Editorial: Looking back at Ryerson’s sports history

By Peter Ash & Ben Waldman

BW: Peter, do you remember the first sports story you wrote for The Eyeopener?

PA: Yeah, I remember! It was two years ago and I actually ended up covering two games that day. It was a hockey doubleheader, with the women playing first and the men playing second.

BW: Do you remember any details? Who scored? How many people were there? Which team won?

PA: Honestly, no. I don’t remember much about that night other than the arena being half-empty. But looking back at it, I wish I did. What about you? Do you remember the first story you wrote for The Eye?

BW: I actually do remember. Ryerson’s women’s hockey team was playing Carleton. The Ravens coach had been the interim head coach for Ryerson when their head coach Lisa Haley took a sabbatical. So I wrote about how the Rams had to face their old coach. But if you asked me who scored or which team won…I have no clue.

PA: Damn. It’s crazy how quickly we can forget some of the most important details of those games. Especially the players.

BW: It can be hard to remember when there’s more to cover than what’s happening right now.

PA: Yeah, there’s so many things going on and there’s so little time. Just look at some of the things that happened this year.

BW: The women’s volleyball team’s PERFECT SEASON. The men’s basketball team winning national silver.

PA: The men’s curling team heads to nationals this week, and the women’s hockey team had their best season ever.

BW: We do our best to keep up, but it’s tough to keep our stories fresh. So with this issue, we’ve done something different.

PA: Instead of focusing on today, we decided to take a look back. In the past, we only did profiles for this issue but we’ve changed the style and turned it into something much bigger than that. I love it.

BW: There’s so many memories that people tend to lose these days and that’s why I think this issue is great.

PA: We’ve written about sports that aren’t really covered at Ryerson, like cricket and eSports. Mostly, we wanted to look at the history behind these cool teams and people, and how Ryerson athletics got to where it is today.

BW: Even though it’d be easy to find some of the most recent athletes, it’s always good to take a step back. Ryerson athletics has grown so much over the last few years and we had to grow too. This year, we added a second sports editor to keep up with the pace of the job. Thank goodness.

PA: The athletics program is improving so we tried to as well. And I think we found some really cool stories.

BW: Lior Kozai wrote about NBA TV’s The Starters, a TV show that started out as a podcast by Ryerson alumni. Maggie Macintosh asked what the hell a Ryette is, anyway?

PA: Atara Shields wrote about three women’s basketball players and the connection they’ve kept after graduation. Nick Reis looked at the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

BW: I loved Libaan Osman’s profile of Cabral “Cabbie” Richards. I didn’t know he went to Ryerson!

PA: I enjoyed cricket reporter Nina Shu’s latest piece. Xavier Eeswaran’s story on Dipesh Mistry, a video coordinator for the Phoenix Suns, really tickled my fancy.

BW: Same here. I also loved our cover story by my fellow Winnipegger Jacob Stoller. He nailed his story on Aaron Best.

PA: All our volunteers nailed it. Shout out to design director Aidan Lising.

BW: I’m proud. Thanks for being a great co-editor, Pete.

PA: Stop it. You’re great. Hopefully y’all will think this issue is too.

Here are all the stories in this year’s Sports Issue:

Ryerson alum Aaron Best is making a name for himself in Canada and around the world

How a Ryerson student went from Ram team manager to the NBA

The history behind the sexist names of Ryerson’s female athletes

Ryerson is taking cricket national

How controversy struck when a Rye team was sponsored by a strip club 17 years ago

Three Rye grads tell all: How they broke into sports media

How a group of Ryerson students climbed to NBA TV