by Melanie Takefman

They’ll out outsmart you, out-survive you and even beat you in a game of kinball. They are Concordia’s Commerce Games team, 69 JMSB students who have been training to win since last spring.

The Commerce Games, or Jeux du Commerce, is known as a “prestigious academic event” for Canada’s brightest business students, according to Concordia co-presidents Juan Ahuactzin and Jalal Hachmeh. While two-thirds of the team’s points are based on academic case presentations, teams also compete in sporting and social events.

This year, the social component was a smorgasbord of survivor/reality TV show-like events, for which the teams were on call for 36 hours straight.

Concordia brought home gold in the MIS, strategy and entrepreneurship cases, as well as silver and bronze in finance and marketing respectively.

“One of the reasons we’re so well known as a business school is because of the Commerce Games,” Ahuactzin said. “Everyone watches out for us,” he added, especially in the academic category.

It’s no wonder: 30 students were chosen from among 250 applications for the academic team this year.

Candidates must submit an application to the Games organizers, pass an interview, and compete in a series of mini-cases. Once the competitors are chosen, they complete a course in presentation and case analysis.

Delegations from 13 universities in Eastern Canada participated in the 2003 Commerce Games, which were held at the Université de Québec en Outaouais in Hull from January 17-20.

“It’s an incredible experience at the university level … Nobody can wait until year,” Ahuactzin said.

For information on Concordia’s participation in the Commerce Games, visit the Web site at http://www.commercegames.ca. The official Web site for the Jeux du Commerce is http://www.jeuxducommerce.com.


Stylin’ and profylin’

Concordia returned victorious from this year’s Undergraduate Business Games (UBG), taking second place honours in school spirit and overall achievement.

The competition, which took place this year from Jan. 17-19 at Carleton University, pits teams from 24 Canadian schools against each other in sports and social competitions. Each team is composed of 36 members and participants for each activity, like family feud and touch football, are chosen in advance.

Top placement in both main categories is “impressive,” according to UBG president Sean Fogarty, a JMSB finance student. “There are the teams that go down there to win [for] spirit and the teams that go down there to win the competitions,” he said. “We are one of the only teams that tries to win both.”

In addition to the second-place awards, Concordia won the Stylin’ and Profylin’ Award for “being what a UBG team is supposed to be.” They stuck together and showed a lot of spirit, Fogarty explained.

York University won first place for spirit, while Queen’s University placed first in the competitions.

The Concordia team was sponsored by the insurance company Aon.