How do you rise?
How do you make yourself something out
of nothing?
Does it take days? weeks? years?
Or does it take a lifetime?
For the Ryerson ams it took the vision
of one man. A leader with a dream of
turning an athletic program around.
It was a school defined more by its
losses
than by its wins. Now it's something more,
something greater.
[Music]
This is the rise of the Rams.
[Music]
Ivan Joseph is Ryerson University's
athletic director.
A former track and field star and a
national championship winning soccer
coach in the U.S.
He's now the man behind the madness at
Ryerson's rising athletic program. "Thanks
keep up the good work".
He's no stranger to hard work or long
hours. Growing up on a farm outside
Toronto,
he's used to waking up at the crack of
dawn. It's why he shows up to Ryerson at
6:30 in the morning
ready to work. The first time Ryerson
offered Joseph the job
he said no. He ended up turning it down
three times,
but a phone call from the university's
president Sheldon Levy
changed his mind. "I might have tried to
sell him on that were going to do
wonderful things, and he might have he
might have said
"I'll take a chance and believe the guy".
One of the things he said to me is that,
um,
you know he said our academic reputation
of our university is
shooting out the roof, yet nobody knows
about it,
And partly in turn is that our athletics
reputation hasn't kept up.
He says athletics plays an important
part in advancing the university's
reputation
and plays an important part at
maintaining
what's called the esprit de corps or the
spirit of a campus,
and I want you to help us build that."
To tell the story of the rise of the
Ryerson Rams,
you have to look at where these teams
once were. Where winning was unheard of
and dreams of the championship were
nothing more than a joke.
You looked at the facilities of Ryerson,
you looked at what was happening here.
They were, you know, the gym looked like a
high school gym, the teams
every single team but one, had a losing
record.
The other teams during my time at
Ryerson, to put it diplomatically, were
generally terrible. Women's basketball
couldn't
quite get over the hump. Men's hockey
just couldn't get anything going.
If you go through hockey db you'd see a
lot of guys who show up in here and then
disappear.
Sort of like a breeze in the wind. My
first
time was two weeks I was here - "Athletics
Who Cares?"
that was the title of the first article
when I came here.
Dubois cared and tried to pass a
referendum in 2004 that would increase
athletic fees
but ryerson students were unconvinced
and the vote failed to pass.
Well you know what we were - inexperienced
when we went into that referendum
and that really, really showed.
Three years after that failed referendum,
the Rams continued their losing ways
and Dubois was fired. For this team often
when you get let go
it's a personality issue. I just,
people didn't see my vision
and that's their choice. They were, they
they were the ones making the decision
and I have to live by that.
We had to make changes and we had to up
our game
in every every respect. That's where
Joseph came in.
He and Levy tried to pass another
referendum in 2009.
This time it worked and though it wasn't
in the original plan the two were
presented with a golden opportunity -
the chance to move into the former home
of the Toronto Maple Leafs -
the historic Maple Leaf Gardens.
After undergoing a massive renovation
and rebranded as the Mattamy Athletic
Center,
Ryerson now had a home. It didn't take
long for some of the best young athletes
in the country
to notice the opportunity to play at
Maple Leaf Gardens.
As a Leaf fan my whole life I thought
would be a great opportunity.
Once we got the Mattamy athletic center
I think it did change
how fans viewed coming to our games. This
is where sports happens
in Toronto now. With a new facility in
place, Joseph's next step was hiring
championship caliber coaches to build
successful teams.
When the future of the women's hockey
team at St. Mary's University was in
question,
Joseph and associate athletic director
Stephanie White set their sights on Lisa
Haley.
I came to Ryerson when some tough
financial times struck at St. Mary's and
some program changes were made and
women's hockey was
taken off the docket and so I was
looking for a new opportunity.
This is a really good young coach that's
comes highly recommended.
I think she's going to be a future
Olympic level coach and
there's a problem going on with St
Mary's and I want to get her while this
wiggle is open.
I think here at Ryerson with this
fantastic facility and the investment
of all types of resources into varsity
athletics.
This is the kind of place that I believe
you could build a winning program at.
Trust me guys you are ready for what's
about to happen.
You've put a lot of work in to get to
this stage of the game and you are now
ready for what's about to happen next
and when you get out on the ice
you're going to trust your instincts. All
right you've worked hard,
you know what to do in every situation,
it may not be perfect every single time
but you know exactly what to do and I
want you to rely on your instincts.
Ryerson's latest addition to its varsity
ranks is the women's hockey team.
It's also one of the university's
fastest growing sports programs.
It all started nearly a decade ago with
the stingers,
a club team founded by Stephanie Veltman.
"I think at first it was maybe a little
bit selfish. I wanted to play hockey
and I wanted to do it at Ryerson but the
more I looked into it, I realized that
there was a lot of opportunity in the
city.
There's a lot of talent here and
you know I looked into what was
available for me to play
in the city, and as most women will know
there aren't very many options for
women's hockey here.
I thought there was opportunity here." It
takes a trial period before a club team
becomes a varsity program
but once Ryerson took the Stingers under
their wing it opened up a whole new
level of resources.
Joseph hired Haley but that move alone
didn't yet make them into legitimate
contenders.
That first year they only won one game
they finished the year
losing 23 in a row. "That first
season really was less about the present
players and winning hockey games, it was
more about
getting the overall vision for the for
the first five years of the program.
I mean honestly, we had a game that we
played against Laurier in Laurier
and we lost 11 nothing and that was
obviously by far the worst game I had
ever been a part of and I'm sure
everybody else had been a part of,
but after that game like, no one
got down and thought like what's the
point of this. We were going to have a
tough challenge. The Ontario conference
already is a really
competitive conference, and so that was a
moment,
but in terms of the Laurier game we
still reference that game this year.
Coming to a team that was new, although I
knew it was new, I didn't realize just
how badly we would
get beat in in the beginning. We lost
by like double,
we were in the, they had scored in the
double digits, and I just thought, I don't
think I've ever played
you know, on a team where we've been lost
so badly. We both knew that Lisa is an
unbelievable coach and that she was
going to turn the team around
and it was just a matter of time. Slowly
things began to change.
Double-digit blowouts turned into
marginal losses.
This season it all clicked.
Hello and welcome to tonight's game, I'm
Jeremy Perl. Tonight's matchup on the
Rams network, the Ryerson Rams taking on
crosstown rival York Lions.
A win for the Rams - they're in the
playoffs for the first time. If they lose
their season's over.
[Applause]
Emma Rutherford coming in...SCORES! Emma Rutherford!
has given the rams a one-nothing lead.
That could be the goal that them in
the playoffs.
[Music]
They've done it! The Rams are playing off
bound for the first time
in their history.
Our women's hockey team, it's a great
example of what
has changed here Ryerson and my first
year they didn't exist.
There wasn't a woman's hockey team
here at Ryerson and all of a sudden this year
they are in the playoffs, on home ice.
It's just
fantastic. That might be the biggest
success story of
of Ryerson period. We're not done by a
long shot. Yet we still have some
recruiting to do, we still have some
I think offensive skill to add to our
team but
we're headed in the right direction. I
think we wanted to be in a playoff spot
within four years and we're there and
now the next timeline is
getting a banner to hang on those rafters.
[Music]
Intense.
[Music]
Relentless.
Demanding.
[Music]
Quest for perfection in everything we do.
[Music]
That's that's kind of who I am.
I believe he's my second hire all right
and uh
you know there was another coach we
tried to get ahead of Roy to be honest
with you, and Roy was uh
I was right there on the line but you
know Roy was almost the biggest mistake
I made by not
getting him. I always kind of thought
this was a place that was
underrated. It was a real opportunity to
build something.
You know it had a real kind of a history
of uh
not a lot of success. I liked him because
he represented
our values. He was a under rep, he came
from an underrepresented group.
He was from the city of Toronto. He was
grassroots basketball. I wanted to change
this program
and he sold a vision. You could
definitely feel the change once Roy
started coaching the team,
especially from a preparation
perspective. The way we
practiced, the intensity was always
extremely high.
Never taking days off, no matter if we
were lifting
in practice, even shoot-arounds are
intense on the court.
Roy Ranner brought a new style of play.
One that could compete with the best in
the country.
This season Rana took the Rams all the
way to the provincial championship.
The losses to Carlton and Ottawa sent
them back to Toronto with nothing to
show for
the season wasn't over for Rana or the
Rams though.
The country's top teams would compete
this year on Ryerson's home court
as hosts Ryerson was given an automatic
berth in the national championship,
the CIS final eight. I've been in a lot
of fish bowls and a lot of crazy,
situations where there's
way more hype than there is even with
the CIS right now
and they just got to be prepared for it.
And I think they are, they know it's
coming and
I think we've done a pretty good job of
balancing. I want it so badly and
uh I think we're due. That's really the
thing.
I don't see why we cannot win so
I definitely think they they should be
winning it but I don't want to jinx them.
We see this nationals, this very first
one as our coming out party.
We want to showcase, not just our
basketball team but all our teams.
We want to showcase our university at
the national stage
and tell people we've arrived.
They've been waiting all season for this -
game one of nationals quarterfinal game.
Ryerson Rams, Windsor Lancers - winner goes
on to the national semi-final.
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
The Rams knock off the Windsor Lancers.
With that win they move on to the
national semifinal.
While their take on OUE rivals Ottawa
Gigi's.
With a win over Windsor, Ryerson moved on
to the semifinals where they would take
on the Ottawa Gigi's -
as a team, they've lost to their last
seven encounters.
Well the thing about Ryerson is that you
know when you, you play roulette
and you know it's it's red, it's red, it's
red, it's red, it's red.
You know at some point it's going to hit
black right.
The Ottawa Gigi's, the Ryerson Rams
national semi-final the stage has been
set.
Winner moves on to the national
championship to face
the dreaded Carlton Ravens.
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
"okay"
[Music]
I don't think we're on the rise. I think
we're there. It's just you know we
haven't been able to uh
to get over that hump and beat them but
you know
games like yesterday they turn on a call.
They turn on the dunk, they turn on
a missed shot. I mean that's, that's
basketball. When it's played by two teams
at the highest level.
The Ryerson Rams beat the Victoria Vikes
in the bronze medal game the following
day.
It was the highest any Ryerson varsity
team ever placed
at a national championship. It's not
really an OUA banner that we're doing
going after. It's really a national
championship banner that we're going
after
and that's not going to take only four
or five years to achieve.
You know at one time six of our eight
teams were nationally ranked.
The academic performance of our teams
is an all-time high
so we I think you know the strategic
plan has been a big,
big success but the work has just begun
as we like to say.
We're at the next phase and, and we're
trying to identify
what those parts are and what those
goals and objectives will be. That will
see us achieve our goal
which is ultimately to be the best
athletic department in the country
[Music]
you