NEWS photo Mike CAPILANO College guard Valerie Ho (left) drives past a Camiosun College defender during ‘opening day action at last weekend’s Capilano College Classic Basketball Tournament. The ‘homecourt Biues won the game 60-41, and finished fourth in the pre-season tournament. Capilano College cagers ready for regular season By Andrew McCredie Sports Editor andrew@nsnews.com GREG Zavediuk’s skills as a basketball coach will be well tested this season. His tallest order to fill is a loss of height, an element that last year defined the women’s team. “Last season | had six players over six feet,” coach Zavediuk explains. “This year T don’t have one. [think the tallest player 7 have is five foot ten.” Not. surprisingly, the Blues’ style of play for the upcoming B.C. College regular season will be a complete turn around from fast year’s game plan. “This scason we’re concentrar- ing on being an attacking defence type of team,” says Zavediuk. “And at last weekend’s tourna- ment we showed some good signs of that.” Despite finishing fourth at the tournament they hosted, the Blues played very well in. their first pvo games. “In one we held the other team to no points in the opening five minutes,” said Zavediuk. “So there were some real posi- tive things we can take from our play.” On the offensive side of the ball, accurate perimeter shooting will be the key to putting points on the board for dhe small, vet quick. team. In particular, the three-point prowess of Linnae Bee — who went 1] for 20 during the Classic tournament from long range —- will play an integral part in the Blues on-court success. Bee was selected to the rourna- ment all-star squad based on her shooting success. Capilano College men’s team finished third at the Classic Tournament. Both teams tip-off the season on the road, as they travel to Douglas College for a Friday, Nov. 7 regular season opener. “Our home opener is against University College of the Fraser Valley, and by then they ll probably be ranked number one ine the country,” Zavedink says of the Nov 14 game at the North Vancouver” school’s Sportsplex. “Erowill be a good early season test for us.” Tip-off is 6 pan. for the women’ game; 8 p.m. for the men. Bench boss siays upbeat H NORM McNamara knew he was in for the coaching chal- lenge of his young carcer when he signed on with the North Shore Griffins. However, the 31-year-old part- time teacher/full- time hockey coach didn’t expect to be staring a 0-10 record in the face a month into the season, Heading into last Friday night's game against the league-lead- ing Ridge Meadows Flames, the clos- est the Junior B Griffins have come to putting one in the win column was a 5-4 overtime Joss to the Abborsford Pilots on Sept. 29. And for MeNamara, who alsa serves as the Griffin’s general manager, fix- ing the problem is a complex one. In fact, to listen to the intelli- gent and eager head coach, the woes the first-year Griffins face are not unlike those faced by the Vancouver Canucks. Firstly, there’s locker-raom leader- ship. “As of today, we don't have a player that is stepping up to lead this team,” McNamara was saying over lunch earlier this week. Someone who is going to set the tone in practice; someone who can turn a game around with a goal or a shift of inspired play. : Asked for an example of this lack of leadership, the coach recalled an early scason practice. “We were having a five-on-five scrimmage, with hitting, when one of the players got a breakaway,” he recalls. “And he goes in and tries one of those Pavel Bure off-the-skate moves. “If we had a leader our there, he would have piled on that guy; told him that that was not what this team was all about.” Instead, McNamara had to blow the whistle and deliver the reprimand himself, in the process losing a valu- able opportunity for the Griffins to gel as a peer group rather than just anoth- er screaming session from “coach.” Secondly, according to McNamara, Griffins’ players are not cognizant enough of the fact that there are pay- ing fans in the stands who are expect- ing a 100% effort from the team. (A situation that paying GM Place fans are alf too famifiar with.) “Most of them still have a bantam league mindset,” McNamara says of weekend. his charges. “They are still just play = ing for themselves, not realizing that there is a whole organization, includ- ing many volunteers, behind them when they’re out there on the ice.” And finally, the unavailability of skilled, and especially older, players to shore up his young troops has frus- trated the coach/general manager of the Griffins. “Some teams in the league have four 2!-year-olds (the maximum allowed) and an average age near 20,” reports McNamara. “Our aver- age age is about 16-and-a-half.” The Pacific International Junior Hockey League (PIJHL) has allowed four 21-vear-olds on each team this season, but for the expansion Griffins, no 21-year- olds have shown an interest in playing for the team. The 20-year- olds that played in the —-~ + league last year are staying on with the clubs they played for last season, and since McNamara came to the Griffins in early August, any othe available 21-year-olds were already committed to PIJHL teams for the upcoming season. “Expansion teams are tough,” says PoCo Buckeroos coach and North Van resident Grant Kerr. “What it takes is lots of patience; it’s a hard thing for any coach.” Despite these situations — which McNamara brings up not as excuses burt as facts — the coach says that his current station is not as pressure- packed as his stint with the B.C. Best-Ever program, where his coach- ing was constantly evaluated. “That was the biggest challenge I’ve had as a coach,” he says. In addi- = tion to coaching bantam teams on Vancouver Island, McNamara has served as an assistant at the University of Illinois and in the elite junior Ontario Hockey League. But as is true of Canuck’s bench boss Tom Renney and his NHL counterparts, so it is so with Junior B coaches: they must stay optimistic. And McNamara is. Tomorrow night’s game at West Van Arena against the Seattle Northwest Americans is, according to the Griffins’ coach, the perfect situation for the North Shore team to claim its first victory. The Americans will be weary from their trip by bus from Seattle, McNamara reckons, and the Griffins will be hungry for their first-ever win. Game time is 7:45 p.m. cheap scats Piggott skated to a ees second place finish in the junior ladies’ competi- tion. Fellow Winter Club skater Sara-Lynn Nickerson was fourth in the pre-novice ladies” category. The high-calibre invi- tational competition fea- tured skaters from British Columbia, Alberra, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and served as a tune-up for the upcoming Western FIGURE SKATING... North Shore Winter Club skater Caroline medal at the Invitational in over the Thanksgiv Canadian Championships. JUNIOR FOOT- BALL... Calling all B.C. Junior Football League alumni. A 50-year Reunion = Dinner is set for 4 Saturday, Nov. ] at the Richmond Inn, and organizers are inviting all past and present players and coaches to attend. For more information and tor tickets to the dinner, call Jim Hagen wor 574-1362 or 421-9753, — Andrew McCredie