September 21, 2007 - Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

www.smumn.edu/cardinal Sports September 21, 2007 11
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
BY CANDICE NORRELL AND ERIC LEAR
Sports Editors
CN: *sigh* It’s that time of year again.
Leaves are turning gorgeous colors, it’s
starting to get chilly, the days are getting
shorter, and baseball wise, it’s the
hunt for October! Eric, please tell all
our readers how you feel this time
compared to years past.
EL: What a strange feeling it is for me
to be happy this time of year while
watching my beloved Chicago Cubs
play. And when I say strange, I don’t
mean catching-a-glimpse-of-yourroommate-as-they-are-leaving-theshower
strange. I mean a Father-
Fabian-class-getting-out-early strange.
For those of you that don’t follow, it is
a feeling that I really could get used to,
seeing as though my “northsiders” have
been in the playoffs just three times
since I was introduced to this world.
CN: Well, my Twinkies have only
appeared in the playoffs six times in
my own lifetime; however, two of
By ABBY ZIMMER
Copy Editor
Saint Mary’s University athletics website has been
recently redesigned thanks to Sports Information
Director Donny Nadeau and Vice President of
Communication and Marketing Bob Conover.
“I think the new site is so much better than the old
site, and I’ve heard a lot of compliments,” said
Nadeau. “I think this is because it’s very eye-catching,
neat, clean, informative and it’s all right there. If
anyone needs anything that has to do with Saint
Mary’s athletics, it’s there.”
The website, redesigned by Internet Consulting
Services (ICS), the same company the Minnesota
Intercollegiate Athletic Conference uses for their
website, has many new features. Among these features
include a calendar feature to show games occurring
each day, banners with sports-specific flash photographs,
and Athletes of the Week. It also includes
Live Stats, which updates as the game is taking
place.
photo by Lindsay Dickson
Senior sports editors
Candice Norrell and Eric
Lear proudly sport their
favorite teams’ colors.
those times they were World Series
champs! (Whoop whoop!)
EL: ONLY six times? Are you kidding
me? I would be happier than you in the
Home Run Porch, chomping on a
Dome Dog while watching Joe Nathan
in the bottom of the ninth if my
Cubbies had such success come playoff
time.
CN: Yummm, Dome Dogs. Well, I
mean, ONLY six times compared to
those “Damn Yankees,” who’ve been
there 12 consecutive years. It gets old.
They need to take turns and let others
play.
EL: Forget the Yankees. They will be
lucky if they win the wild card this
year. Right now all I can think about
are my Cubbies. I get a warm, tingling
sensation even thinking about them
winning the pennant; the same tingling
sensation that every Minnesota girl
gets when Joe Mauer crouches into his
catching position behind home plate.
CN: How dare you put images like
those in my head, Eric Lear. I’m an
engaged girl! Moving on, I’m quite
disappointed in the Twins right now.
However, even though they’re over 10
games back, I still have much hope
because a true baseball fan never gives
up on their team. NEVER.
EL: No one knows that more than me,
Candice. It has been downright painful
in the past watching my Cubs struggle,
yet I still have a hard time falling
asleep if I don’t know if the Cubs won
or lost. Some people may call that a
crazed obsession, but I see it as a
healthy dose of hope.
CN: Hope. That’s about all we can
have, you know? Crazed obsession is
okay, too, so don’t worry. At least
that’s what I say. And I only say it
because I’m a die-hard Twins fan and
will be until the day I die. But I want
you to know, all of you, that I hope and
pray the Cubs make it this year. They
definitely deserve it.
EL: I can truly say that I wish the
Twins could be there, too, for two reasons:
to see my friends who are Twins
fans happy and so that the Cubs could
play them in the World Series.
SMU athletics website redesign allows for more interaction
“I think the new sports website for Saint Mary’s is
a great improvement over the old one,” said sophomore
swimmer Tom Walsh. “It’s a lot easier to navigate
and it’s much more technologically advanced.”
Athletic Director Nikki Fennern, also impressed by
the new website, said, “I love the colors. I love the
actions. There’s always something changing on our
website; you’re always seeing new pictures popping
up. Also, I love that every story has a picture with it
because, although you can read about a team, pictures
make it more real.”
Yet Fennern’s favorite part of the new website has
more to do with Nadeau: the fact that everything is
updated instantly.
“Once a game is over, I’ll go into the schedule and
I’ll update the score and (with ICS’s system) it is
automatically updated in every other place that needs
to be updated,” said Nadeau. “Now I don’t have to
take four steps; I only have to take one.”
During the redesign this summer, Nadeau transferred
4,520 archived news stories from the old website
to ensure that they were in the same format as the
rest of the website.
“We could have had a link to the old site and said
that for any archived stories, go to the old site,” said
Nadeau. “But I didn’t want to do that because my
feeling was that if we were going to have a new site,
I wanted the new site to be the [only] site.”
Currently, statistics for any SMU sport from the
time that sport began are available on the website,
and schedules with game results dating just as far
back will soon be available.
“The website shows that they care more about their
athletics department than before,” said Walsh. “And
if your website is well done, it puts out the image
that the sports teams are good.”
“As we like to say in athletics, the website is the
front porch of the school. If you catch their eye,
prospective students are probably going to look
around,” said Nadeau. “If they keep coming back [to
the website], there’s going to be a reason and if we
can keep them there, maybe we can bring them to
school here.”