Four years ago, four Mount Allison students came together to create the Mounties women’s curling team. Last season, the team won the AUS championship and ended fourth at the U Sports National Championship. Now, the five-woman team is looking forward to competing at this year’s AUS Championship in February.

Sarah Doak, Julia Hunter, Samantha Crook, Molli Ward and Lauren Whiteway have each been curling for over eight years. Their coach Jim Nix has been coaching curling for 30 years and coached his first national-level team in 1994. This is his fourth year with the Mounties curling team.

The team has yet to have an official practice, and last year did not formally practise at all. This is fairly typical of a university-level curling team, Nix said, because there are no set leagues like other sports have. All of the Mounties are playing on other teams within the Sackville Curling Club, where they have opportunity to practice their skills.

Going into the AUS championship this year, Nix said, “We know that there’s going to be a number of very good teams there, but there won’t be anyone there we haven’t played before and that we had success against.”

The athletes said they have a lot of respect for their coach. “He is very knowledgeable and he will give us positive affirmations when we are doing well, but he can also be constructive when we aren’t,” said Doak, who added that Nix keeps the team calm during stressful games.

Hunter, a third-year commerce student, said that there is pressure on the the team to come out strong at the AUS championship this year: “We don’t want to lose, and I think people are expecting us to do well, and if we don’t we are letting down more people than just us.”

“There is a little added pressure too, because U Sports is in Fredericton so it would be cool to play nationals in our home province, and we are all from New Brunswick,” said Doak, who has been playing with the Mounties since the team was created four years ago.

Though not practicing together, the girls have been doing a lot of team bonding through their fundraising events. Despite playing in the AUS, the curling team is a club sport and does not receive funding through the university. “That has really been a challenge – that the girls have had to work hard to get to where they are and to get the sport to where it is,” Nix said.

Last year, after the team qualified for nationals, Mt. A did contribute some funding to the team to assist in the expenses of flying to Alberta. This year, the team must fly to Newfoundland for the AUS championship and the funds to do so must be gathered through fundraising and personal contributions.

Currently, the team is doing a fundraiser they call “Wine Survivor.” Entry is $10 and a bottle of wine. All the participants’ names will be entered into a draw and people will be eliminated when their name is drawn, unless they have purchased an immunity for $5. The final five names win. The last name left will win 50% of the wine. The draw will be held Dec. 5. See the Mount Allison Curling Facebook page for more details.

The AUS Championship is in St. John’s from Feb. 7 to 10, and the U Sports Nationals Championship is in Fredericton from March 19 to 24.

On Nov. 3, the Mounties swim team competed in their own pool for the first time in 15 years. They hosted teams from UNB, Dalhousie and Acadia. These teams have already completed once this season, at Acadia, and the season holds three more swim meets, all at Dalhousie.

John Peters has been coaching swimming for 22 years at Mount Allison. He said that holding the event at Mt. A again is something that they would need to discuss with the other teams, since there is not much room for warm-ups and cool-downs at the Mounties pool facility.

According to Peters, the team did as expected at this weekend’s meet. “The real test will be when we go to Dal,” he added. The swim season is split into two sections, just as the school year is split into two semesters. They train for two big meets, one at the end of November and one mid-February.

Assistant coach Breanna Rothfuss is looking forward to seeing the Mounties compete again in two weeks. “They’re going to be well rested, so their times will change. [They’ll be] a lot faster,” she said.

Both coaches agreed that Maddy Henry, a fourth-year commerce student, stood out at this meet. Henry finished second in the women’s 100-m backstroke, with a time of 1:07.55, just three-tenths of a second behind Isabel Sarty from Dalhousie. Henry also placed fourth in the women’s 50-m backstroke.

Henry said that this season will be about rebuilding the team: “We lost a few key members over the past couple years, but we have been able to get in a lot of rookies.” At Mt. A, swimmers are in a four-year program just as with academics, Henry explained. “You’re not expected to excel in your first year, even though people do,” she said. “You’re expected to grow over the four-year program.”

The men’s swim team has a history of being smaller than the women’s team. This year, there are seven men on the team. At this meet, Oliver Keith, a first-year philosophy, politics and economics student, finished third in the 100-m men’s breaststroke and Iain Crowell, a fourth-year environmental science student, finished fifth.

Since AUS regulations state that athletes are eligible to compete for five seasons, some Mounties have been able to swim one more year after graduating. Olivia Feschuk swam four years for the Mounties before graduating last year. Feschuk has moved on to study at Dalhousie University and is now swimming her fifth and final season with the Dalhousie Tigers. Feschuk finished with the fastest time, 1:17.27, in the women’s 100-m breaststroke in her return to the Mt A. pool.

The Mounties swim team is back in action at Dalhousie University from Nov. 16 to 18.

The team travelled to Ontario during the weekend of Oct. 19 to 21 in preparation for the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA) league play. The team played two exhibition games against Algonquin College and St. Lawrence College, both Ontario College Athletic Association (OCAA) teams, as well as a controlled scrimmage against Queen’s University, a U Sports team.

The team ended their first game against Algonquin College Thunder with an 85-81 win. They trailed 39-38 at the half but were able to come back in the fourth.

The Mounties also won their second exhibition game against the St. Lawrence College Vikings 82-71, the result of another comeback from behind. These close and exciting games are just a preview of what their current season has to offer.

Jeshua Becker, a fourth-year environmental science student who plays on the team, said that although the team usually goes to a St. Thomas University tournament at this time of year, “We just wanted to change it up. We definitely played better competition [in this tournament].” Becker said that playing against comparable teams in the OCAA gave the Mounties a new opportunity.

Coach Steve Chapman is back for his third season with the men’s basketball team. Chapman coached Mt. A’s men’s basketball from 1992 to 2000 while teaching in Sackville. However, upon moving to Moncton, he stopped coaching at Mt.A. When he retired from teaching three years ago, he was asked to come back and coach.

Chapman said team is “quite young,” and that these exhibition games allowed the coaching staff to see how their team plays together early in the season.

Of the 14 members of the team, only five have played more than one year of university-level basketball. Eleven players are eligible to return next season.

James French, a second-year psychology student, said the team dynamic was different this year, with many new players asking second-year players for advice. Compared to previous teams, French said this team is close even this early in the season. “That trip really brought us together,” he said.

Chapman said he hopes that the team makes progress every week and improves from each game. He said he has already seen improvement from their first game of the season. “It’s too early to tell, but we have a tradition of winning and we play to win,” Chapman said. The Mounties have finished second place overall in the ACAA for the past two years.

The Mounties men’s basketball team will look for a win as they host STU in the home opener at 4 p.m. on Nov. 4.

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), in any given year one in five Canadians will experience a mental health problem or illness. The stigma surrounding mental health – which everyone has – is something Jack.org is working hard to change.

According to the organization’s website, Jack.org is training and empowering youth to revolutionize mental health. It was founded after Jack Windeler died by suicide. His parents started what is now Jack.org in order to inspire, motivate and educate young people by using a peer-to-peer system to help with issues surrounding mental health.

Students from all across the Maritimes came to Mount Allison to participate in the Jack.org regional summit last Saturday. Sandy MacIver, the director of the Ron Joyce Centre for Business Studies, was the keynote speaker of the event. There were also five workshops throughout the day. These workshops focused on topics such as leadership, advocacy, how to be there for others and yourself, and how to tell your mental health story. There was also a panel that allowed students to hear what their peers thought about mental health in university.

Jack.org’s most emphatic goal is to change conversations and shatter the stigma that surrounds mental health and mental illness. Niyi Oguntona, a fourth-year biochemistry student, said that stigma exists because people know about it but refuse to acknowledge it. Oguntona compared mental illness to a genie in a bottle: “As soon as you talk about it, you’ve let it out. Not only for yourself but to whoever you let it out to. You don’t know where to go from here and they don’t know where to go from here.”

Mackenzie Gordon, a third-year double major in psychology and sociology, is the student lead for Mt. A’s Jack.org chapter. Gordon decided to join the organization because she wanted to be involved with mental health advocacy. “When I heard about Jack.org, I did some research and I found out there is a ton of resources and support coming from the entire organization and it is entirely youth-based and youth-led,” Gordon said.

Gordon said she hopes that visiting students will go back to their campuses and use what they learned at the summit to plan initiatives and be comfortable starting conversations about mental health.

Lucas Walters, a fourth-year psychology student from Memorial University, is a network representative for Jack.org and the student lead for his university’s chapter. He participated in the summit to inform students about the revolution they can take part in and the conversations they can create about mental health.

“Finding a network of peers across Canada that share similar mindsets to me and were really geared towards changing things, changing systems, changing attitudes really inspired me to get involved,” Walters said. This is his fourth year with the organization and encourages anyone interested to get involved.

If you are looking for more information or to get involved with this committee, email them at thejackproject@mta.ca.

Mount Allison is consistently ranked as the top university for undergraduate studies and students come here from all over the world. At any university, however, students’ success can be challenging as assignments, tests and due dates pile up in the blink of an eye. Midterms, especially, are a time when many students struggle to stay on top of their mental health.

Jessica Griffin is Mt. A’s mental health and harm reduction educator. Part of her role is to promote mental health and wellness across campus, and she works with many student-led groups to offer support such as resources they can access and direction for initiatives.

“University, especially for first-year students, is a new experience,” Griffin said. “It’s the big midterms at the university level so it’s anticipating what that’s going to look like and what that is going to feel like.”

Since everyone on campus is writing midterms at the same time, it becomes a conversation that is hard to escape. “In a university setting, that midterm stress and anxiety becomes kind of contagious,” Griffin said. “It becomes the talk of campus around midterms.”

Feelings of nervousness and stress are normal around midterms, but sometimes can be something more. Students who may be struggling with anxiety, depression or panic attacks are encouraged to reach out to the Wellness Centre. There are two counsellors on campus who offer counselling services and support. Griffin said these counsellors could be someone you check in with when you’re uncertain if your feelings are normal, or someone to teach you new coping strategies and stress management techniques.

“In high school, they don’t tell you how much each thing you do is worth [toward your final grade]. Knowing that if you do not perform well you are losing out on precious marks towards your final grade worries many students,” said Will Lint, a first-year economics student. “[In] high school you can slack off a little bit and still do fine, but in university if you start slacking off your marks are just going to start plummeting, and you are paying a lot of money to be here. So, it’s really stressful.”

Time management is crucial to doing well during midterm season. Students must decide how much time to spend studying each subject and how to study effectively.

Madeleine Robitaille is an academic mentor in Campbell Hall and a second-year student. An academic mentor is a student in residence whose role is to support students in their academic success. Robitaille recommends starting to study in advance to allow for smaller portions at a time. “Break things into small pieces. So, if your first day of studying is just going through your notes and finding what you don’t understand, then you know what you don’t understand and that is a place to start,” she said.

Maintaining a balance between academics and other aspects of your life may seem difficult at times, but Robitaille says it’s not impossible. “Acknowledge the fact that you are not the marks that you get,” she said. “If you get a bad mark it doesn’t mean you’re a failure at everything. It means you got a bad mark. You had a bad day.”

If you who have questions about or are struggling with your mental health, you can reach out to the Wellness Centre at wellness@mta.ca or 506-364-2163 for more information.

Matt Zwicker, a Mt. A alumnus and former football player for the Mounties, founded the #TacklePancreaticCancer movement in 2017 with hopes to raise much-needed funding and awareness for pancreatic cancer. Zwicker chose to focus on pancreatic cancer after his father, Darren, was diagnosed in early 2017.

“My dad was a young, active, and all-around healthy man prior to his diagnosis,” Zwicker wrote. “After his diagnosis, I had the unfortunate experience of learning more about pancreatic cancer, the lack of treatment options and overall low standard of care.” When his father was first diagnosed, there was only one doctor in Atlantic Canada who performed pancreatic surgeries.

Learning that pancreatic cancer has a fatality rate of over 93 per cent in Canada did not sit well with Zwicker. That is when he chose to volunteer with Craig’s Cause. Craig’s Cause Pancreatic Cancer Society was formed in 2006 after Craig Schurman Condon passed away, at the age of 63, eight weeks from diagnosis. The society has raised over $1.5 million for awareness, education, support and research since then. “They embraced me immediately, and ultimately offered me a platform to host this event,” Zwicker said. “Without Craig’s Cause, this event truly would not be possible.”

Peter Fraser, head coach of the Mounties football team, embraced the event with open arms. “Everybody has been touched by some form of cancer throughout their lives,” he said. “If you haven’t, you probably will be at some point, for better or for worse.”

Edwin Booth, Griffin Quigley, Graeme Stevens and Nick Wenman are players on the football team who have stepped up to help lead this fundraiser. “We needed people on the ground here getting the posters out, helping organize everything prior to Matt getting here later in the week,” Fraser said. “So, they stepped up and are taking the reins.”

Lindsay Wray, the president of Health Care Outreach, said, “Hopefully, a lot of awareness is raised, and a lot of money as well. All the money raised goes directly to research.” Wray said the goal of the event is to raise awareness and show support for those living with pancreatic cancer. Health Care Outreach will be selling 50/50 tickets, and the proceeds will go directly to pancreatic cancer research, patient support and awareness and education.

Though only in its second year, the #TacklePancreaticCancer game has expanded to Bishop’s University as well. “With more teams on board, this event looks to be a catalyst for change in the world of pancreatic cancer,” Zwicker said.

Fraser said the team plans to host the event annually: “If [Craig’s Cause] still wants to partner with us, then we are still all about doing it every year.”

Group fitness classes are included with Mount Allison tuition, as well as a regular membership to the Fitness Centre. Each weekday there are different group sessions offered at the Fitness Centre by certified instructors.

Many choose group fitness as opposed to individual workouts because the company of other people motivates them. By going to a class, you are held accountable and go more often, since it is something set in place for you.

Erin Melanson, a first-year English student, was unaware that Mt. A offered this opportunity to students. Melanson said her biggest struggle with staying active is motivation: “With classes you have a good support system laid out for you from the start, you feel more obligated to go.”

Karen Arsenault, the group fitness coordinator at the centre, was previously a student at Mt. A. Arsenault has held this position since 2009. Currently there are three instructors, though students have also led a variety of classes throughout the years.

“As a group we tend to push a little bit more or get through things because you have someone that you’re laughing with,” said Arsenault.

The schedule tends to remain the same each term in hopes of  encouraging more students to be able to fit the group fitness classes into their busy schedules. The Fitness Centre offers four classes: strength training, yoga, athletic cardio and total muscle conditioning (TMC).

There is also a specialized training program offered at a cost of $10 per class called Fitcamp/SHRED. Arsenault said it is developed to make personal training more affordable. It is four weeks of a bi-weekly class as well as an emailed program sent out to assure you are on track with workouts for home and nutrition.

According to Arsenault, instruction is one of the major benefits of taking a group fitness classes, particularly if someone doesn’t know where to begin. “It comes with a lot of good guided instruction, too, to give you a really good base to hopefully complement overall the wellness we are hoping people will start to adopt,” she said.

Graeme Stevens, a second-year political science student, is a linebacker on the Mounties football team. He went to yoga classes last year, but this season the class time conflicts with football. Stevens chose yoga because it is “a good combination. I like how it’s athletic, it gets your body going. But also is stimulant to your mind and is good for dealing with stress.”   

Stevens appreciates being led in his yoga, especially when it comes to meditation. “I tried a couple times to do it by myself but I find I’m not as on-task as if someone was leading it.” He also said that having an instructor teaching proper techniques helps. “I tried to do a few moves, but I don’t feel like I’m experienced enough as a yoga person to do the whole process [on my own].”

The schedule for group fitness classes can be found on the Mountie Pride website or on the Mount Allison Group Fitness Facebook page.

According to Maclean’s magazine, Mount Allison is the top undergraduate school in Canada – but we all already knew that. Another Maclean’s study suggests that Mt. A is seventh on the list of top party schools in Canada, claiming that the average Mt. A student parties for approximately 4.6 hours per week.

University is notorious for its drinking culture. The change of lifestyle and newfound freedom can be dangerous for some students. Some events in particular, such as Homecoming, entice students to drink more than safe drinking habitats would recommend.

Andy Hebert has been the manager of the Pond for the last five years and offers a course called Smart Serve, which is mandatory for residence executive teams, Event Service Staff and the Pond’s bartenders. This course provides them with knowledge of the laws, roles and responsibilities associated with serving alcohol, with the goal of keeping students safe.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 per cent or above.” Typically this happens when someone drinks a lot of alcoholic beverages in a short amount of time with the goal of getting drunk, which can prove dangerous due to the way liquor affects the human body.

Typically when binge drinking, you are drinking a lot of liquor really quickly before it affects your body. “You think you can take more and then by the time it does hit your body, all of a sudden you are really drunk, and your sense of reasoning is lost,” Hebert said.

“Those who drink four to five drinks in one sitting – doesn’t matter day or time – they’re considered to be binge drinking,” Hebert said. As a rule of thumb, people should drink no more than one or two drinks an hour.

Many students also realize the risks associated with binge drinking. Shannon Dill, a co-social chair of Harper and a second-year geography student said that for her, university drinking wasn’t much of a culture shock. Dill, who is from Bermuda, said, “Where I come from drinking is a big part of our culture, so I didn’t really feel the peer pressure.”

However, Dill said she has observed the influence of peer pressure on students. “If everyone is telling you to have one drink, you’re going to have five drinks in an hour,” she said.

Shae Carroll, a third-year sociology student, plays for the women’s rugby team. The team has a 48-hour no-drinking rule before games. All of their games are on Sunday, which means they cannot drink Friday or Saturday nights, when many students might be drinking. Carroll said she understands the reasoning behind these rules.

“If you drink a lot, it’s very possible to wake up and still not be okay,” Carroll said. “I think for safety reasons a lot of sports teams should have more than a 24-hour drinking rule. It should be 48 hours to get things out of your system.” Carroll said safety is the biggest reason the rule is in place but also mentioned that having 48 hours to drink water rather than liquor helps to prepare athletes for games.

Both Carroll and Hebert said talking about binge drinking is the way to dissuade students from putting themselves in harm’s way.

Hebert said that planning ahead can be a useful strategy: “If you average one to two drinks and you know how many hours you’re going to be out, you should know how many drinks you need.”

He also suggested discussing plans with friends, and “making sure that everyone is on the same page [in terms of] what you would like from the night.”

Carroll asserted that “If you are going to drink, you should be smart enough to know your limits and know how to say ‘no.’ ”

The Mounties cross-country team has established a strong presence so far this season as a club team competing against nearby schools. They compete against Holland College, Dalhousie Agricultural College, MSVU and Crandall, whose cross-country teams hold varsity status.

At their latest meet in Beech Hill last Saturday, both Mt. A women’s and men’s cross-country teams placed first in their respective divisions.

The Mountie women held four of the five top finishing times. Catherine Priemer finished second with Megumi Gates in third, Olivia Medsger in fourth, and Emma Cameron in fifth, all less than two minutes apart.

Isaac Doucette finished second in the men’s team category with fellow Mountie Logan Hunt a mere 8.4 seconds behind him. Mt. A had a total of 10 runners – five men and five women – competing in this meet.

Cross-country running is a short season, lasting only two months in the fall. The teams compete in three regular season meets every two weeks and one championship meet at the end of October.

Claire Pabody has been the head coach of the cross-country team for the past two years and works alongside assistant coach Matt Fyfe, who won gold last year in the ACAA championship.

Pabody ran cross-country and track in high school, continuing her career with varsity cross-country in college. “Ever since high school, I had a wonderful coach,” she said. “I knew I wanted to coach. When I moved up here some of the students that I worked with in the biology department indicated there was a need for a coach. I thought about it and offered to volunteer to do it.”

Unlike the others in their ACAA conference, Mt. A’s cross-country team is club rather than varsity. Megumi Gates, a fourth-year honours biochemistry student, is in her third year running with the club. “I think we get more people out as a club than as a varsity sport because we have people come at all different levels, and it’s their goal to improve themselves and not to match with the top couple runners,” she said. People are invited to run with the team without the commitment of competing in a meet.

“Since we have some returning runners that are familiar with my coaching style and the way that I’m running practices now, I see a lot of toughness in them,” Pabody said. “They’re setting a really great example for the newer runners.”

Pabody is interested in pushing each runner to their own limit and believes each runner is faster than they think they are. Pabody is vocal and “super enthusiastic,” according to Gates.

The team will compete in one last regular season meet in Halifax on Oct. 13 and in the ACAA championships in P.E.I. on Oct. 27.

The Mounties women’s rugby team have already played half of their conference games with a 1-2 record. The Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA) has a short but sweet rugby season that begins in early September with the championship held in early November.

The team had their last game at home on Sunday against St. Thomas University, their biggest rival and closest competitor. The Mounties lost 41-26. Mount Allison’s Victoria Sim scored three tries and Selina Gaudreault scored one. Conversions were scored by Katie Hess, Kelsey MacKinnon and Gaudreault.

Kim Sinclair, the head coach, has been involved with rugby for the past 20 years and has coached at Mt. A for the past six. “Our returning players are showing very well this year and we have a really talented group of first-year players coming out,” Sinclair said. “So, we have more depth and we definitely started with the bar a little higher this year.”

Sinclair also coaches high school rugby in Moncton. “I do push the university team a little harder – they’re older, they’re more experienced,” she said. “Even if they haven’t started playing rugby at a younger age they have played other sports, so when they get here I find they’re more committed, so I definitely push them harder.”

Kaylee Wilmot-Joe, a rookie scrum-half, said that Sinclair “pushes us to do our best all the time, but she knows there’s lots of new people learning too.”

Sarah Chisholm, a fifth-year commerce student who plays flank, also spoke of the potential that the team has moving forward. “Everyone is keen to learn which is good. I think it’s really great for a rugby team and it’ll lead to a very successful future,” she said.

“Rugby is a large team sport and it’s very team-centred,” Sinclair said. “When you start playing rugby it becomes your second family. For some of them it’s their first family. Especially with the short, intense season, they spend a lot of time together.”

Chisholm said the team is encouraging and supportive of one another both “off and on the field.”

In the ACAA, teams play with 15 girls on the field: eight forwards and seven backs. This means rugby teams have to be large due to the amount of injuries that may occur.

As a full-contact sport with a short season, the team realizes that injuries could determine the fate of their season. Coach Sinclair said maintaining, handling, preventing and coming back from injuries tends to be a struggle for the Mounties.

The Mounties women’s rugby team plays next Sunday at home against UNB, the reigning ACAA champions, at 4 p.m.