Who’s got the best rivalries on campus

The Huskies and Rams rivalry has been one-sided, but our boys are getting closer every season./Arthur Ward

Nothing better than beating your hated rival

Rivals: those certain teams you just love to beat to the ground no matter how great a rapport you have with their coach or with their players outside of game time. So, let’s take a look at some of the rivalries our very own University of Regina teams have.

You’d predict that the University of Saskatchewan would be a big rival for the U of R, just because the two are pretty darn close to each other geographically. This statement rings true for the U of R Women’s Basketball team whose main rival is the U of S.

With a record of 10-12 against the U of S, Taylor has come up with the best solution to beat the U of S in future competition.

“We’ve played them three times, we’ve beat them once because their best player was hurt,” says Taylor. “We beat them at home and then we got beat pretty bad both times up there so our strategy would be to play them at home without their best player.”

Seems like a good strategy to me! Anybody wanna take out the knees of their best player to increase those odds of the U or R beating the U of S? Anyway, despite the fact that Taylor gets along very well with the U of S coach, and that many of the players on both teams have played together on provincial teams, the competition between the two is always intense.

Taylor states, “As I phrase it, we get along really well until the game starts, then we want to win.”

While you might think that the U of S would be the U of R’s main rival for every sport’s team, you’re dead wrong. The U of R’s women’s hockey team proves this point since their main rival is the University of Manitoba. These two teams have gone head-to-head many times both in league and in playoffs in the past and present. Last year, the U of R swept the U of M in playoffs and this year the U of R has a record of 1-3 against them with three games decided in OT, heightening the rivalry between the two.

Women’s hockey coach Sarah Hodges states, “[The] coaches relationship is amicable but our players do not like each other – that fuels the intensity on the ice.”

No kidding. But, despite this hatred between players, playing the U of M gives the U of R a chance to become better.

“They’re a good team so when we lose to them, it shows us where we need to improve to be a top team,” Hodges says. “They force us to compete hard and battle.”

Although the U of R’s men’s basketball team hasn’t had a hard-core rival since their league format changed, coach Steve Burrows states that, “looking back over the years the biggest rival for us probably would be the University of Brandon… they were always the team we would have to beat in the playoffs. That seems to be when the rivalry forms, when you are playing the same team over and over when the stakes are the highest.”

This season, the U of R stands 2-0 against the U of B and the competition level between the U of R and all the other teams in the league remains high.

“I have a lot of respect for how hard they all work, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to beat each other,” says Burrows.

There we have it champs! Whether your rival is the U of S, U of M, U of B, or some other school, these rivalries add intensity to games and push teams to improve.