By CLAUDE SCILLEY

The Christmas break was not kind to the St. Lawrence Vikings.

Two players of the varsity men’s basketball team were declared academically ineligible; another decided not to come back to school; a fourth decided the demands of the classroom and the basketball team were too much to combine.

Suddenly, there were just eight.

“And we’re really only playing seven,” Vikings coach Barry Smith said. “Some of the rookies are getting thrown into the firepot a little sooner than they should.”

The short bench wasn’t an issue last weekend, when St. Lawrence scored 100 points and easily defeated the last-place Fleming Knights. It very well could be a problem this weekend, when the Vikings host La Cite on Friday night and Algonquin Saturday afternoon.

“It’s really hurt us,” Smith said. “Before (Christmas) we probably had a legit nine or 10 guys who could play, and the only difficulty I had was trying to make decisions as to who should be on.

“It’s not hard to make decisions (now) about who should be on the court, but when they’re not doing the right things and you want to give them a lesson and sit them down on the bench, there’s not much there (to replace them).

“I sometimes wonder if, in the back of their minds, they sort of think, ‘Coach can’t really sub me off’ because of that situation.”

It’s also difficult to practise now, Smith said. Though they can’t play, the two ineligible players are still practising with the team, but the disparity in talent means Smith can’t work the starting five as a unit.

“Practices aren’t that good right now,” he said.

With La Cite coming to town with a 2-9 record, the more important game of the two likely will be Saturday against Algonquin, which, along with St. Lawrence two other teams, is tied for fifth place at 6-5, half a game behind fourth-place Loyalist.

Only six of the eight teams still in contention will make the playoffs.

In the teams’ previous meeting, in Ottawa in late November, Algonquin won a defensive struggle, 59-45. Since then the Vikings have won four straight, albeit a streak that includes a win at La Cite and back-to-back victories over winless Fleming.

Saturday’s game will be played in the St. Lawrence gym at 3 p.m., immediately following the women’s game with Algonquin, which is a battle for first place in the East division.

The Vikings, 8-1, suffered their only loss this season against Algonquin, which takes an umblemished 8-0 record into a game Friday night at Loyalist in Belleville.

St. Lawrence lost to Algonquin 74-50 in Ottawa in November, but in the last five years the Vikings have come as close as anyone in the OCAA to defeating the Thunder, which has won 66 conference games in a row. The Vikings’ 50-48 defeat last season was the closest Algonquin has come to losing in that time.

Across town at Queen’s this weekend:

• The men’s hockey team, 8-10-1, will try to end a five-game losing streak Friday night when it hosts the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks at 7:30 p.m. at the Memorial Centre. The Hawks, last in the West division at 5-13-1, are similarly struggling, having lost their last six games and eight of their last nine; the only victory in that time being a 6-5 shootout win over winless RMC. Among the Golden Hawks is Tyler Stothers, nephew of former Kingston Canadians defenceman Mike Stothers.

Saturday night, the Gaels will host Waterloo, 12-6-1, also at 7:30. The Warriors haven’t lost since Nov. 8, eight games ago, and they’ll come to town with some familiar faces: former Kingston Frontenacs Mike Morrison, Michael Moffat and Ryan Hanes.

It will be Queen’s first meeting of the year with both teams.

RMC, meanwhile, will begin its weekend with a game at Laurentian Thursday night. On Saturday, the Paladins will host the No. 9-ranked McGill Redmen, 14-5, at 7 p.m. at Constantine Arena.

• The No. 4-ranked Queen’s women’s hockey team will play its only game this weekend at York Saturday afternoon. The Gaels, 11-2-3, beat York, 8-6-2, in their previous meeting, 5-0 at the Rogers K-Rock Centre, where goaltender Caitlyn Lahonen posted her first shutout of the season.

• Both Queen’s basketball teams will be in Toronto this weekend, also for single games against York.

The women, 6-3, are on a four-game winning streak while the Lions, 2-8, lost 66-49 against Ryerson Wednesday. In their previous meeting, Queen’s pinned a 73-38 win on the Lions in Kingston, in what at the time was the Lions’ sixth loss in a row.

After splitting a pair of games at home last weekend, the Queen’s men, winners of three of their last four after opening the season with a five-game losing streak, will be trying to gain ground on York, at 5-5 the second-place team in the East division. The Gaels gained their first win of the season, 86-84, over York on Nov. 26. The Lions lost 89-51 to Ryerson on Wednesday, ending a three-game winning streak.

• The Queen’s men’s volleyball team, 8-4, will play winless RMC Friday, 7 p.m., at the Sir Archibald Macdonell Centre. Saturday, the Gaels will entertain the No. 2-ranked McMaster Marauders, 11-1 at 3 p.m. in the Athletics and Recreation Centre. Losers of their first three contests this season, the Gaels have lost just one match in league play since October, winning eight of their last nine and the last five in a row to move into a third-place tie with Guelph. McMaster comes to town having won 11 in a row, and with one familiar face on the roster, freshman Connor Santoni, the former Regiopolis Notre Dame Panther.

The Queen’s women, 9-4, have a single match this weekend, Saturday afternoon against the perennially winless Paladins at RMC.