WLU business students win third-straight title

This past weekend 40 Laurier business students made it three in a row.

The contingent from Wilfrid Laurier University took home school of the year honours as the overall champion at the Jeux de Commerce Central (JDCC) business competition, hosted by Carleton University.

This marks the third consecutive year the WLU squad has taken home the top prize at the event, and also ensured that Laurier remains the only school to ever win the JDCC crown..

“It’s a three-peat I guess,” said fourth-year business student Eileen Devlin, who was one of Laurier’s team captains at the event. “It was really exciting because no school in Canada has won three in a row at any JDC competition since 2004.”

The JDCC, which started three years ago as an offshoot of the Jeux de Commerce (JDC) competitions in Quebec pitted Laurier against nine other schools. However, according Devlin, this isn’t your average business competition.

“When most people think of a business competition, they think it’s strictly academic, strictly cases,” she said. “But JDCC is really an all encompassing competition.”

And we she says all encompassing, she means it. The competition did see teams take part in traditional academic cases. However, students also competed in debates, social challenges and even sports.

For those wondering, the sports were flag football and planet ball, which Devlin describes as similar to European handball.

Points were awarded based on where teams finished in each category. Laurier’s contingent finished first in sports, the social competitions, debate, participation and had the highest overall academic standing.

“We didn’t place first in every case [of which there were eight],” said Devlin. “But based on how we performed in cases overall, we had the highest overall standing.”

According to Devlin, the 40-person team was made of Laurier business students, ranging from second to fourth year, with the majority of the team being made up of fourth-year students.

The team was picked just after Homecoming, based on a series of tryouts, however Devlin and her co-captain Jordan Bishop were preparing to defend Laurier’s 2011 since last May.

For Devlin, while there are no shortage of undergraduate business competitions, the JDC stream is second to none.

“There really is no other competition in Canada like this one,” she said. “When you win this kind of competition, you’re really winning an overall, all encompassing title.”