameras and download their photos from fun times to their accounts.

    However, the cameras on mobile phones have become so good people in recent years just post their photos to the Instagram account.
    Instagram is so easy to use on your phone too.

    As for how good cameras on mobile phones have become, my phone takes normal portrait and set up shots better than my digital SLR camera I used to shoot sports action with.

    I can see how going through photos on Instagram can give people constant Dopamine hits. \   Dopamine is a neurochemical in the brain that provides people with a sense of pleasure.

    In recent years, I find people are placing less of their photos from fun times on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
    As a result, you get left with a host of written posts were people are giving their two cents regarding the news of the day be it Donald Trump, school shootings, Roseanne Barr or Canadian Politics.

An  Instagram picture on my phone.

    When you engage in debates on any of those subjects, it seems all you do is go down a toxic road.
    Besides getting into verbal fights with people you know, you end up spending way too much time in verbal altercations with people you only know online. It seems like people won’t agree to disagree and want to keep on fighting.

    I know for myself there have been way too many times I can’t stand looking at my news feeds on Facebook or Twitter, because it triggers me into moving emotionally into a negative space.

    On Instagram, I haven’t seen anyone one pushing political or social justice agendas looking for a confrontation.
    People can write hurtful things under the comments sections in pictures, but you have to click into them to see them.

    The fun photos make Instagram a more upbeat place to be than Facebook and Twitter, which seems devoid of fun photos these days.

    Here is hoping Instagram can be a more fun escape type place in the future.
    Judging by the numbers that use it, it is a social network you have to be on these days.

Return of Cougars wrestling teams should always be open

The Carillon after the Cougars men’s wrestling team’s second national title.

    I knew it was coming, but it still felt strange to see the dropdown menus eliminated on the University of Regina’s athletics website for the Cougars men’s and women’s wrestling teams.

    The two storied programs along with the University of Regina Cougars men’s volleyball team were eliminated without warning on April 30 due to a budget crunch felt by the athletics department. The dropdown menu for the men’s volleyball team is no longer there too.

    In about a week after the cuts came down, Global News in Regina produced a story off a confidential recording of a meeting between Harold Riemer, the U of R dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, and members of the U of R women’s wrestling team.

    That story reported that in 2016-17 campaign the administration in the athletic department was told they needed to raise $580,000 in fundraising and fell about $220,000 short. During that fiscal year, Riemer said in the Global story that the U of R athletics department had expenses totally $3.1-million and with $2.7-million coming in to support the department, there was a deficit of $400,000.

    Out of the $2.7-million brought in to support athletics, $2.3-million comes from the recreation and athletics fee that is charged to students and is split between the universities teams and other recreation programs. The athletic teams only collected $445,000 in gate revenue, sponsorships and Sask. Sport Inc.

    Riemer said the U of R didn’t want to rely on fundraising to operate the teams.

    There has been a lot of push back against this decision. An online petition has been started to bring back the wrestling programs.

A couple of items of Cougars wrestling gear.

    If there were thoughts that the athletes would go away quietly when these programs were cut, the administration at the U of R was mistaken.

    With that said, a month has passed and the reality of next school year is approaching. The next three months will fly by.

    Athletes that were with the cut U of R programs are actively exploring their options, because they have to.

    When I was covering the Memorial Cup in Regina, I met personable and talented Regina Leader-Post photographer Troy Fleece. Fleece did a compelling photo essay following the life of Sara Tokarz, who just finished her rookie season with the Cougars women’s wrestling team and is trying to figure out the next move in her life.

    Her older brother, Paul, was with the Cougars men’s wrestling team, and he is searching for another program to join.

    This past season at U Sports nationals, the Cougars women’s team finished fifth in the team standings, while the Cougars men’s team placed eighth. At the school’s athletic awards night in April, Lucas Hoffert of the Cougars men’s wrestling team was named the winner of the U of R’s highest individual honour in the President’s Award for outstanding achievement in athletics and academics.

    Cutting the Cougars wrestling teams is a major blow to the identity of the U of R’s athletics department. You can’t just go and erase those programs storied histories.

    At Memorial Cup, I wore my University of Regina Cougars Wrestling team T-shirt under my suit and tie for a round robin game and the title game at the CHL championship tournament as a show of support to bring back those programs.

    The post I wrote about the U of R Cougars Wrestling team cuts being startling is my fourth all-time most viewed post with over 5,800 page views. In another development since the U of R team cuts were made, my old post of Brock Lesnar of UFC and WWE fame coming to the U of R to compete against the Cougars was rediscovered.

    I originally wrote that post when a UFC card was held in Saskatoon in August of 2015, and it was at 1,000 views at the end of April. It is now my sixth all-time most viewed post with over 5,400 views.

    Those numbers show there is a sizable amount of people that care about the U of R Cougars Wrestling teams. The U of R will face the inevitable of having to induct wrestlers and wrestling teams to its U of R Sports Hall of Fame.

    Due to the fact the athletes from the U of R programs attend all sorts of academic faculties, hopefully, the school can find a way to spread the costs of the athletics program throughout the institution.

    Here is hoping the pressure continues to bring these programs back.

    The online petition to bring back the Cougars Wrestling teams can be found here.

    Troy Fleece’s photo essay on Sara Tokarz can be found here.

    My May 3 post on the Cougars Wrestling teams can be found here.

    The August 21, 2015 post of Lesnar competing against the Cougars can be found here.

Leschyshyn signs with Golden Knights

Jake Leschyshyn has signed an NHL contract with the Vegas Golden Knights.

    Saskatoon product Jake Leschyshyn took another step towards one day playing full time for the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.

    On Friday, Leschyshyn, who just completed his third season playing centre for the WHL’s Regina Pats, signed a three-year NHL entry-level contract with the Golden Knights.  The 18-year-old returned to the Pats lineup early on this past season after recovering from tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee on February of 2017.

    During the 2017-18 campaign, Leschyshyn, who stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 188 pounds, appeared in 64 regular season games with the Pats collecting 18 goals and 22 assists. He added three goals and two assists in seven WHL playoff games, and he scored one goal in five games at the Memorial Cup.

    The Golden Knights selected Leschyshyn in the second round and 62^nd overall in last year’s NHL Entry Draft.

Blades sign prospect, trade for another prospect

    The Saskatoon Blades signed a prospect and traded for another prospect on Thursday.

    The Blades signed 15-year-old defenceman Marek Schneider to a standard WHL standard players’ agreement. The Prince Albert, Sask., product was selected in the second round and 30^th overall in the WHL Bantam Draft held this past May.

    Last season, Schneider, who stands 6-feet and weighs 176 pounds, appeared in 30 regular season games with the bantam AA Raiders collecting three goals and 19 assists. He also dressed in six regular season games with the Prince Albert Mintos midget AAA team. Schneider expects to play next season with the Mintos. He isn’t eligible to make the Blades full time out of training camp until September of 2019.

    On the trade front, the Blades acquired 17-year-old prospect forward Nakodan Greyeyes from the Seattle Thunderbirds for a conditional sixth round selection in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft.

    Greyeyes, who stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 175 pounds, netted 24 goals and 29 assists appearing in 36 regular season games with the Rink Hockey Academy midget prep team in Winnipeg. He also played two games in the junior A ranks with the Dauphin Kings of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.

    Greyeyes is eligible to make the Blades this coming season.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Durant will always be a Roughriders hero

Star QB free to choose retirement terms and he did just that

Darian Durant (#4) retired from playing football on Friday.

    Darian Durant will always be a Saskatchewan Roughriders hero, and “green was his colour” when he announced his retirement from football on Friday.

    The 35-year-old was signed to be the backup quarterback for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for the upcoming campaign, when he elected to hang up his cleats.
    During his first 11 of 12 seasons in the league, he starred with the Saskatchewan Roughriders being part of their 2007 Grey Cup winning team as a backup and quarterbacking “the green and white” to a title at Taylor Field in 2013.

    Sandwiched in between those games were two heartbreaking Grey Cup losses he started in 2009 and 2010.

    The Florence, South Carolina, product announced his retirement on his website, and he wrote in one part of his message, “If you cut me open, I am sure that I would bleed green. Saskatchewan and Regina will always be home.”

    The veteran signal caller was traded by the Roughriders to the Montreal Alouettes in January of 2017 and signed a three-year contract with that team. Last season in what is now his final campaign in the CFL, Durant, who stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 214 pounds, played in 15 games for the Alouettes completing 274-of-417 passes for 3,233 yards, 15 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

    Montreal finished last in the entire CFL with a 3-15 record and missed the playoffs for the third straight campaign.

Darian Durant fires a pass downfield for the Roughriders.

    On Jan. 15, the Alouettes released Durant just one day before he was to have received a $150,000 signing bonus from the team.

    On Jan. 20, Durant signed a one-year contract to join the Bombers.

    He likely got cold feet when it came to moving to Winnipeg. Durant said he had opportunities away from the field that would allow him to transition to life after playing the game and that he didn’t want to be away from his daughter, who was born earlier this year.

    During his 12 seasons, Durant completed 2,500 out of 4001 passes for 31,740 yards, 167 touchdown passes and 115 interceptions.

    In the process of how his departure went down, Durant managed to add gasoline to the fire in the rivalry between the Roughriders and Bombers.

    Shortly after Durant’s retirement announcement, Bombers general manager Kyle Walters released a statement where he said, “Ultimately, Darian has not informed the team of his decision, but we were notified through social media this morning that he has decided to retire from professional football. While we respect his decision, we are of course extremely disappointed.”

Darian Durant shares a chuckle with a young fan.

    It then came to the surface that the Bombers had paid Durant a $70,000 signing bonus that he plans to keep.

    Durant spoke with Roughriders play-by-play voice Rod Pedersen and Luc Mullinder on 620 CKRM’s SportsCage on Friday and said his agent has been in contact with Walters the past three to four weeks about a possible retirement. As for the bonus, Durant said he felt like it was a situation where he felt he deserved it and was going to leave it at that.

    With all those developments, the Roughriders fans and the media in Saskatchewan were praising and congratulation Durant on a great career. A large group of vocal fans in Winnipeg painted Durant as a villain for abandoning the Bombers, and that tone was reflected in some of the reports coming from the media in that centre.

    Considering the fact CFL player contracts are not guaranteed and teams often cut players before they are due bonuses to help navigate the salary cap, I am fine with Durant keeping his bonus from the Bombers. That is part of the business of the CFL.

Darian Durant fires a pass into the flat.

    Playing for the Roughriders from 2006 to 2016, Durant cemented himself as one of the team’s legends, and he will go down at the moment as the second best quarterback in team history after Ron Lancaster.

    Way back on July 12, 2008, Durant made his first start with the Roughriders and threw them to a thrilling 33-28 road victory over the Tiger-Cats in Hamilton. From 2009 to 2014, he was part of a core group of players that powered Saskatchewan to success year after year including Weston Dressler, John Chick, Chris Getzlaf, Rob Bagg, Mike McCullough and Neal Hughes.

    Other key figures that passed through the Roughriders during Durant’s era included Gene Makowsky, Ben Heenan, Ty Brackenridge, Andy Fantuz, Tristan Jackson, Eddie Davis, Lance Frazier and Ricky Foley.

    With the Roughriders, Durant sits second in team history for career pass attempts (3,584), completions (2,226), yards (28,507) and touchdown passes (152).

Darian Durant scores a rushing touchdown in overtime in 2016.

    Durant’s legacy is more than just numbers. Being the starting quarterback of the Roughriders might be the hardest job in the CFL due to intense fan scrutiny, and Durant exceled at it. He became a fan favourite despite still having a few vocal detractors.

    In his retirement announcement, Durant said he named his daughter Amayah Taylor after Taylor Field. He said he wants to launch a foundation to raise funds to give back to the community.

    During his time with the Roughriders, Durant became one of Saskatchewan’s own, and it is pretty obvious he will hold those ties close to his heart.

Cut Cougars teams keep up respectable fight

U of Regina Cougars wrestling gear.

    The members of the cut University of Regina Cougars men’s and women’s wrestling teams and men’s volleyball team keep looking more and more respectable and classy in their fight to bring their programs back.

    The three teams were axed by the U of R without warning on April 30. On Saturday, the wrestlers held an open community practice at the First Nations University Regina Campus. By the looks of the video on the “Save U of R Wrestling team” Facebook page, the organizers had a decent turnout.

    In one of the posts leading up to Saturday’s practice, a note was posted that Harold Riemer, the U of R dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, was going to made a short appearance at the beginning of the practice and asked that he be shown respect.

    On Friday, Global News in Regina produced a story off a confidential recording of a meeting between Riemer and members of the U of R women’s wrestling team.

    That story reported that in 2016-17 campaign the administration in the athletic department was told they needed to raise $580,000 in fundraising and fell about $220,000 short. During that fiscal year, Riemer said in the Global story the U of R athletics department had expenses totally $3.1-million and with $2.7-million coming in to support the department, there was a deficit of $400,000.

    Out of the $2.7-million brought in to support athletics, $2.3-million comes from the recreation and athletics fee that is charged to students and is split between the universities teams and other recreation programs. The athletic teams only collected $445,000 in gate revenue, sponsorships and Sask. Sport Inc.

    Riemer said the U of R didn’t want to rely on fundraising to operate the teams. Likely that comes from the feeling that universities like to have oversight on anything the institution’s name is attached to.

    With that said, I hope the hierarchy at the U of R would be open to the prospects of fundraising. If it is possible to raise the money to help operate the cut programs, that should be looked at. If in theory an alum wanted to donate a big sum of money to get a cut team back in action, I believe that should be looked at.

    I am also aware that U Sports programs across Canada face difficult fiscal challenges. It is pretty obvious there are fiscal fears at the U of R.

    Even with a high profile sport in the media like football, U Sports doesn’t carry the lustre it once did. Wrestling traditionally always had a more quiet profile in the media.

    Unless a controversy exists, the less than a skeleton crew mainstream media in Canada often ignores U Sports.

    If you see the rising price of gas, it is likely the country will be in a recession again soon due to everything else going up in price, which will make it that much harder to get sponsorships or fundraise for teams.

    Still, I believe on the wrestling side you would be able to gather enough alums who would rally to keep those two squads going.

    The Cougars men’s team has won 10 Canada West Conference championships, with the first coming in 1989 and the last in 2012, and two U Sports national titles in 1997 and 1998. They finished second in the team standings at nationals four times and placed third four times.

    Women’s wrestling became an official sport in U Sports in 1998-99, and the Cougars women’s team has finished second twice in the team standing at U Sports nationals.

    Both the men’s and women’s teams have had numerous individual conference and national champions.

    You won’t be able to bury the history of wrestling at the U of R. Looking at the U of R’s Sports Hall of Fame, the 1997-98 national champion Cougars men’s wrestling team still needs to be enshrined.

    On an individual basis, legendary head coach Leo McGee, four-time individual U Sports national champion Ali Bernard and Lease Bertram, who was the male athlete of the year for U of R in 1997-98 and a former member of Canada’s national team system, all should enter the U of R Sports Hall of Fame too.

    There are a large number of other individuals who should likely be enshrined too.

    If the wrestling teams aren’t brought back, talk of bringing back those squads will come up when any wrestling Hall of Fame enshrinements happens.

    The athletes have put on a passionate and respectful fight to bring back their programs and demonstrated great leadership in doing so. Here is hoping they keep pushing forward and the community in Regina enables them to reach their full potential in athletics and academics.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Broncos’ comeback was epic, but WHL championship with Silvertips still a toss up

The Broncos and their fans celebrate last Saturday’s OT win.

    Will a magical Saturday night in Swift Current for the WHL’s Broncos lead to that franchise’s third league title?

    A sellout crowd of 2,890 spectators bore witness to the “Miracle at the i-Plex.”

    The host Broncos trailed the Everett Silvertips 3-0 after the first period expired in Game 2 of the WHL Championship series last Saturday. Everett captured the first contest of the best-of-seven set 2-1 the previous night.

    It appeared the Broncos were going to be down 2-0 in the series, when it switched to Everett, Wash., for Games 3, 4 and 5. The Silvertips, who finished third overall in the WHL regular season with a 47-20-2-3 mark, were the league’s top defensive team giving up the fewest goal in the regular season at 167.

    Everett’s net was being protected by Carter Hart, who backstopped Canada to a gold medal win at the World Juniors that wrapped up in January. Before the start of the series, Hart was named the WHL’s goalie of the year for a third straight campaign.

Riley Sutter and the Silvertips will respond at home.

    The Silvertips were 8-0 on the road up to that point in this year’s playoffs.

    Swift Current finished second overall in the WHL regular season with a 48-17-5-2 mark, but the task of making a comeback was daunting.

    After the Broncos finally hit the scoreboard in the second period to cut the Silvertips lead to 3-1, Everett had at least four prime chances to pull away again had it not been for the efforts of Broncos netminder Stuart Skinner.

    The Broncos faithful became more quite, but they didn’t pack it in. When the Broncos came out for the start of the third period down two goals, they were given a rousing and warm standing ovation from their fans. It was a site you normally don’t see at most hockey rinks.

    The hosts withstood early pressure from the visitors. Offensive defenceman Colby Sissons scored to pull the Broncos to within 3-2 and his billet brother in star right-winger Tyler Steenbergen netted the equalizer to force a 3-3 tie with 1:37 to play with Skinner pulled for an extra attacker.

    A pandemonium type celebration broke out when Steenbergen scored.

    It was repeated when centre Giorgio Estephan netted the winner at the 9:27 mark of overtime to give the Broncos a 4-3 victory and conclude one of the most memorable games ever played in the history of the WHL Championship series.

Broncos D Colby Sissons, left, eludes Silvertips LW Sean Richards.

    The series is tied 1-1 going into Game 3 on Tuesday at the Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett at 7 p.m. local time. Games 4 and 5 will be held on Wednesday and Friday respectively at the same venue.

    No matter how the series plays out, it won’t wipe out the special night the Broncos had. The “Miracle at the i-Plex” can reach a more lofty status, if the Broncos can win the series and advance to the Canadian Hockey League’s championship tournament – the Memorial Cup. The 100^th edition of the Memorial Cup runs May 18 to 27 in Regina, Sask.

    As the WHL Championship series progresses, it is likely each game will have its own individual story.

    Both the Broncos and Silvertips present a feeling that they are both mentally tough.

    The Broncos didn’t appear rattled after losing Game 1 at home.

    The Silvertips didn’t emotionally hit the gutter after blowing their 3-0 lead to fall in Game 2.

Captain Matt Fonteyne (#17) and his Silvertips will regroup at home.

    During the Silvertips post-game press conference involving head coach Dennis Williams, captain Matt Fonteyne and defenceman Ondrej Vala, a question was thrown out to any member of the trio asking about not capitalizing on the missed chances when the team held a 3-1 lead in Game 2.

    Showing his leadership skills, Fonteyne answered the query and calm credited Skinner for his play and said the Silvertips can’t get too hung up on a good player making good plays.

    The Broncos had a special night in their Game 2 win, but it far from guarantees they will win the series. Broncos head coach and director of player personnel Manny Viveiros will have his players set for their next task going forward.
    The fact the series is tied 1-1 is likely where it should be.

    At the moment, the battle for the Ed Chynoweth Cup is a toss-up, and this could end up being another classic WHL Championship series.

Best of luck to the Cougars wrestlers and men’s v-ballers

News conference @ReginaCougars standing room only #volleyball #wrestling pic.twitter.com/h4Fxt2CTn1

— Brian Webb (@Exigenomicon) May 7, 2018

    The athletes of the University of Regina Cougars men’s and women’s wrestling teams and men’s volleyball team are making their stand.

    On April 30, the University of Regina cut the three varsity programs that compete U Sports without warning. On Monday at Level 10 Fitness in Regina, the athletes from these programs held a press conference and 200 members from the wrestling and volleyball communities were on hand for the gathering along with members of the Regina media.

    Paul Tokarz and Jordan Tholl of the men’s wrestling team, Amber Wiebe of the women’s wrestling team and Michael Corrigan of the men’s volleyball team all presented an outstanding case that financial numbers don’t add up to the point where these programs need to be cut. They made a clear point on how cutting these teams will seriously damage these sports at the grassroots and high school levels in Regina and southern Saskatchewan.

    Alums and current members from the Cougars men’s and women’s wrestling teams and the Cougars men’s volleyball team fill numerous spots coaching and officiating their sports at all levels.

    The athletes went into details that they can’t transfer into athletic programs at other institutions due to the fact most teams have wrapped up their recruiting cycles and have allocated their scholarship funds.

    They stressed that if their teams could be cut without warning the same fate could be in store for the 13 remaining teams in the U of R’s athletics program.

    The athletes want their programs to be reinstated.

    Tokarz, Tholl, Wiebe and Corrigan gave an admirable performance that likely topped any performance they have given in competition.

    I like the fact they presented their case in a facility where many of the athletes from the U of R programs train out of, and invited U of R president Vianne Timmons, dean of kinesiology Harold Riemer and director of sport and community engagement and athlete development Lisa Robertson to be part of the media conference.

    That would require that trio to leave their comfortable confines of the U of R campus and actually step into the community. They elected to not attend.

    It would be really cool if the leadership of these athletes would be the thing that triggered the U of R to reinstated these three programs. These amazing young adults are handling themselves in a way more outstanding way than the older adults.

    The athletes from the wrestling teams and the men’s volleyball team will be meeting with university officials this week. I wish the athletes the best of luck in their efforts, and as an alum from the University of Regina, I am very proud of them.

    I hope the community of Regina and the alums of their programs keep supporting them in their efforts.

    These athletes should have never been forced into a situation where they have to lead the charge to get their teams back.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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U of Regina Cougars wrestling program cuts are startling

The Cougars wrestling in the Carillon from 1997.

    There has to be a comeback like the one Josef Tesar Jr. made at the 1998 U Sports wrestling nationals.

    Back when U Sports was known as the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union, Tesar from the University of Regina Cougars trailed Chad Pearson of the University of Guelph Gryphons 10-2 in the gold medal match of the men’s 61 kilogram division. Pearson was one successful move away from winning the bout on technical superiority.

    Tesar miraculously battled back and earned enough points to win the match 15-10. In the process, the Cougars men’s wrestling squad won a national team title for second straight year.

    That one moment symbolizes the fight, the competitive drive and heart athletes have shown during the storied history of the Cougars wrestling teams in both men’s and women’s squads. Due to those efforts, the University of Regina was traditionally viewed as a wrestling school. Culturally, that aspect gives the U of R something that makes it distinct from most other post-secondary schools in Canada.

    Squads like the U of Regina Rams football team and the U of Regina Cougars women’s basketball team may get the majority of the spotlight, but it is always in the back of minds of locals in Regina that the sport the school is really good at is wrestling. When you saw the members of the Cougars teams hit the mat, you were quickly impressed by the skill they displayed.

A Cougars wrestling team feature from the Carillon in 1997.

    The Cougars men’s team has won 10 Canada West Conference championships, with the first coming in 1989 and the last in 2012, and two U Sports national titles in 1997 and 1998. They finished second in the team standings at nationals four times and placed third four times.
    The Cougars women’s team has finished second twice in the team standings at U Sports nationals.
    Both the men’s and women’s teams have had numerous individual conference and national champions. The women’s side doesn’t have as lengthy a history only becoming an official sport in U Sports in 1998-99.

    Bob McDougall claimed a U Sports national individual gold medal in the men’s 57-kilogram class in 1987 to become U of Regina’s first national champion in any sport.

    Lease Bertram, who was the U of R’s male athlete of the year in 1998 and was once part of Canada’s national team program, was in my opinion the best male athlete that school has ever seen and was a key member of both Cougars men’s team national championship winners. Individually at nationals, he won silver in the 65-kilogram class in 1997 and gold in the 61-kilogram class in 1998.

    Ali Bernard became the most decorated out of any of U of R women’s athletes compiling a lengthy resume of accomplishments that includes four individual Canada West titles and four individual U Sports championship gold medals from 2004 to 2008 with the women’s wrestling team. She was named the U of R’s female athlete of the year for three straight years from 2005 to 2007. 

The Carillon after the Cougars men’s wrestling team’s second national title.

  Bernard came from New Ulm, Minnesota, to be a member of the Cougars wrestling program.

    This past season at U Sports nationals, the Cougars women’s team finished fifth in the team standings, while the Cougars men’s team placed eighth. At the school’s athletic awards night in April, Lucas Hoffert of the Cougars men’s wrestling team was named the winner of the U of R’s highest individual honour in the President’s Award for outstanding achievement in athletics and academics.

    With how decorated the Cougars wrestling program is, it was shocking that both the men’s and women’s teams were cut from the U of R’s athletics program on Monday. The U of Regina Cougars men’s volleyball team, which is one of the school’s original six teams with men’s wrestling, was cut from the athletics program as well.

    The moves were made in response to a review of the U of R’s athletics department that was released in January of 2017, which suggested cutting teams in order to concentrate the saved funds on the remaining athletic squads.

    In a written response to the review from March 16, 2017, Vianne Timmons, who is the president and vice-chancellor at the U of R, said the portion of the review the pertains to the number of teams won’t be considered until a permanent head of athletics develops a “robust performance evaluation process.”

Lease Bertram accepting the U of R’s male athlete of the year award in 1998.

    At the time of Timmons’ letter, Tanya Reynoldson, who is an alumna of the Cougars women’s hockey team, was interim director of athletics. In July of 2017, Calgary, Alta., product Lisa Robertson was named the U of R’s new director of sport, community engagement and athlete development.

    With Robertson on staff for less than a full year, the U of R appears to have figured out a process to evaluate and reduce its number of athletic teams. The way decisions are made at universities are often convoluted, but with the brevity it took to make cuts, somewhere there might have been a pre-conceived decision at the start to cut the programs that were cut.

    The review suggested trying to get the ratio of male athletes to female athletes down to one-to-one for the overall athletics program as there were more male athletes on campus compared to female athletes. There were 18 members on the Cougars women’s wrestling team and 14 members on the Cougars men’s team last season, so cutting those programs did not get the ratio closer to one-to-one.

    Judging by the local media reaction in Regina and area, it appears the athletes from the three chopped programs were caught off guard.

    The Cougars men’s volleyball has struggled to post as many as four wins in any regular season for almost three decades. Since full-fledged regular season play between all western Canadian university volleyball teams happened in 1996-97, the Cougars have consistently finish in the bottom three in the overall standings.

The Carillon after the first national team title by the Cougars.

    Still, Greg Barthel, who became the men’s volleyball head coach in May of 2007, and his team have worked hard to make community inroads in the local Regina volleyball scene, and all that work seems for naught.

    Where the original release seems really heartless about the reduction in teams revolves around legendary Cougars wrestling head coach Leo McGee. He is not even mentioned at all.

    McGee became head coach of the men’s wrestling team in the 1985-85 campaign and has been the only head coach the women’s wrestling team has known since forming as a club team around the middle of the 1990s to becoming a full Cougars team in 1998-99.

    Saying he was instrumental is likely a descriptor that doesn’t begin to describe the impact and importance he has had on the wrestling teams. Beyond that, he is the school’s most veteran head coach and is tied to the fabric of university life at the U of R. It seems like everyone has at least one great McGee memory if they attended that institution.

    It felt like he knew who everyone was on the other athletic teams too. You would often see McGee making an upbeat pitch to athletes like Rams football star Jason Clermont and Cougars women’s basketball star Cymone (Bouchard) Bernauer about joining wrestling even just for conference or nationals. He would say he could help them win medals noting he wouldn’t have to teach either many moves.

    Those meetings always brought a chuckle from the athletes, and they also came away feeling better about themselves going back into activities involving their own sports.

    In the history of sports at the U of R, McGee was as important as Canadian Football Hall of Fame head coach Brian Towriss was to the University of Saskatchewan Huskies teams. Towriss had a similar rapport with athletes from other sports at the U of S like McGee does at the U of R.

The Carillon with a classic slogan for a headline.

    When Towriss departed and ultimately retired from his position at the U of S in December of 2016, that institution was criticized and hammered for how awfully that situation was handled, and at one point, his departure was the number two trending story in Canada.

    U of R athletics always has a drive to beat U of S athletics. If this is how McGee’s career at the U of R is going to end, U of R has trumped U of S in finding a worse way to handle a legendary coach departure.

    Braydon Johnston, who finished his second season with the Cougars men’s wrestling team, told Steven Wilson of Golden West Radio in Weyburn, Sask., on Tuesday that the coaches from U of R’s cut teams have been instructed not to talk to the athletes. As a result, Johnston hasn’t spoken to McGee since the announcement of the team cuts.

    Even when Towriss was going though bumps in his departure at U of S, his current and former players still threw a farewell party for him. These days, Huskies football has returned to having a family feeling.

    With the cuts that have happened in the mainstream media, it is easier to make the team cuts like the U of R did compared to when the Cougars won national titles in men’s wrestling in 1997 and 1998.

A couple of items of Cougars wrestling gear.

    The brand and prestige of U Sports on a national front is less now than it was back then. At the moment, the sports news cycle is consumed with NHL playoffs, the CFL Draft, and in southern Saskatchewan, the Swift Current Broncos quest to win their first WHL title since 1993.

Still, these cuts won’t likely be quiet in Regina and area.

    As news of the team cuts at the U of R spreads, you will likely hear from more and more alums of the Cougars Wrestling teams. Like the comeback Tesar made in his gold medal match at nationals in 1998, don’t expect the Cougars alums to go away because the experiences they went through were that great.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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