Canisius College - Athletics

Athletics

The Canisius College Golden Griffins are composed of 17 teams including men and women's basketball, cross country, lacrosse, soccer, and swimming and diving. Men's sports include baseball, ice hockey, and golf. Women's sports include volleyball, synchronized swimming, and softball. The Golden Griffins compete in the NCAA Division I and are members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) for most sports, except for the men's ice hockey team, which competes in the Atlantic Hockey. The men's and women's Track & Field Teams and men's Football were cut in 2003.

In 2008, Canisius men's lacrosse won the MAAC tournament and earned its first ever bid to the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament.

The 2008 Baseball team won the regular season MAAC championship for the first time in its history with a 41-13 record breaking the school record for wins in a season. One season later, the team advanced to its first MAAC Championship game in program history.

The Canisius College softball team recently won the 2009 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, its 3rd consecutive title win, marking the team's 11th trip to the NCAA tournament in the last 15 years. The softball team is consistently the winner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament.

Canisius won the Canal Cup in 2008 and 2009. The cup commemorates the athletic rivalry between Canisius College and Niagara University. Canisius has won the trophy two times in the Canal Cup's three year existence.

The Canisius synchronized swim team has been the 3rd place team in the nation since 2008, fielding several national champions in several categories each year. The team has been ECAC champions since 1996.

Intramural sports are also offered to students, faculty and staff.

Canisius' mascot is the Golden Griffin. The college adopted it in 1932, after Charles A. Brady ('33) wrote a story in a Canisius publication honoring Buffalo's centennial year as a city. Brady wrote about Rene-Robert LaSalle's Le Griffon, the first European ship to sail the upper Great Lakes, built here in Buffalo. The name stuck, and Canisius' mascot was born.

According to GoGriffs.com, the griffin is a "mythical creature of supposed gigantic size that has the head, forelegs and wings of an eagle and the hindquarters, tail and ears of a lion." It represents values such as strength, vigilance, and intelligence, all of which befit a college and qualities that one would look for in students and athletes alike.