Great for me because I called that the Argos would sign a Canadian QB here.

But somewhat more importantly, it’s great for the growth of the game in Canada and the emergence of Canadian Interuniversity Sport competition as a true proving ground for future pros. Nine of the top 15 CFL prospects as ranked by the CFL’s Amateur Scouting Bureau ply their trade in the CIS. That includes four from the OUA.

A host of other CIS players also made names for themselves at the CFL’s evaluation camp this weekend, including Bishop’s wide receivers Steven Turner and Sean Gore, Laurier running back Mike Montoya and Concordia defensive lineman Chima Ihekwoaba.

The Western Mustangs also had three players at the camp, offensive lineman Josh Buttrill, defensive lineman Chris Greaves and linebacker Conor Elliott. You can read my article with comments from the trio here.

Brannagan’s signing is by far the biggest news to come out of the evaluation camp this past weekend.

The Burlington native was very impressive, bench pressing more than some of the linemen and running a faster 40-yard dash than some of the running backs. He’s clearly stepped up his conditioning since the Vanier Cup and several onlookers thought he was throwing the hardest passes at the camp.

Add that to Brannagan’s proven ability to play well in high pressure situations — this year’s Yates Cup, Mitchell Bowl and Vanier Cup are excellent resume points — and you have a nice looking quarterback. It’s no surprise the Argos wanted to lock him up as soon as possible, not even waiting 24 hours after the evaluation camp wrapped to sign him.

Brace yourselves for a wave of human interest stories heavy on Canadian pride coming from our nation’s news outlets during training camp. Our media loves nothing more than a feel good story about a Canadian kid making it in the big leagues against all odds.

But even Greaves was blown away this weekend when he saw Washington State offensive lineman Joe Eppele at the Canadian Football League’s annual evaluation camp in Toronto.

“That guy is a monster — an absolute monster,” Greaves said of the six foot eight, 306-pounder. “The guy is 300 lbs and he has abs. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

Greaves was one of three Mustangs who were measured up against Eppele and the nation’s other highest ranked football players at the CFL’s annual combine, spanning two days of drills, interviews and fitness tests before representatives from the CFL’s eight teams.

Joining Greaves were Mustangs linebacker Conor Elliott and offensive lineman Josh Buttrill, who will hope to hear their names called on CFL draft day May 2.

“It was a pretty stacked camp in terms of talent,” Greaves said. “It was good to get a gauge of what they expect from you and what you have to bring to the table. It gives you a good idea of where you need to be.”

One of the toughest events of the weekend is the team interviews, where the players’ psyches are put to the test. Each team can have an individual session with any player they want and no discussion topic is off limits.

“I heard about one guy who was told by the head coach before the interview even began that he was undersized, so you have to be ready for anything,” Buttrill said. “You have to roll with the punches. You know they’re going to try to throw you off guard and try to get you to stumble so you just have to stay loose and comfortable.”

Elliott spoke to the Edmonton Eskimos, Hamilton Tiger Cats and Montreal Alouettes. Greaves had interviews with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and BC Lions, while Buttrill had sit-downs with the Lions and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

“It was intense. Basically you walk into a room — there’s a circle of six or seven chairs for the scouts and your chair opposite to them. They stick this video camera right in your face and these guys just sit there and drill you with question after question after question,” Elliott said.

“They were asking questions about anything you can think of,” Greaves added. “After a few questions you get past that awkward nervous stage and you just get into it.”

Elliott also received considerable attention for his role on special teams where he serves as a long snapper.
Guelph kicker Rob Maver — who is the seventh ranked prospect by the CFL’s Amateur Scouting Bureau — was in London last week to help Elliott work on his long snapping and prepare for the evaluation camp. For Elliott, working with Maver was invaluable.

“We worked a lot together. It helped me feel really comfortable with him standing behind me for the e-camp snaps,” Elliott said. “I think [training with Maver] worked out in my favour. I ended up doing really well.”

Elliott was the only long snapper at the camp, which gave him the dubious pleasure of going through on-field drills by himself Sunday morning in front of about 60-70 scouts.

“It was a little crazy with so many scouts looking at you. It was kind of nerve wracking,” Elliott said. “But once you get that aspect out of your head you calm down and just go with the flow.”

After Saturday’s highly scrutinized fitness testing, the live drills on Sunday at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Centre gave the players a chance to show what they can do on the field. Although the players were not wearing full padding, no one was letting up in order to impress the scouts from the CFL’s eight teams.

“We only had half pads but everyone was still going pedal to the metal because you have every single scout looking at you,” Elliott said. “You don’t even have time to think about what you just did. Everyone’s moving so fast, you’re hopping back in right after your last rep.”

Elliott went through the paces with the other linebackers at the camp in one-on-one pursuit drills with the running backs and coverage drills with the wide receivers. That meant going up against some of the country’s most highly touted offensive threats like Bishop’s wide receiver Steven Turner and Laurier running back Mike Montoya.

Greaves and Buttrill took part in live pass rushes against some top linemen from both Canada and the U.S., including Washington St.’s Eppele who is ranked 11th on the CFL Amateur Scouting Bureau’s list of top prospects.

“The competition level was pretty high, there [were] a lot of talented guys there,” Greaves said. “I think I did pretty well compared to the rest of the them. I feel like I was one of the best defensive linemen there in terms of pass rushing and drills.”

“It was good to learn how I compared to the other players at my position in the country,” Buttrill added. “Going against a new set of guys was a little different. It’s fun to try to figure them out but it’s hard to win when you’re going against those top guys.”

The only thing left to do for the Mustangs trio is to wait. CFL teams aren’t allowed to communicate with the possible draftees in any way between the evaluation camp and draft day, in order to avoid tampering and to ensure a level playing field.

“Hopefully on draft day I’ll hear my name called,” Elliott said. “It’s going to be a long month and a half, that’s for sure.”

It’s really, really hard to be a Toronto Argonauts fan right now.

The team, still reeling from their latest campaign under an unpopular import coach, boasts an awful 7-29 record over the past two seasons and was recently sold to BC Lions owner David Baley because, well, no one else would take them.

Talk about a team you can get behind.

To make matters worse, up until three days ago there was not a single person listed as a quarterback with the Toronto Argonauts. Not one.

The Argos have been very quiet about their plans at the, um, pivotal position after releasing incumbents Cody Pickett and Kerry Joseph last month.

They settled some of the mystery earlier this week when they traded for the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Dalton Bell and signed former Buffalo Bills pivot Gibran Hamdan. But neither of those two can be considered a lock as the Argo’s number one starter and there still remains one quarterback spot on the Argonaut’s roster. That could leave the door open for one of the highly talented class of quarterbacks coming out of Canadian Interuniversity Sport competition this year.

Queen’s Danny Brannagan, Guelph’s Justin Dunk, Western’s Michael Faulds and Calgary’s Erik Glavic all had stellar campaigns in 2009 and have all garnered some serious interest from Canadian Football League teams.

Toronto has the first pick in the CFL’s entry draft on May 2 and have the most picks overall with 10. Don’t expect the Argos to take a quarterback with their first overall pick — Concordia LB Cory Greenwood or Nevada OL John Bender are the most likely, it says here — but there is a good chance they could be in the market for a Canadian quarterback in one of the later rounds.

Interestingly, this year the CFL made it clear that any Canadian quarterbacks invited to training camp would not count against a team’s training camp roster, which is capped at 75.This means teams can invite as many quarterbacks to camp as they please, as long as they’re Canadian. The league hopes this will level the playing field for Canadian quarterbacks and help them crack a team’s roster by simply having the chance to show their stuff at training camp.

The first test the Canadian quarterbacks will have to pass comes this weekend at the CFL’s annual evaluation camp in Toronto, where they will run through a series of drills and interviews with the CFL’s eight teams.

Unfortunately for Mustangs fans, Faulds — who set a CIS record for passing with 3,033 yards in 2009 — won’t be taking part in the weekend’s festivities. He’s still recovering from a torn ACL he suffered at the end of the Mustangs season and played on throughout the playoffs.

Nevertheless, three other standout CIS quarterbacks will be showing their stuff this weekend:

Danny Brannagan

Brannagan had a phenomenal final season for the Queen’s Gaels, leading the team to its first Yates Cup in more than 30 years and its first Vanier Cup since 1992. Brannagan picked up MVP honours in both those games, although his 515 yard, five touchdown performance against the Mustangs in the Yates Cup was one of the greatest feats by a CIS quarterback in recent memory.

Brannagan is undersized — listed at a generous 6-0 on the Gaels website — which may scare off some teams. However, Brannagan proved time and again with Queen’s that he has no problem operating if he’s given a solid offensive line in front of him. Brannagan’s stellar performances in big games make him an attractive option as well.

Erik Glavic

The University of Calgary’s Glavic is arguably the most talented of the three CIS pivots being looked at this weekend and has the most impressive resume, boasting two Hec Crighton trophies as the top player in the CIS. He threw for 2,186 yards last season and came within two points of winning the first Vanier Cup for Calgary in 15 years. He’ll be the most likely candidate to hear his name called early on draft day.

Glavic doesn’t have the size issue Brannagan does — he’s only 6-foot-6 — and showed he can run the ball well last season, picking up 508 yards on the ground. Glavic has another year of CIS eligibility left and is expected to return to an extraordinarily strong 2010 Calgary team that will bring back every single starter on their offence which scored just under 40 points a game in 2009.

Justin Dunk

Guelph’s Dunk has the steepest hill to climb when it comes to impressing the CFL scouts. He was serviceable for the Gryphons this year, putting up decent numbers— 1,897 yards, 13 TD, 7 INT — but his attitude and temper have been repeatedly questioned over the course of his career. His on field antics this season — remember “fuck western” — didn’t do him any favours.

One of Dunk’s strongest assets is his legs — he piled up 423 rushing yards in 7 games this year and is always a threat to scramble. In fact, Dunk’s athleticism means he can audition as a wide receiver and a quarterback. Dunk has already worked out as a receiver for the BC Lions — hat tip to The Ontarian’s Mike Treadgold for that one — and certainly several teams will be interested in his multi-position versatility.

James Duthie — Duthie has proven throughout the Olympics he can do more than just his regular shtick of moderating the assorted jocks and goons TSN assembles for its hockey coverage. Duthie was natural, eloquent and, at times, humourous while serving as the co-host of Olympic Daytime. Early on in the games when Duthie mistakenly introduced a speed skating event as a women’s hockey game, he deadpanned “That was one of the strangest women’s hockey games I’ve ever seen,” when the feed came back to CTV studios.

Brian Williams ­— At his 13th Olympic games, Williams has proven he is timeless. Williams’ interviews were as legendary as ever, as we saw in several informative and telling question and answer sessions. His talks with Brian Burke and Joannie Rochette — two figures experiencing unbelievable grief — were highlights of CTV’s coverage. Williams was able to induce the pair to open up to audiences about the unimaginable tragedies occurring in their lives.

The helmet cam — The view from Daron Rahlves’ helmet as he spiralled out of control on the second jump of the men’s ski cross was absolutely phenomenal. Watching the skier’s gaze shifting through focusing on the jump, preparing for the landing, slowly turning up toward the sky as his skis entered the frame above him and the inevitable thud when he it the ground was unlike any shot we’ve ever seen at an Olympics. It gave a great perspective on the speed, amplitude and inherent danger of the sport.

The Bad

Jamie Campbell — I would tell Campbell not to quit his day job, but he was already fired by the Blue Jays where he served as play-by-play man from 2005-2009. The problem with Campbell is that he comes across as knowing absolutely nothing about the sports he covers. Surely he could have done a bit of research ahead of calling the snowboard halfpipe and freestyle skiing competitions instead of relying heavily on his colour analysts. Instead, Campbell was extraordinarily unprepared, not knowing many of the names of the tricks the athletes were performing. Plus his incessant cheerleading for Maëlle Ricker during the women’s snowboard cross — “Make it home, Maëlle! Make it home!” — was a tad much. Leave the cheering to the fans.

Lisa LaFlamme — It’s hard to criticize LaFlamme — whose day job is the National Affairs Correspondent for the CTV National News — because she was so far out of her element at these games. However, the Olympic Daytime co-host’s unfamiliarity and blinding ignorance with anything sport-related became increasingly evident throughout a series of jumbled intros, softball interviews and canned banter. LaFlamme’s unguarded bias and boosterism was also extremely irritating, even by CTV’s standards.

The Ugly

Michael Landsberg — Why are you here? Landsberg was a decent Sports Desk host about a decade ago who found a niche in moderating the sports discussion program Off The Record. Why CTV would take him out of the familiar confines of his OTR set, where he can talk about professional wrestling and fighting in hockey till the cows come home, and transplant him to Whistler to interview drunk Canadian fans is beyond comprehension.

Much Music’s Olympic Coverage — We get it, CTV. You own a whole whack of stations. But there was really no need to invite all of them to Vancouver. Especially Much Music, whose juvenile teenage audience doesn’t know the difference between Kevin Martin and Ricky Martin. Hosting your coverage from a bar is one thing — doing half-naked body shots in a hot tub mere moments after the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili is another. It doesn’t matter what demographic your station appeals to — that was classless.

1. Don’t be fooled by Gary Bettman’s posturing over the NHL’s involvement in the2014 winter Olympic games in Sochi, Russia. The NHL will be there.

2. Bettman, a shrewd negotiator, is well aware of the fact the players want to be at that tournament. And with another session of collective bargaining with the NHLPA quickly approaching — is it almost 2012 already? — the Sochi chip is an important one for Bettman to hold. He’ll use Sochi as a bargaining concession, which will not only save the owners money but also make the players happy.

3. Bettman can’t possibly pull his players from competition in Russia after 26.5 million Canadians and 27.6 million Americans watched the gold medal final Sunday afternoon, according to the CBC. A hockey game in the United States hasn’t been viewed by that many people in more than 30 years — music to the ears of a man whose stated goal since he took the job has been to grow the game in the United States.

4. Events like the Olympics and the NHL’s winter classic appeal to Americans and generate a buzz around hockey that a game between the Florida Panthers and Atlanta Thrashers never can. Americans viewers want a spectacle. They want story lines and characters like the goaltending hero Ryan Miller or the Canadian hometown boy Sidney Crosby. Without considerable production around the sport, it’s too easy for American audiences not to take interest.

5. Let’s give a bit of perspective. The American ratings for Sunday’s Canada-US gold medal game were higher than the ratings for any game of the highly competitive 2009 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. The ratings were also higher than every NBA finals and NCAA final four broadcast since 1998. How could Bettman ever pass that up?

6. Speaking of the NBA, the Toronto Raptors are learning just how critical Chris Bosh is to their franchise right now, having lost their last four games without the all star forward, including a 116-92 trouncing at the hands of the Houston Rockets Monday night. The Raptors are coming off a relatively easy portion of their schedule where they needed to pick up wins against inferior teams in order to bolster their position in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt.

7. Of course, this is Toronto and things rarely play out the way they should. The Raptors went just .500 over their easy February and now face a March schedule where they play 16 times over 31 days, including 9 games on the road. They’ve already dropped their first game of the month on Monday and if that night’s effort is any indication, without Bosh in the lineup things could get a lot worse before it gets any better.

8. Bryan Colangelo has assembled a nice team — Andrea Bargnani, Jose Calderon, Hedo Turkoglu and even Jarret Jack are all nice complimentary players. Complimentary to Chris Bosh, that is. The team is clearly built around the 6-foot-10 Texan and is at its best when he’s on his game. When Bosh operates down low and draws double teams, it frees up other Raptors with open looks and allows them to put up points.

9. But building the team around Bosh is cause for alarm, especially considering the fact his return to Toronto next year is unlikely at best. Every Toronto fan would love to see the Raptors pull off a playoff upset this spring, convincing Bosh to stick around for a few more seasons to try to build a championship contender. But if the more likely scenario of Bosh bolting for a strong American market materializes, this team will be missing the catalyst that creates good performances from the supporting cast. Replacing that element will be next to impossible.

10. One Toronto team that you can guarantee will be bad are the Blue Jays, who will certainly finish last in the American League East — look out for the much improved Orioles — and could even challenge for last place in the entire league.

11. The loss of Roy Halladay is a reality that probably hasn’t set in for many Jays fans who will watch a different pitcher throw the opening pitch of the Blue Jays season for the first time in seven years.

12. Number 32 is as close to a guaranteed win as you can get in baseball and knowing your team will only have to produce 3 or 4 runs to win every five days is a luxury that was taken for granted in Toronto over Halladay’s 11-year tenure.

13. That said, there are redeemable qualities to this team. Adam Lind and Aaron Hill may regress from their breakout seasons in 2008 but can still be counted on for 25 home runs and 100 RBIs a piece. Travis Snider should finally get regular at bats this season and could challenge for rookie of the year if he finally finds a groove as an everyday player.

14. The Jays pitching staff will be young and many of the team’s green arms will get a chance to prove themselves against some great teams with strong hitters in New York, Boston and Tampa Bay.

15. But past that, there is still Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay weighing down the batting order and placeholders like Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Alex Gonzalez keeping seats warm for the Jays of tomorrow.

16. Jays fans have to be realistic about the team’s chances this year. 75 wins is the ceiling. Fair weather fans who measure progress purely on wins and losses will not be pleased.

Starting Roberto Luongo against the Germans Tuesday night and for the rest of the tournament is the easiest decision head coach Mike Babcock has had to make during these Olympic games. Martin Brodeur looked like an amateur playing against the United States Sunday night and was truly outclassed by his American counterpart Ryan Miller — a goalie seven years his junior.

Was it a surprise? Well, no. The page has been turned on a hockey generation and sadly Brodeur belongs more to the group of Sakic, Gretzky, Tkachuck and Chelios than he does to Crosby, Ovechkin, Kane and Keith. He’s old guard now — something Hockey Canada surely should have known coming into Vancouver.

Wasn’t this supposed to be the tournament where we right the wrongs we committed in 2006? Weren’t we supposed to be going with the new youth movement who are poised to lead Canadian hockey to success in the future instead of the veterans who had brought us success in the past?

Starting Brodeur against the Americans was the wrong move. Granted, that’s easy to say on Monday morning, but would the country truly have been outraged if Luongo got the start Sunday night? Would anyone have questioned Babcock for going with a proven goalie in his prime rather than a well-decorated veteran whose prime status is teetering from late to past?

The only reasons for Babcock to start Brodeur were his solid resume and past experience in the Olympics. But for all the weight that is placed on experience in international tournaments, the 2010 Olympic hockey competition has proven that this is a sport that is played in the now — not the past. Younger, faster, stronger, smarter. That’s the way the game is going. Babcock should have known that. For all his experience, the old dog Brodeur was overmatched by the new tricks of a young, fast, and skilled American team Sunday night.

Like I said, starting Luongo the rest of the way is the easy choice. The tough one? Who to play with Sidney Crosby.

Practically every player on this roster has been penciled in on the wing of the Pittsburgh Penguins captain and none of the combinations have yet to give Canada that dynamic top line they are looking for. An extraordinary top line isn’t necessary to win this tournament, but Babcock’s constant jumbling has shown he’s certainly looking for it.

For what it’s worth, here’s how I would draw it up for Tuesday night’s game versus the Germans:

Toews — Crosby — Iginla

Staal — Getzlaf — Nash

Heatley — Thornton — Marleau

Bergeron — Richards — Morrow

13th forward — Perry

Jonathan Toews is a young, unselfish player who has proven his dexterity for playmaking and a hunger for the net. He knows when to pass and when too shoot, unlike several players on this roster who can’t strike that balance. This team is flush with centres, so moving him to the wing should not be an issue. Him and Crosby are poets with the puck on their stick and should be able to feed off each other’s creativity in the offensive zone.

Jarome Iginla hasn’t been given a fair chance in this tournament. After scoring a hat trick in under ten minutes in his first game, Iginla was immediately banished to checking duty on the third and fourth lines for the games against Switzerland and the US. Some speculated he was hurt, which has been vehemently denied by Hockey Canada brass. Others have questioned his relationship with Babcock and whether that has landed him in his doghouse — a situation that would be extremely uncharacteristic of the unselfish Iginla.

No matter what the reason is for his demotion, Iginla deserves another chance to play with the big boys. He’s proven time and again in a Calgary Flames uniform that he can be in the right place at the right time to score goals, a point he further drove home against Norway in game one. Iginla’s scoring touch would be a great compliment for Toews and Crosby’s playmaking abilities.

Finally, Corey Perry’s tournament has been extremely underwhelming for me which is why he finds himself as my 13th forward. Canada doesn’t have the time to allow him to find his feet.

Meanwhile, Dallas Stars captain Brendan Morrow has been making the most of the few minutes he’s received so far, fore-checking hard, grinding opponents against the boards and defending actively in his own zone. He doesn’t show up on the score sheet too often, but his willingness to do the dirty work is something you won’t find from other members of this team. Plus, having someone on the ice willing to get their hands dirty can often lead to goals — see: Ovechkin’s hit on Jagr in the Russia-Czech game. Morrow has earned more ice time.

“I hear stories of lineups all the way out to Concrete Beach,” Sacha Kumar, vice-president finance for the University Students’ Council, said of the Spoke’s beginnings.

Once filled with carved wooden tables and crowds of students several nights a week, the Spoke was once the place to be on campus, rivalling the Ceeps and Jim Bob’s in popularity.

But its heyday came to an abrupt end in 2005 when a renovation transformed the bar into a lounge.

Popular events like Rick McGhie nights migrated to the Wave. The menu was revamped and the bar shrunk into the back corner. Soon enough, profits started plummeting and managers had to struggle with how to manage a good idea gone wrong.

“From a financial perspective, it wasn’t the greatest business model,” Kumar said.

Richmond Row also began to boom during this time, with upstart bars like Jack’s and the London Tap House stealing watering hole regulars away from the once glorified Spoke.

“Students were voting with their wallets,” Jeff Armour, USC food and beverage manager, explained. “They said ‘We don’t want to be here. We want the old Spoke back.’”

The Spoke’s profits have been on a steady decline for the past three years.

The Spoke lost $104,116 last year, after losing $96,434 and $48,835 in the two years prior, according to numbers provided by Kumar. He explained the latest deficit is not a real loss since the USC already accounted for the $240,000 of rent the Spoke pays to operate out of the University Community Centre. Essentially, the USC does not have to dip into their pockets to cover the staggering losses.

“In the current model where people can go and just lounge and choose to eat or not to eat, it will be extremely difficult to bring into the black,” Kumar said. “It’s hard to gauge the Spoke purely on [revenue] because it could lose $20,000 more this year and that doesn’t necessarily mean students liked it any less.”

This year, adding to the $240,000 rental fee is the fact the Spoke was closed for the entire summer and most of September, which is traditionally its busiest month. Armour said that hole would be almost impossible to climb out of.

“We knew going in that we were going to have some problems with being closed for so long,” Armour said. “But we weigh that against the benefits of having the patio done and re-launching this new business model and decided [the patio] is worth it for students.”

Also sinking the Spoke’s ship is the current menu, which underwent a facelift when it reopened in September after its most recent renovations. Added was a bar menu featuring meatball sliders, jalapeno poppers and the “Nacho Pie,” which was advertised as a future Spoke favourite.

Armour and Kumar are both currently looking to change the Spoke’s menu once again, with some changes possibly taking effect after Reading Week.

Kumar recently commissioned a break-even analysis on almost every product offered at the Spoke, while Armour speculated most of the Spoke’s bar menu would be eliminated, with former Spoke staples like the grilled cheese sandwich making a return.

“We’re trying to get the margins on the food a little better,” Kumar said. “We’re going to see if we can switch up the suppliers, switch up some products and see if there’s something we can do down there to change the menu so students will like it more.”

When it comes to setting a menu, the USC has a litany of factors to contemplate. Some students want traditional pub fare like fries and wings, while others want healthy alternatives like salads or veggie wraps.

“What students want in terms of product offerings [is] all over the place,” Kumar said. “Low Prices — that’s probably the one thing you’ll find consensus on.”

However, the Spoke’s already discounted prices are part of the reason why the venue is in the red. Armour said food sales have almost doubled since last year while labour costs have increased. If the Spoke raised its prices, it could begin seeing a profit.

“The [profit] margins at the Spoke are very student-friendly,” Armour said. “It’s already an uphill battle. What we have to do is adjust our procedures — especially with labour. We’re reinventing the wheel, basically.”

The options of either outsourcing the Spoke to another company or closing the Spoke altogether are still on the table for the USC.

“I would never close the Spoke unless […] students had a reasonable level of understanding of the situation and I could get feedback from them confirming my decision,” Kumar said. “It may come to the point where we need to take drastic action in the future. But we’re still trying to make improvements. There’s still hope.”

The USC wants to keep the Spoke’s current atmosphere and structure. Students, according to Kumar, do not want to lose their lounge space. But the end goal will be to take the Spoke back to its popularity of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“Six years ago, the Spoke was the place to be at Western. It was a place to be seen,” Armour said. “I truly believe with time we’ll get back there. Just give me more than two-and-a-half months.”

While the chances of his lobbying being successful are slim, van Gaalen’s academic advocacy is a fresh and innovative idea that separates him from the pack — no other candidate explores how the USC can influence academic policy.

His pass/fail interest credit idea might inspire students to learn about subjects outside their primary studies, thus encouraging a more diverse and vibrant campus. It is refreshing to see a candidate who is interested in lobbying for pedagogical causes.

Van Gaalen deserves praise for presenting a directional shift for the USC; however, convincing administration to apply these changes will be an up-hill and most likely fruitless struggle.

He has also hurt his cause by not focusing on more tangible points that are relatable to the average student. Van Gaalen should have augmented his big picture ideas with more concrete changes and improvements to student life. A new website and promoting environmentalism are pedestrian ideas.

Furthermore, van Gaalen’s welcome week for upper-year students is an extraordinarily trivial idea. Most upper-years — who live off campus and are already familiar with campus and London — will be going to Richmond Row during the first week of school — not wet/dry programming on campus.

The $3 meal is an incredibly inane idea. According to the numbers in a break-even analysis provided by Goldfarb himself, he would have to sell 1,000 meals a week just to break even. Reaching that plateau is about as probable as a women’s issues primer in Student Magazine. Not to mention the fact this endeavour will drive business away from the USC’s cash-strapped Spoke and Wave.

Furthermore, Goldfarb’s proposal to disperse tickets for athletic events will not only be valueless to students — who already get into Mustang games for free — but also unnecessarily wasteful. The actual design, printing, cutting and distribution of these tickets will be a monumental project to undertake for a glorified flyer.

Expanding HYPE and reorganizing it into a promotional operation is a noble idea — HYPE would be more useful to the USC as a promotional vehicle. However, Goldfarb underestimates the sheer human resources and financial clout required to pull this off. The increased cost of promotions will force Goldfarb to implement cover charges and hike up drink prices, which will almost certainly discourage students from attending his on-campus events.