Final Eight will be back - and so will Axemen

The CIS Final Eight men's basketball championship has left Halifax after 24 successful years, and may or may not be back.

The same can't be said for the Acadia Axemen who, despite a disappointing 0-2 record at the tournament, served notice they have returned to the national radar.

Hats off to the Carleton Ravens for winning a fifth consecutive national title. They were the best team in the field, and showed that in an 86-38 quarterfinal win over Acadia.

The Ravens will host the next three Final Eight tournaments in Ottawa; though they will lose some good players this year, hopefully their success will continue and translate into fans in the seats.

I have my doubts Ottawa - or anywhere else - can draw the kind of crowds Halifax did for this tournament. I wondered what kind of a crowd would show up for Sunday's final, especially as it featured a Carleton team many in Halifax may feel has “stolen” our tournament. I was pleased to see there were more than 5,000 basketball fans in the stands for the final.

A person can't do the sour grapes thing and automatically assume - or even hope - the tournament will flop in another venue. I hope Carleton does a great job of hosting, and that fans flock to Scotiabank Place in droves the next three years.

I also hope Atlantic University Sport bids to bring the tournament back to Halifax in 2011 and beyond, and that national officials see the wisdom in letting it return.

As nice as it is to rotate the tournament around the various conferences in the country, it's hard to argue with success.

Halifax took on the CIS championship in the mid-1980s when no one else wanted it, and when there was little or any drama associated with the event because Victoria seemingly won every year (seven in a row from 1980 to 1986). Halifax fans, though, embraced the Vikings just as they have the Ravens, and all the other champions over the past 24 years, including SMU and St. F.X.

Halifax took a second-rate tournament 24 years ago and turned it into one of the marquee events in Canadian sport. Hopefully, Ottawa will be just as good a host: the tournament deserves no less.

As for Acadia, one has to like its chances of returning to the Final Eight next year.

The young Axemen learned how to win during the regular season, capturing the conference title. At the Final Eight, they learned how to deal with losing, which can only help them in future endeavors.

Acadia loses one player from this year's roster - Jordan Sheriko, heading to medical school. Everyone else - including conference MVP Paulo Santana, Achuil Lual, Luckern Dieu, Peter Leighton and Shawn Berry - is back. Head coach Les Berry already has a potential impact player sitting in the stands in the person of Leonil Saintil, a former AUBC rookie of year and two-time leading rebounder who sat out this year after transferring from Memorial. That's not even taking into account anyone Berry might recruit this summer - a list that might soon include J.D. Howlett, a 6'6” forward from Charles P. Allen High School Berry describes as a taller, more athletic version of Luckern Dieu.

I enjoyed seeing the resurrection of the Axemen as a winning team this season, and I'm sure the increased numbers of fans at War Memorial Gymnasium did, too. As in the case of the Final Eight, I'm looking forward to where they go from here.