Stingers return with a bang
Pre-season tour of U.S. colleges energizes John Dore's boys
Duke University fans focus their energy on Stingers guard Pierre Thompson. Coach John Dore said, “The Duke fans always seem to stand the whole game and it’s a wild, wild experience.”
Photo by Shana Jean
Quebec University Basketball League action got under way this past weekend, and the Concordia Stingers men’s team came flying out of the gates, cruising past their first two opponents.
The Stingers overwhelmed the UQAM Citadins with their exceptional speed on the court to win 91-64 in their home opener Nov. 18 night at the packed Loyola Gym and then followed with an 80-63 victory at McGill the next day.
But even though these were Concordia’s first league games, they’ve been playing at full speed for a while now, having recently completed a seven-game road trip against U.S. teams—the most prolific exhibition schedule a Canadian university has ever played.
“I think the preseason trip helped us immensely,” said Stinger Head Coach John Dore, whose team faced opponents such as the Duke Blue Devils and University of Connecticut Huskies, the teams that are currently ranked first and second in NCAA men’s basketball.
“We had to bring our level of play up,” explained team captain Patrick Perrotte, noting that they matched up against bigger, taller and more athletic players throughout the trip. “With the way we competed [on Friday], the two-week trip was worth it.”
The Stingers lost all seven games of the trip, but facing many players who are likely to play in the NBA next year was not only a benefit to the team for the coming season, it was also an experience the Concordia athletes won’t soon forget.
“All those players are potential NBA players. When I watch them on TV, for me, they’re like superstars,” said Perrotte, who has his collection of Duke and other NCAA shirts at home. “I think it will be a great story to tell to my kids and my friends: ‘Hey, I played against this guy.’”
Damian Buckley, a rookie point guard out of Vanier College, had never experienced anything close to the atmosphere at Duke, where a sold-out crowd of 9,314 witnessed the game.
“It was crazy. The fans are heckling us; they know about our families — they know everything. They do their research,” he said. “But at the end of the game, they gave us a round of applause — they respect us for coming down and competing, so we felt comfortable playing there.”
“Playing at Duke is like playing at Yankee Stadium — it’s the mecca of college basketball right there,” Coach Dore said. “It doesn’t get any better. The Duke fans always seem to stand the whole game and it’s a wild, wild experience.”
With seven games in 13 days on the road —including three days back in Montreal for classes — the memorable experience was also a tiring one, with lots of time on the bus travelling to schools such as the University of Georgia, 1,900 km away.
The Stingers were happy to get back home and open up their 2005-06 season, hoping to follow up the success of last season in which they won the Quebec title and reached the final of the National Championship Tournament.
“We had a hard preseason— we didn’t live up to our expectations — but we’re going to come strong during the season,” Buckley said.
This year’s team is without graduate Philippe Langlois, a first-team All-Canadian last season who now plays for the Montreal Matrix of the American Basketball Association.
Langlois is a big loss, but a cast of returning players such as leading-scorer Perrotte, three-point master Rastko Popovic, Damian’s older brother Dwayne Buckley and co-captain Chris Blackwood give the team a strong core. Buckley, who led the team with 17 points against McGill, is a solid addition, along with Ben McCarthy, a 6-foot-10 transfer from Saint Mary’s. All in all, another exciting season at Loyola Gym is a guarantee.
The Stingers face their top competitors, the Laval Rouge et Or, on Nov. 25 in Quebec City before returning home to face the McGill Redmen on Nov. 26 at 4 p.m. The women’s team follows against McGill at 6 p.m.