12 / Oct. 22 - Nov. 4, 2015
@TheSheridanSun
Bruins Bash
Bruins bash the competition at province-wide tourney
The Sheridan men’s basketball team rolled through the competition to victory in the annual “Bruins Bash” pre-season tournament at Davis Campus last weekend. The Bash is a four-game event with teams coming to Sheridan from all over Ontario, including La Cite Collegiale, in Ottawa, Canadore College in North Bay and Georgian College, from a little closer to home in Barrie. Bruins head coach Jim Flack has been with the school just shy of two decades and has always enjoyed this tournament for what it gives him and his staff. “It’s been going on for about 24 or 25 years and the coaches love it. It is the last look at your guys before league play, our final opportunity to iron out the details of our game,” Flack said. It’s always good for the coaches to know their players before the season but for the players themselves, it is a great test of their level of play going into the year. “This tournament is more for our confidence levels, when the season comes that’s when we really start to ramp it up and get in peak physical shape. We’re doing pretty good, perfect so far, and as a team we are making great plays,” Bruin Adam Elhereich said. It starts with a three-game round robin style bracket with the two best teams advancing to the final. It takes place over two days which means the teams are forced to play two games, seven hours apart, each day.
photograph by michael melro
MICHAEL MELRO
“I like the break between games, but to be honest we shouldn’t even be playing two games in a day. Since we aren’t the NCAA with million dollar deals, we have to get our games in when we can. It’s tough out there for the players,” Flack said. The tournament started well for the Double Blue, beating the Canadore Panthers by 10 points 78-68. This gave them confidence going into their second game of the day, running out comfortable winners 7560, over their OCAA Western Conference rivals, the Georgian Grizzlies. The Bruins started the sec-
ond day of competition at 10 a.m., winning their third game in less than 24 hours against the Coyotes of La Cite 82-78. Saving their best for last, Sheridan would stroll to the championship in a rematch against the team from our nations’ capital, 78-57. Most coaches will say “it’s only pre-season,” but one has to admire the success the Bruins pressing style has brought them this early on. “Our style shakes everybody up. All five guys on the court have to buy in to our system. It takes a lot of energy out of you and if everyone does buy in, it can be vicious. That’s been our
reputation. When you play us, win or lose you’re going to get pressured and it causes a lot of frustration,” Flack said. The fact Sheridan has gone 7-2 over the pre-season with all the changeover in the off-season, means they are on the right track going in to league play. “Last year we had some people who were more about themselves than the group effort and that really affected the way the team played. Now with the new changes to the lineup, it has injected some fresh blood and positive energy into our play. What you saw in this tournament is
Bruins head coach Jim Flack goes over game plan with players from men’s basketball team.
more like the Bruins basketball I have been coaching for the past couple of decades,” Flack said. With a successful pre-season behind them, Sheridan looks to start the season positively with a tough two game swing through Southwestern Ontario. They will meet St. Clair and Lambton on back-to-back nights, starting Oct. 24.
First Bruins League of Legends team commences intramurals MARK ELGIE The League has arrived. The League of Bruins, that is. After testing the waters with two pilot events last season, the Sheridan League of Legends intramurals began Oct. 6. It’s a project that has been in the works since 2013, when the idea for an e-sports team was brought up. “It was probably two years ago where we really sat down and went ‘Okay we need to actually figure out a way to get more people involved on campus,’ “ said co-op job developer Mike Thornton. Thornton, along with associate dean Matt Rempel, Trafalgar fitness coordinator Nadene Boothe, and peer mentor Adam McInnis, sat down that year and brainstormed ideas. “I guess just because of the familiarity, myself, Adam and Matt [had] with
League of Legends, we figured it was probably a first good starting point. It also, I would say, is probably the largest game in the world, or at least one of them,” Thornton said. The group needed a game with a considerable amount of popularity. And compared to some other niche games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends was the obvious choice. “We figured if we’re looking at demographics and target market size, League of Legends is probably going to be the easiest sell on campus. If you’re playing some kind of niche game, it’s probably going to be tough for some to get into it.” League of Legends was chosen, and two pilot events were scheduled. “We wanted to test the waters, be-
cause we figured if we just did a cold opening and like ‘Okay we have a new intramural,’ no one would know, it would be really tough to market,” Thornton said. “So we did Bruins nights, which were going to be testers for what kind of response we were going to get.” Thornton believes that the two events held were both very successful. “The room was at capacity for both of the events. Maybe 30 to 40 people. [Some] people brought their own computers, we had a stream going, we even had a guy who was at home, but he was shoutcasting the games on Twitch. It was great. It was awesome. We had our own Sheridan Bruins Twitch, and we were streaming the games out to the wild which was fantastic.” Twitch is an online streaming service
marketed specifically to the gaming community. After the two events, the group worked out what event attendees enjoyed and didn’t enjoy, and spent the summer working out marketing, logistics, and schedules for a seven week League of Bruins intramural team. “We have advertisements that have been going through our Twitter account. We’ve been approaching the gaming clubs to share with their membership, we’ve got our website up for the first time, which I think looks pretty good now, with a lot more information,” said Rempel. “We’ve been trying to get an ad up on Sheridan TV, and as far as I know, those are the places where students might see the information.”