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America should follow Canada’s lead on gun laws

By
EIC
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The NRA’s solutions to mass shootings highlight the need for firearm legislation reform
By Harleen Khangura

The recent series of mass shootings in the United States has undoubtedly added to my paranoia of movie theatres and educational institutions. It has made gun activists and the NRA so paranoid that they believe that arming teachers and guards at schools and easing gun laws is the answer to rising gun violence in America.

In the last few months, we have heard about a harrowing number of shootings in America and the number only seems to be climbing up. The latest massacre, which took place on Dec. 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, has revived the gun debate in the United States. Sadly, after decades of this debate, it has yielded little to no resolution. Instead, what has resulted is a wavering battle of the wills between gun right advocates — or rather the Second Amendment advocates — and those calling for stricter gun laws. But it is time for American politicians to stop beating around the bush, and to develop greater restrictions on gun access and ownership in an effort to alleviate gun violence. Looking at Canadian gun laws as an example may not be such a bad idea.

Canadian gun laws are not perfect. We have had our fair share of school shootings in the past — Ecole Polytechnique massacre, Dawson College shooting — and there was a shooting incident at a block party in Toronto as recently as this summer. However, it is also noteworthy that the scale and frequency of these mass shootings are significantly less than the ones in America. For instance, in 2009, the United States had 66.9 per cent of homicides by firearm while Canada’s number was much lower at 32. In Canada, it takes considerably longer to acquire a gun, which serves as a primary deterrent for gun ownership. First-time applicants need to apply for a license (a PAL or a POL), receive safety training, and undergo mandatory background checks as well as a 28- day waiting period (sometimes longer).

On the other hand, obtaining a gun is far less onerous in the United States. Most states do not require a license or a permit in order to obtain a gun; in fact, a personal ID, such as a driver’s license, is often sufficient to acquire and/or carry a firearm. Also, while it is mandatory for federally licensed firearms dealers to conduct security screenings, about 40 per cent of guns are actually sold by unlicensed private dealers, who are frequently guilty of selling guns to individuals without a proper background check.

Clearly, America’s gun laws are full of loopholes that need to be fixed, but this may not be an easy or welcomed task. The latest solution that the NRA has come up with for gun violence indicates that many Americans are reluctant if not terrified to sever ties with their beloved guns. But the upsurge in gun violence also proves that the current gun regulations are a downright failure. If America wishes to protect its citizens, it needs to be proactive in bolstering gun restrictions, mandating licenses and training for gun ownership, and finetuning the security screening procedures. Of course, this may not make the States immune to future gun violence, but it would at least begin to fill in the cracks of a flawed system that continues to senselessly endanger human lives.

Students are apathetic, and that’s OK

By
EIC
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0

SFU’s “Radical past” is just that: a thing of the past

By Eric Onderwater

Many students at SFU are aware that our school has a certain “radical past.” SFU is colloquially known to be somewhat famous for left-wing thought and intellectuals, particularly in the social sciences. Books have been written about this, and various internet sites also offer opinions. Most interestingly, SFU used the label “radical campus” to describe itself during the 40th anniversary celebrations in 2005.

Many left-leaning individuals and faculty feel like this is a past to be celebrated and affirmed. They take the label “Berkeley North” as a badge of honour, as if campus radicalism is a worthy aspiration for students. This is the same attitude that leads many students and faculty to sympathize with the occupy movement, or worse, the Montreal student protests. Indeed, radicalism holds an almost mystical ethos in modern left-wing thought, and most leftwingers continue to develop a glorious mythology about the protest hippie culture of the 60s. However, the SFU we all know today is a far cry from that past. Students today are most known for their total apathy towards anything political. The concept of a sit-in is laughable, and the idea of protesting something on campus is ridiculous. There are no illusions about how pointless protesting is, especially when it’s always so bloody cold and rainy. The Montreal protests seem more like something out of Egypt or the Middle East, rather than something that could actually happen at a university campus in Canada.

So, is this bad? Should we mourn the lack of radicalism and protest on campus here at
SFU? Should we feel nostalgic about the “radical past?” I give an emphatic no.
The students of today don’t need to be radical. Frankly, they’ve got it pretty good compared to previous generations.
Sure, tuition is a bit more expensive, but part-time jobs and student loans aren’t difficult to find. SFU is well administered, and offers a competent faculty. Most programs are increasingly practical in focus, and offer good options for co-op and international exchanges. In general, it seems bizarre that students would begin to complain.
Life isn’t too bad, and I believe that is the basis for the much maligned “student apathy” on campus.

SFU’s radical past is gone, and that is good. SFU is no longer seen as left-wing. If anything, the business program grabs the most attention at SFU. So much for the glorious radical past; now SFU is all about training future capitalists in the ways of making lots of money. This is also why the “rotunda four” organizations seem like such holdovers from the past: they are holdovers from the past, relics of a bygone age. The SFPIRG and the SFU Women’s Centre don’t make much sense in an age where students aren’t concerned about so-called radical political causes or campaigns. Worse, why would students pay fees to maintain such organizations? Students today aren’t apathetic. Their priorities are different. Most students are at university to improve their lives. They’re concerned, first, about educating themselves in order to be eligible for entry into well paid, interesting and rewarding occupations. They also want to learn more about the world they live in, and they want to find ways to make that world better through service and hard work. They aren’t interested in pushing radical causes or agendas. And frankly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Letters for the Inside

By
EIC
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0

letters for the inside
By Ljudmila Petrovic
Photos by Mark Burnham

Fall 2012 marked the fifth anniversary of SFPIRG’s social justice program, Letters for the Inside (LFTI). It has been seen as one of their most successful programs in recent years, but also one of their most controversial.

The program initially started by Megan Branson in 2004. After her brother — a Capilano student at the time — was incarcerated, she realized the discrepancy between the amount of information that she and her brother had access to in their respective settings. She started the program in hopes of bridging this gap. In 2007, Branson transferred to SFU and, with her, LFTI found a new niche at SFPIRG. The concept is simple: prisoners from across Canada — predominantly BC — write in with requests for information. Volunteers for LFTI respond by providing them with the requested information, be it straightforward statistics that we can easily Google, or job and school applications. It has been highly successful, with a total of 173 letters exchanged in 2012 alone. Many of the inmates involved in the program have written in over the years with positive feedback.

“You folks were a great help to me, especially with the dissertation,” wrote one inmate. “Now I want to do a Master’s of Divinity.” Another writer is involved in an inmate health peer education program, and had requested information on tuberculosis (TB) and MSRA infections. “We were able to use the information you sent on TB and MSRA right away. It was so easy to understand and to be teachable. We all thank you so much,” he wrote. “This information does save lives, and since they let inmates teach inmates on the dangers of STIs and other diseases, [the inmates] listen.”

The program has been controversial, because many have questioned whether all of the resources that are put in should be focused on prisoners. Some have argued that, as part of the consequences for their actions, these prisoners should not have access to all of the same means as the general population. Those involved with the program, however, are quick to point out that the program also caters to those who are in facilities awaiting trials. Furthermore, the focus is on a rehabilitative approach: these prisoners will eventually be let out and when they are they should be provided with the knowledge to reintegrate into the community.

“Most people would agree that inmates provided with services such as skill development opportunities, counselling, and information on how to reintegrate after their sentence are probably going to have more successful transitions back into society than those who do not receive any support,” says SFPIRG’s Laura Kadowki. “More importantly, the people who are incarcerated in prisons are still fellow human beings with intellectual needs and desires.”

Regardless of individual views on the criminal justice system, this program addresses the social and intellectual aspects of justice, and tries to provide the ever-growing and often faceless prison population with some of the same opportunities that we as students are lucky to have.

If you are interested in becoming an LFTI volunteer please email [email protected] or drop by the SFPIRG offices (TC326 in the Rotunda) Monday to Friday from 10:30–4:30 for more information.

LAST WORD: Loner Wolf

By
EIC
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0

Why the rise in technological communication is bringing us closer

By Jennifer Chow
Illustration by Eleanor Qu

For some reason, the image of a geek also often conjures the image of a loner, hacking away at the computer, tech savvy but socially awkward.
Is there any truth to these stereotypes?
Is there a correlation between solitude and being labeled a geek? A self-proclaimed loner myself, it is true that I am fascinated by technology — the internet in particular. I am attracted to it like a fly is to a light bulb, without really knowing why. The more I look at the topic however, the more I realize how complex the relationship between people and technology really is.

Unlike most people, I spent most of my life socially isolated, watching my peers interact around me. My whole life, I have felt confused and out of place when it came to social interactions. This has always been partly my choice and partly just the way I am. I’ve never really figured out my place in the real world, nor have I mastered how to communicate face-to-face with real people. But the internet eliminates that barrier.

Letters were once the way people communicated with each other. They were followed by the telegraph, then the telephone. For a long time — and certainly when I was growing up — the phone was the go-to method of non-face-to-face communication. But I’ve never liked it, and I still balk at it. We have gone from text to voice and now, in an interesting roundabout, gone back to the initial medium with text messages, tweets and Facebook statuses.

The world of texting and social media eliminates the need to socialize face-to-face, since everyone can now broadcast what’s going on anyway via various technological mediums. Since socializing hasn’t really been much a part of my life so far, I never had a chance to lament that. But the internet and social media today is a world of words, visuals and even sound. I thrive on words and visuals: it’s what I’m comfortable with, what I’m good at, and what I run to when I don’t know how to say things.

To me, email is one of the best recent inventions: I can write my message out and linger over it before sending it — all without actual face to face contact with someone that I barely know (or just don’t want to deal with). We tell ourselves that it is the “new way” of communication; the 21st century way. This much may be true, but we are still writing and communicating, not unlike the letter-writers of past eras. We haven’t lost sight of who we are artistically and culturally; we’re just doing it differently now. In fact, our medium of communication is so different that it can be hard to see the roots of it unless you carefully read into it; words that once were scrawled on paper may now be displayed on a screen, but they are still written with emotion.

The internet, and social media by extension, can unite people from all over the world, without them ever having to see each other: they can interact directly with one another through websites, online chats, comments, forums, blog posts, and, recently, more interactive formats like podcasting. While some people find this sort of interaction too impersonal and too distant, loners like me are drawn to it, enchanted by it, and comforted by it.

With near-instantaneous communication, spaces contract and borders blur. We are more connected than we ever were and yet many people argue that we are more disconnected than before, too busy looking at our phones to connect with the people around us. Maybe that’s true, but for the loners and the introverts, does that matter anyway? It can be argued that technology provides more excuses and opportunities for the loner to be a loner: to hide from the world, to Google the world but not seek it, and to remain in their comfort zone. I will not deny that I sometimes take the digital route just to stay in my comfort zone and to avoid going where I’ve never been before. It’s just easier that way. But the internet and technology in general also allow me to express myself in ways that were once never possible: I can broadcast my words; I can share my thoughts with the world through blogs and other online communities; I can edit photos, videos and my writing.

I can make my thoughts come alive and share them. I can read other peoples’ thoughts, experiences and creations. Simultaneously, we can be alone and with others. For the loner, of course, being alone works out well; yet it is possible to collaborate while still being physically alone or far apart. Sure, as with everything, there are drawbacks. Perhaps isolation is more pronounced now with the rise of technological communication.

Maybe society does have less connection, now that we know each other online, but don’t really know each other. Yet for the loner, technology and internet — now nearly ubiquitous in the developed world — opens up many possiblities. The loner thrives in this habitat of relative isolation, of staring at the screen. Maybe everyone is becoming more of a loner. Maybe everyone is becoming more of a geek. Or at the very least, maybe people are becoming more comfortable with doing what so many “loners” and “geeks” thrive on.

But for all the proud loners, the geeks and the loner geeks, this is our time. Now it is possible to be heard. Now there is a place for us to reside in. It is impossible to know what technology will bring to us in the near future but in the meantime, I will be content in my digital habitat of today.

SFU drops two

By
EIC
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0

Clan men’s basketball team loses at home, and on the road

By Bryan Scott

After the game between the Simon Fraser men’s basketball team and the Northwest Nazarene Crusaders was postponed by a power outage the night before, they were back on the court the following afternoon.

The game was back and forth early on, but five minutes into the half, the Crusaders took a 10–9 lead. Over the next three minutes they pushed the lead to six, leading the Clan 19–13. The Crusaders dominated in close, picking up 24 points, to the Clan’s 12 in the paint. At halftime, the score was 36–28 in favour of NNU. Elijah Matthews had 10 points in the first half to lead the Clan.

The Crusaders didn’t take anytime to pad their lead in the second half. With just over 15 minutes to play in the game, the lead was big after a Crusaders three point shot made it 49–31. The difference was briefly up to 22 points, but then the Clan began to rally. SFU dug deep, but it was lights out for the Clan, who lost the game 85–75. Matthews finished the game with 19 points followed closely by Anto Olah who had 18.

Next, the Clan ventured down to Lacey, Washington to take on Saint Martin’s Saints. The Saints jump-started the game, grabbing a 5–0 in the first few minutes. SFU tied the game at five, but that didn’t last long. The next three minutes saw the Saints go on a 10–0 run, that led to an eventual 22-point lead with five minutes remaining in the half. The Clan made up some ground but still trailed 37–25 at half time. The points were well spread out on both teams, with only one player breaking the double-digit mark in the half.

The second half was much of the same. The Saints maintained their lead throughout the remainder of the game. The Clan could not mount a comeback and lost on the road. Olah led the Clan with 14 points and nine rebounds, Matt Raivio also had 14 points. SFU remains winless in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play. With this loss, they fall to 5–9 overall.

Ambassadors of Cool

By
EIC
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0

Foxygen returns with a new album that is one part 60s, one part mad hatter

By Kristina Charania

Although Foxygen seem like a bunch of kids who enjoy MDMA and smoke pot a little too much, We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic is a healthy mixture of the music that spawned from classic 60s and 70s stars — vocalists like Jagger, Dylan, Bowie, and Lennon come to mind. Foxygen is delightfully wacky in cementing snippets of older sounds together into music without recycling them. It’s Ambassadors’s clean yet distinctly-still vintage sound that surpasses its fuzzier predecessor Take the Kids off Broadway, while pleasing both the hair-filled ears of a Beatles fanatic and those of the modern listener.

“San Francisco” begins with the cutesy tinkling of a xylophone and a flute. Accompanied by occasionally quirky lyrics (“Your eyes are like a cup of tea”) and sing-songy vocals, the tune adopts the theatricality of Alice in Wonderland’s mad tea party — on a lot of acid. The song’s music video is no less sober. It shifts between listless wandering in a forest and a pink-walled room containing a floral couch, coffee table, skulls, likely poisonous apples, and the two lollygagging members of Foxygen: Sam France and Johnathan Rado. Ambassadors’ lead single “Shuggie” is another stellar tune — it will trick you into expecting an experimental rock/ jazz trumpet number until it smoothly morphs into a chorus backed by a gospel choir and snazzy pianos. Here, the lyrics are nostalgic (“Hey man, have a soda / It’s on the house) — because, seriously, when is soda ever free these days?

The title track is unquestionably the album’s best — badass Elvis-esque guitar riffs and snippets of calm frame Sam France’s dynamic singing, which dissolves into a yowling mess of words that is nothing short of an absolute freak-out and a treat to witness in concert. Crazy album title and vocal meltdown notwithstanding — you’re probably dying to know what the hell a Foxygen is. According to Village Voice, France’s friend Libby touted a sixth grade crush as her “foxygen” in an AIM conversation with France. Putting all the sickeningly adorable puppy love aside, that nickname signaled the first glimmerings of the duo’s current success, including opening for Of Montreal, signing with Jagjaguwar Records, and writing their second release with The Shins’ keyboardist, Richard Swift.

Ambassadors is a solid throwback album that lives up to the indie blog hype surrounding it. If anything, Foxygen’s production is flawed in only one way: they could have perhaps picked a longer, more tongue-twisty album title. Keep it handy for a trip to your local record store or the homely little burger parlour that your uncle owns — it’ll put you right in the mood.

Zero Dark Thirty: “Go on, we’re all listening”

By
EIC
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0

The film about the search for bin Laden leaves audiences in suspense, proves it’s worth its salt

By Will Ross

Nothing turns the public’s ears to a filmmaker like a Best Picture Oscar win, and their next film tends to be an ambitious, singular work of interest, be it good (A Serious Man) or bad (Les Miserables). The latest such statement is Zero Dark Thirty, from writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow, and three years out from their Iraq bomb-squad thriller The Hurt Locker, one can scarcely ask for a more definitive post-Oscar statement. Zero Dark Thirty expands on its predecessor in every way: in style, in scope, in ambition, in controversy. The subject matter affords those expansions: a dramatization of the US’s near-decade long manhunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The hunt is depicted through the eyes of CIA officer Maya (Jessica Chastain), a woman with a self-admitted lack of friends and interests that don’t directly further the search.

At the outset, Maya is faced with moral issues, namely the torture of captured al Qaeda operatives in the interest of procuring intel. This sequence has brought the film much heat, not for portraying torture as moral (it is clearly a horrible, unconscionable ordeal) but for allegedly falsely presenting torture as having been necessary to the eventual killing of bin Laden. But the film hasn’t earned half the scorn it’s received; first because it’s not certain whether the torture gives the characters the only possible access to this information, second because actual records of torture and interrogation in the US can’t possibly all be declassified for the public, which therefore limits our knowledge of it enough to permit artistic liberties, third because the film strenuously opposes torture on the more important level — the moral one.

But politics aside, Zero Dark Thirty is an extremely compelling film, a tense, episodic story with an incredible economy of character and narrative: we know very little background about Maya, but Boal’s script and Chastain’s performance draw out everything we need: her personality, her motivations, and what she’ll do to get what she wants — it doesn’t take long for Maya to become a huge pain in her bosses’ asses, nor to table any squeamishness she feels over torture.

Further multiplying the film’s gravity is its replete set pieces, which more than equal those of The Hurt Locker. The suspense scenes in Zero Dark Thirty always feel just on the verge of disaster, particularly in the film’s climax, an exhausting, thirty-minute depiction of the famous raid on bin Laden’s compound. I have never heard a packed theatre as quiet as I did during that climax. Not one cough, nor rustle, nor any soun but gasps and jumps.

As the operation concludes, the weight of the two-hour procedural that preceded falls upon us, and we feel the importance of what has happened. And, in the final scene, the realization shared between us and Maya that only in the end do we understand the cost of it all.

Women’s Wrestling: National Champions!

By
EIC
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0

Women’s Wrestling Win their First National Dual Title

By Clay Gray
Photos by Mark Burnham

At five in the morning on Jan. 10, head coach Mike Jones and the Mat Pack piled into a few vehicles and drove to Seattle to catch a flight destined for St. Louis, Missouri. Upon arrival, the women’s wrestling team was driven in rental cars to complete the final leg of their journey to the National Wrestling Coaches Association, CliffKeen National Dual Championships in Springfield, Illinois. The tournament didn’t begin until Saturday, but the team settled into their hotel, and got an early night sleep. Friday was used for preparation, it consisted of the Mat Pack going through their pre-competition routine and for some the process known as cutting weight, wherein athletes attempt to sweat out extra water in order to bring their body weight inline with their respective weight classes. This process was easier for some than others. When it came time to step onto the scales on Saturday, one wrestler missed weight. Fortunately, Jones had brought along backup wrestlers and filled in the vacant 116-pound spot with Nikkie Brar, a third-year from Abbotsford.

SFU’s dual-team came into the National Duals ranked third behind Oklahoma City University and the King’s College of Bristol from Tennessee. Although SFU had beaten the first-ranked team earlier in the year, but the championship format varied slightly and due to OCU’s five-straight National Dual titles they entered this year’s tournament as the favourite.

It was clear the Clan was fighting an uphill battle from the start. The Clan’s only dual on Saturday had a late start, beginning at 8 pm. In the first round of the tournament, the Clan rolled over Cumberland College from Kentucky without losing a single match. The tournament venue closed for the day, sending the Mat Pack back to their hotel with high hopes for their next dual against the second-seeded King’s College. The Clan dropped the occasional match against King’s College but the Mat Pack proved to be too much for Tornadoes, downgrading them to a low-pressure system and handing them a 27–12 defeat.

The victory over the Tornadoes set the Clan up for a rematch against the first-seeded and five-time defending National Champions, the OCU Stars. The dual started off in a grim fashion for SFU. 101-pound sophomore Darby Huckle lost via technicalfall, putting the Clan in a 0–4 hole. However, the Clan rallied and went on a four-match win streak sparked by Victoria Anthony. At 109 pounds, she dished out a technical- fall win over Brianna Rahall, tying the dual at fours. In the 116- pound matchup, Brarr lost the first round, but rebounded to win the second and third rounds to take match and the lead in team points, 7–5. The 123-pound showdown pitted senior Laura Wilson against one of OCU’s seniors, Joey Miller. Miller defeated Wilson in the first round 2–5 but could not hang with the “Tofino Terror” as Wilson recovered to secure the win, 10–5. Jones commented on the situation, “OCU pulled national champions out of their usual spots in the line-up and put them up against our lesser recognized athletes Brar and Wilson. Both responded well with Brar winning all three of her bouts, two against returning national champions and All-Americans.” At 130 pounds, third year Helen Maroulis hit the mat ready to go and served OCU’s Brieana Delgado a loss by pin in less than 60 seconds, which gave SFU a 10-point lead at the halfway point in the dual, 15–5.

The Clan stumbled by dropping the 136- and 143- pound weight classes, allowing the Stars to shorten the Clan’s lead to five, 16–11. The reputation of SFU’s next wrestler, Danielle Lappage in the 155- pound weight class, preceded her, and OCU admitted defeat. In doing so, they bumped their 155-pounder up a weight class. With no one to wrestle, Lappage walked on the mat to receive her forfeit taking back the Clan’s ten-point lead, 21–11. Some of you may be asking yourself, why would the fivetime defending champions forfeit a match in the finals? The answer is to win based on criteria; in the event that a dual is tied, the officials look to see how matches were won by each team with the more dominant team coming out on top. The criterion begins with a pin count, simply who had the most pins. So, knowing that Lappage would have won by pin and that because of that they would have had to win both remaining matches by a pin anyways, OCU forfeited the match to prevent SFU from winning another pin.

With two matches left in the dual, OCU’s hopes of a sixth straight National Dual title were quickly fading. Third year Justina Di Stasio stepped up to seal the Clan’s victory and their first National Dual title with a decision victory over OCU’s three-time All-American, Brittany Roberts, 24–12. The Clan had already won the dual and the title, but there was still one more match left to be wrestled.

In the heavyweight matchup Jenna Mclatchy lost the first round 0–3 but rallied back taking the second and third rounds 5–1 and 5–0 respectively. The final score card read Clan 27, Stars 13.

When asked to comment on his team’s performance, Jones said, “This is the fourth year we have been invited to the team championships and we have placed second and third, but never won title before this event.” He attributed the success to his team, saying, “Having international class athletes like Lappage, Anthony, and Maroulis as well as returning Canadian junior national champion Justina Di Stasio had OCU adjusting their lineup trying to get around these athletes. . . . Everyone wrestled well, and to be honest, it may have been the best total team effort I have seen in the 36 years I have coached here at SFU.”

Helen Maroulis was given the Outstanding Wrestler award, but when asked how it felt to be the recipient, she stated, “Winning the OW felt good, but it didn’t compare to winning the team title. Everyone wrestled their hearts out and you could tell we were all doing it for each other. Wrestling is mainly an individual sport but this weekend wasn’t about that.” The Clan will be back in action at the traditional national championship, Jan. 25, where the wrestling women of SFU will be on the hunt for individual titles.s

SFU has solid showing in Seattle

By
EIC
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0

Five Clan athletes gain automatic qualification into GNAC Championships
By Bryan Scott

It is once again track and field season, and Simon Fraser’s men and women began their two-month indoor season in Seattle, Washington. The athletes competed to become an automatic or provisional qualifier in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championship meet. This year they managed to get five automatic qualifiers, all on the women’s side.

Helen Crofts was the star of meet, taking home Red Lion Athlete of the Week. This was her first tournament after missing the 2012 season with a leg injury. She placed third in the 800-metre race with a time of 2:10.75. “It was my first track race in nine months due to an injury,” explained Crofts in a press release, “I was focusing on being strong and competitive without worrying about times, and it turned out quite well.” She also played an important role in the team’s second place finish in the 4X400- metre relay race.

In the same race, two other Clan automatic qualifiers emerged, Michaela Kane placed fourth, with a time of 2:13.64, and Sarah Sawatzky came in ninth, just over a second later. Lindsay Butterworth performed well in mile race, placing eighth with a time of
5:05.41 earning herself an automatic qualification in the GNAC championship in March.

Freshman Kim Neville-Rutherford, locked in SFU’s final automatic qualifier of the day after jumping 1.57 metres in high jump. She also earned herself a provisional qualification for 60-metre hurdles. Four other women and five men reached provisional qualification. The teams travel back to Seattle on Jan. 25 with the goal of qualifying more athletes for the GNAC Championship at the end of the season.

SFU swims to Victory

By
EIC
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0

Men and women both win for SFU in the pool
By Bryan Scott

Both Simon Fraser swimming teams were in the action this past week. The women battled it out with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks and the University of Puget Sound Loggers. The men went head-to-head with Loggers only.

The Clan did well, taking a majority of the events that took place. The women defeated the Nanooks 75–44, and the Loggers 87–32. Individually, Carman Nam was a double winner, taking home the 800- metre freestyle in 9:22.84, and the 200-meter breaststroke in 2:24.85, both times beating her follower by over a second.

The men defeated UPS 146–111, with help from Dimitar Ivanov and Julian Monks who both finished with two wins on the day. Ivanov won the 800-metre freestyle in a time of 8:39.87 and then completed his second win with a showing in the 200-metre backstroke.

Monks did not make it fair to his opponents, crushing their times. He clocked 1:05.85 in the 100 meter breaststroke, and 2:24.38 in the 200-metre breaststroke, giving him victories of nearly eight and 20 seconds respectively. Both teams were extremely successful throughout the day, finishing in first and second position in several events. They took home both 200-metre medley races as well.

The next tournament for the Clan was in Claremont, California where the Clan took on the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens and the California Baptist Lancers on the women’s side, and just Pomona-Pitzer on the men’s.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024