Goin' Dancin'

The CIS men's basketball national championship tournament is less than two weeks away, marking the final time (as it stands now) the Big Dance will be hosted in Hali.

Following my trip to Halifax in 2003-04, I wrote an opinion piece in the Brandon Sun railing against the CIS' decision to stick with Halifax as its host site for its most marquis tournament. The article was in no way a condemnation of Halifax itself — anyone who knows me knows my affinity for the city — but rather a comment on the national university body's almost blind acceptance of the status quo.

Be careful — I suppse you could say — what you wish for.

The national tournament, which has been in the Nova Scotia capital for the past 24 years, will move to the nation's capital in 2008 for a three-year effort that marks the first time since 1982 the event will rest outside the Maritimes. Standing by the argument I made a few years ago, I'd normally be in favour of the switch: The bigger picture, I'd argue, is to keep the nationals from becoming the stale product you're in danger of creating by keeping it in the same place year after year.

But, as usual, the CIS has bungled it.

• More than one person has pointed out the fact that the tournament won't be held in Ottawa itself, but rather 20 minutes down the road in Kanata. All fine and good if out-of-town tournament teams, officials and media are staying in Kanata — which they won't be — but playing the tournament in a town that isn't actually Ottawa just isolates the centre of off-court activity (umm, you remember Ottawa, the supposed host site) from where games will actually be played. A 20-minute commute, at least once a day, from the host hotels to the host venue just insures massive frustration and inevitable hassles with shuttles, cabs and any other transportation.

• Taking another shot at Kanata, the host venue is the 19,000-seat Scotiabank Place, home of the Ottawa Senators and a wholly overambitious place to host the men's tournament. With all due respect to the people of Ottawa and southern Ontario in general, a best-case scenario would never lead to anywhere near a sellout of an arena that is 9,000 seats larger than the venue in Halifax that currently can't post sellouts. Now, while sellouts aren't needed nor expected, the fact remains that Scotiabank Place will just end up being more cavernous than the Halifax Metro Centre already is and anyone who has watched the nationals on TV in the past knows that will just make the event look bush league.

Shoot, I've been in the Metro Centre when it's three-quarters full and it still barely makes an impression when translated to TV.

• And finally, and most ridiculously, the successful bid from Carleton University (the official hosts) also included a virtually unreported clause that guarantees the Ravens a host bid into the Elite 8 each of the three years they host. So read that correctly:

In 2008, 2009 and 2010, the Carleton Ravens will be guaranteed their spot in the national tournament. Not Ontario. Not the OUA East. Carleton. Take one tournament bid off the table for the rest of the country to play for and, while you're at it, give the Ravens — the four-time defending national champions — another leg up in the recruiting wars. Oh, and see what you can do about getting a third Ontario team into the tournament, deserved or not.

We're more than a year away from changing locales for the biggest university event in Canada and already anyone who chooses to take more than a cursory glance at the situation can see question marks all over.

The good news is Carleton, the CIS and everyone involved with taking the men's nationals to Ottawa have time to make sure those questions are answered.

The bad news is, if the CIS' track record is any indication, some will get answered, most will not and even those like me who criticized the CIS' lack of action will be pining for the days when they left well enough alone.