Sports briefs

By Jon Roe

Men’s rugby

The Dinos men’s rugby club team made their way to the west coast for two tournaments on back-to-back weekends.

During the first tournament, the Dinos faced off twice against the University of British Columbia. In the first game, on March 4, the Dinos’ red squad were down 15-3 at half time and ended up losing 60-3. The Dinos’ black squad had more luck against UBC the next day, keeping it close until the end but eventually losing 25-12.

The Dinos returned to UBC from March 11-13 for the National (University) Invitational Sevens Championship. They beat UBC Okanagan 22-0 in their first game. The Dinos then tied 12-12 with the McMaster Marauders. The Dinos ran out of luck as they were beaten 38-0 by the University of Victoria Vikes. They then lost 31-14 to the UBC Thunderbirds in their quarterfinal, moving them into the bowl competition — the prize for the fifth place team and winner of the consolation round.

The Dinos took down the University of Alberta Golden Bears 32-12 in their first consolation game. In the bowl final they once again faced UBC Okanagan and won 17-14 to capture the Bowl Trophy and fifth overall.



Men’s football

The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport announced that all samples collected from Dinos football players during an unannounced doping control test on Feb. 3 were clean. Samples were collected from 62 players during a dry land training session at the U of C.

CIS works with CCES to provide the whereabouts of athletes for unannounced out-of-season testing, which can take place at any time.

Dinos athletes are required to attend annual anti-doping education sessions before being allowed to compete.

A random unannounced test was also conducted for football players at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo on Jan. 12, with all samples coming back clean.

Last June, nine doping violations were found after doping control samples were collected from the University of Waterloo football team, resulting in the team being sidelined for the 2010-11 season.



Women’s hockey

Philanthropist Joan Snyder donated $500,000 to the Dinos women’s hockey program to create the Joan Snyder Program of Excellence. The donation will help finance a full-time women’s hockey assistant coach, move women’s hockey home games from the Olympic Oval to Father David Bauer Arena and fund the Dinos until the 2015-2016 season.