Lost in the hubbub of the Canada West playoffs (read Larkins’ entertaining recap here) and the great Web Server Disaster of last week was one of the biggest stories of the year.

The Streak is over.

On the afternoon of Thursday, February 7^th I sat down to prepare a series of ‘quick hit’ questions that Larkins and I would tackle in between games on our broadcast that night. Sort of like Blindside, only about the CIS, and minus the Larkins rage. The Bobcats were hosting the Winnipeg Wesmen in the final regular season home game of the year, and it didn’t promise to be a very exciting evening. In the early game, you had the 0-20 Brandon women, losers of 87 straight conference games, facing off against a Winnipeg team with eight wins. In the nightcap, you had a Winnipeg men’s team minus Erfan Nasajpour and Dan Shynkaryk and a Bobcat team honouring a trio of fifth year players.

I’m no to going to lie: Calling Brandon University women’s basketball games for the past 7 years has not always been fun. From 2001-2003, the squad went 0-40 under Tami Pennell. The delightful Les Berry took over for a season and won four games, however, three of them were on the road (games we don’t broadcast). From 2004-2006, the program disbanded for reasons unbeknownst to the general populace (Larkins and I both refuse to acknowledge the Cheryl Kryluk Era ever happened). And then a young upstart from Winnipeg named Jaime Hickson took the head coaching position in the summer of 2006.

Larkins and I both like Jaime. We get along with her. We go for wings with her. We think the world of her. But her first season went as expected. When you’re taking over a team that – for all intents and purposes – ceased to exist the previous two years, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Hickson didn’t win a game in 2006-07. The Bobcats went 0-22, to be precise.

The expectations were high heading into 2007-08. Larkins predicted two wins in his annual Brandon Sun pre-season column. I predicted zero wins in my annual “MSN conversation with Larkins about what I think will happen this year.”

November rolled around, and the losses started to pile up… again. When the ‘Cats fell to the Thompson Rivers Wolfpack in early January – TRU, like BU, entered the game without a win – both of us gave up hope. A fourth consecutive winless campaign was a foregone conclusion. The Streak would be 89 at year’s end, and we’d be poised to crack triple digits in January of next year.

So, it only made sense that the first ‘quick hit’ question on our final broadcast of the year be about The Streak. “Triple Digits” screamed the TV graphic; “Will the BU women lose 100 straight?” declared the sub-heading. And trust me; it was more of a declaration than a question. BU was losing their final two games of the season, and there was absolutely no doubt about it.

Larkins and I do not hate the Brandon women’s team. Many people have accused us of this over the years – especially Larkins, who was once singled out at a press conference by a high-ranking BU official because he’d been “overly critical” of the team – but it’s simply not true. We’re not Chuck Swirsky-esque homers, but deep down, we want the team to succeed. We know the players. We see the coaches on a day-to-day basis. We know the struggles they go through, we understand the burdens they carry. But we’re also journalists, and broadcasters, and when we’re calling a game where one team is leading the other team by 40 points… well, it’s hard to come up with something “nice” to say.

6:00 p.m., Thursday, February 7^th. Game time. Brandon vs. Winnipeg. The Bobcats come out flat and trail 16-11 at the end of one. Usually, by the midway point of the second quarter, Larkins and I are keeping one eye on the court and turning most of our attention towards the BU men. Here we go again.

And then, a 13-0 Brandon run. A half-time lead. Hope.

The Bobcats hit shot after shot in the second half. Melanie Thompson, Allie Butz, Tanysha Robinson, the list of heroes goes on and on.

81-76.

Final.

A championship-like celebration ensued. Tears from the BU players, coaches, and fans (I think I even saw Larkins welling up a bit). A standing ovation from the Brandon faithful. Joy.

To make the story even more wonderful, they Bobcats went to Winnipeg two days later and beat the Wesmen again.

2-20 never sounded so perfect.

So, congratulations to the Brandon University women’s basketball program. You proved me wrong. You proved Larkins wrong (even though, technically, he did predict you’d win two games this year). And in the words of Jaime Hickson, you “proved the world wrong.”

I’m expecting a home playoff series next year. Please don’t let me down.

(Note: For your listening pleasure, here’s a six-minute audio highlight pack of the 81-76 win. I pulled this off our TV broadcast, but couldn’t figure out how to get the video to work. I’m an idiot.)