The Gauntlet is the official University of Calgary's student newspaper. It was founded in
1960 by a 2nd year English student named Maurice Yacowar. He liked the classical tone
of the name, and the medieval associations of the casting down of a gauntlet to issue a
challenge, because he felt that running the student's newspaper should be a challenge. He
was quite controversial, and was eventually fired in February of 1961. The proverbial
straw that broke the camel's back was his publishing of a literary supplement containing
the words "He came into her, and it was good." He later became the Dean of the Faculty
of Fine Arts, in the latter years of the 1990's.
Twice, the newspaper was shut down by the Student's Union, in the 69/70 and 73/74
school years, after a referendum concluded that the place was run by raving communists.
Both times the SU tried to replace them with a paper called the Medium, which failed
because the only people interested in working on a student's newspaper were already
working at the Gauntlet. This could not happen now-a-days because the Gauntlet is
completely autonomous from the Students Union, and has been since 1988. Well, except
for the minor detail that they have power over the student's union, because in 90% of
cases, in SU elections the candidate who won Gauntlet support, wins the election. This is
because the student populace is a bunch of mindless apathetic sheep who don't want to think about the candidates, so instead just vote for who they're told to.
Anyways, about the contents of the paper itself, they run the usual stuff, news from around the world and on campus, editorial opinions, sports, entertainment. They also have a popular section called the TFL's, which stands for Three Lines Free. It is basically just a page full of messages from students, sometimes funny, sometimes informative, almost always insanely stupid.
The Gauntlet offices are currently located in Old MacEwan Hall, room number 319.
You can read the Gauntlet at www.gauntlet.ucalgary.ca