For good reason, this time of the year can be called a sports fan’s dream. With the NBA and NHL in stretch runs, baseball’s swinging start, brackets busting in NCAA Tournament Basketball, not to mention the CIS playoffs, the end of March folding to the advent of April is circled on every sports freak’s calendar.

Here at the University of Toronto, the intramural athletics program has its own version of March Madness, as the winter term playoffs for each division wrapped up last week. As is true with any intramural playoff run, the games were not short on excitement, producing some rather unexpected finishes.

Since 2002, University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC) women’s division 1 hockey has held on to the Jean Harston Trophy. But this winter the Faculty of Physical Education and Health (FPEH) ended the Scarborough dynasty, capturing the title in a 1-0 championship thriller.

Elsewhere on the ice, FPEH and the Faculty of Engineering (Skule) battled for the men’s division 1 championship. Skule pulled out the victory March 29.

Despite dropping the final, Phys-Ed had claimed division one bragging rights from the Fall, and along with the division one women’s squad presented a display of hockey dominance over the course of the 2005-06 season.

Their dominating performance was equaled only by University College’s (UC) entries in men’s basketball. With an 83-80 victory, UC’s division 1 team knocked off archrivals University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM) in the final, avenging their heartbreaking loss at the hands of UTM in last year’s championship game.

UC’s division 2 men’s basketball team cemented their top spot atop their division, winning their second straight division title with a 49-32 victory over Trinity College. The outstanding play of both UC’s men’s basketball squads makes it impossible to ignore this college’s stranglehold on the hard court.

Other colleges and faculties had impressive showings over the winter schedule: Commerce landed victories in the division four championships for both hockey and basketball, as well as combining with UC to capture the one-day floorball tournament. The School for Graduate Studies established themselves as an intramural force, winning the men’s division 1 volleyball title while vying for the men’s division 2 hockey championship.

The intramural year officially comes to a close this week at Recognize, the program’s annual awards banquet. The event will applaud colleges and faculties, as well as graduating athletes, for their intramural participation. While some receive special recognition, all participants, from the players to the officials, have made U of T intramurals the top-notch program it can claim to be. Check out thevarsity.ca for a complete list of winter-term intramural champions.

Here are the other notable champions from U of T Intramural’s winter term:

Hockey:
Men’s Non-Contact Division One: Trinity College
Men’s Non-Contact Division Two: School for Graduate Studies Biohazards
Men’s Non-Contact Division Three: University College
Women’s Division Two: Faculty of Engineering

Basketball:
Co-Ed Division One: Faculty of Phys-Ed
Co-Ed Division Two: Victoria College
Men’s Division Three: T-Shirts
Women’s Division One: University of Toronto at Mississauga
Women’s Division Two: Victoria College

Floorball: University College/Commerce

Volleyball:
Co-Ed Division One: Faculty of Physical Education and Health
Co-Ed Division Two: University College
Co-Ed Division Three: University of Toronto at Scarborough
Men’s Division Two: Woodsworth College
Women’s Division One: Pharmacy
Women’s Division Two: University of Toronto at Scarborough