A Schulich School of Business student team beat 21 teams from other graduate business schools to win the 2013 MBA Games on the weekend of Jan. 4 to 6.
The win earns Schulich the right to host the 2014 MBA Games next January.
The Schulich team of 40 students, led by team captain Beth Nuniam, placed first overall in the three-category contest – academics, athletics and spirit – to win the prestigious 
Queen’s Cup. The Schulich team also placed first in the team spirit event category, winning the Spirit Cup. The team from Ted Rogers School of Business at Ryerson placed second overall.
The winning team
“Bringing the Cup home and being able to host the MBA Games next year is great for Schulich,” said Nuniam, MBA ’13 candidate. “The Schulich team showed we have that infectious team spirit – we weren’t just cheering for ourselves, we were also helping to support other teams. It’s about the entire MBA Games spirit – showing positive competition between rival schools.”
About 700 students, the most ever, competed in this year’s games at DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Students competed in events focusing on academics, athletics and spirit. This year’s spirit competition included a mandatory community service component that required team members to partner with local non-profit or charitable organizations. The Schulich team members contributed 120 volunteer hours.
“This was the biggest MBA Games ever. The competition was really stiff. There were other schools trying really hard to win,” said Joe Fayt, a Schulich marketing instructor and the team’s coach. “The MBA Games is very prestigious among Canadian business schools.”
Schulich MBA students will compete in at least four more national and international case competitions this term, said Fayt.
Fayt has coached a number of case competition teams over the years, helping students to refine their communication and presentation skills. His track record is outstanding: a number of these teams have won major national and international competitions. Schulich has sent case competition teams to Shanghai, London, Paris, Boston and San Francisco.
Last year, Fayt coached a team of Schulich MBA students who won the 2012 MIT Commercial Real Estate Case Competition in Boston in April, competing against teams from 29 top-ranked schools around the world, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stern, Kellogg, Cornell, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Yale.
The MBA Games were founded in 1988 by the Queen’s School of Business and the Association of Canadian MBA.