Written by JASON PETERS
Citizen staff
|
|
Friday, 14 November 2008 |
CIS officials on site tour impressed with facilities
They came, they saw, they were impressed.
UNBC’s bid to move its Northern Timberwolves men’s and women’s basketball teams into the Canada West Universities Athletic Association for the 2010-11 season appears to have taken a significant step forward. Four Canada West officials were in Prince George for a site visit, meetings and interviews on Friday. And they were left with a positive overall impression.
“I have to say that (athletics director) Len McNamara and (UNBC president) Dr. (Charles) Jago and the community of Prince George have really done a very thorough and professional job of representing the Timberwolf application today,” said CWUAA president Clint Hamilton, who is the athletics and recreation director at the University of Victoria.
Hamilton spoke on behalf of the other Canada West committee members who were here - Dick White, Sandy Slavin and Coleen Dufresne. All four were also in the Northern Sport Centre crowd for Friday night’s home-opening basketball games against the Langara College Falcons.
Two other schools - UBC Okanagan of Kelowna and Vancouver Island University of Nanaimo - have also submitted applications to Canada West, which is part of Canadian Interuniversity Sport. Hamilton and his colleagues had already visited UBC-O and VIU. He gave a slippery answer when asked how UNBC’s bid stacked up against those of the other two schools.
“Just to reiterate, the application package we received was very thorough, very professional, very detailed,” he said. “And then what we’ve seen today was very professional representation of that. We’ve been able to get an up-close and personal understanding of everything - from the university’s commitment, which is strong, to the community support, the regional support for the application to our association. We’ve really got a sense of how important it is to each of those universities, and to some degree the communities. At one level, you’d have to say that that’s humbling to us.”
Hamilton said it is possible Canada West could accept all three applications or none of them. Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops and the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford could also factor into the final decision.
“On top of the three new applications that we have, we also have two current probationary members,” Hamilton said. “So next May at our AGM we will be considering full membership for Thompson Rivers University and Fraser Valley University and also the three applications. Each of those membership applications will be treated on their own merit. We’re going to look at each, so it’s conceivable that we could add anywhere from five new members right down to, I guess you could say, no new members.”††
 |
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 14 November 2008 )
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
