PETER KAZMAN
Sports Writer

QUEBEC CITY — Once a year student lawyers from across Canada cease to practice the sacred art of arguing and opt to put their athletic skills to the test for national supremacy at the National Law Games competition.

Held by Laval University in Quebec City Jan. 2 to 6, the University of Saskatchewan’s team claimed first place in Canada for the first time in the tournament’s 25-year existence.

Delegations from 18 of Canada’s law schools came together to compete against one another in sports competitions and academic challenges. The sporting component of the tournament included kickball, indoor soccer, basketball, flag football, water polo, dodgeball, volleyball and strangely enough, snowman sculpting, sumo wrestling and poutine-eating events.

The U of S team was propelled to first place victories in both flag football and spirit competitions, and came away with a second place finish in the volleyball tournament.

Once the dust had settled and the final team points had been tallied, Saskatchewan’s team was presented with the coveted Spirit Cup trophy and crowned the 2011 National Law Games Champions. The victory now marks the U of S as the best law school in the country, regardless of what Maclean’s magazine says.

Dating back to the early 1980s, the competition has evolved into a medium to achieve bragging rights amongst participating institutions. The competition begins every year on the second day of the new year and lasts for four days and nights before a champion is crowned.

The U of S College of Law delegation, being one of the smallest delegations at the games with only 22 competitors — 17 male and five female — won despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered by the eastern universities whose delegations didn’t have to travel halfway across the country on their own dollar to compete. By comparison, closer and less awesome universities such as Western Ontario, the University of Toronto and Sherbrooke University had delegations that numbered between 65 and 115 members each.

Since a vast percentage of these law schools are located in the east, voting for conference locations is nearly always overwhelmed by this unfair geographic advantage, forcing western institutions to travel great distances on an annual basis.

Although the stage for the 2012 Law Games has yet to be decided, the U of S Law Team is determined to retain their national champion status during the College of Law’s centennial. – –

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image: Natalia Lukiyanova/Crestock