3G - Wednesday. March 3. 1999 ~ North Shore News RINGSTAD B.C TRIPLE-A HOOPS Argyle tips off against : ond-ran Heritage Park today at 5:15 p.m. in open- ing round action of the B.C. senior girls triple-A basketball championships at Capilano College. he L5th-ranked Pipers are the sole North Shore squad competing in the 16- team tourney. If the Pipers upset the Highlanders today they'll be back on the court tomorrow at 5:15 p.m. to play the winner of today’s Kelowna-New Westminster game; if they lose it will be a 12 noon game against the Kelowna-New Westminster loser. MOGUL SKIING... Racing the bumps is all about creat- ing your Own momentum, and as of last weekend Kelly Ringstad created 2 ton of it heading into the world cham- pionships this weekend in Switzerland. The 24-year-old North Vancouver native won first place at the Europa Cup women’s mogul face in Jyvaskyla, Finland on Sunday. The FIS freestyle world championships take place March 6-14 in Meiringen- Hasliberg, Switzerland. ndrew McCredie S WV's Funk wins bronz at Games Andrew McCredie Editor andrew@nsnews.com TREVOR Funk faced 49 shots in backstop- ping Team BC to a 7-6 win over Ontario in the bronze medal game at the Canada Games in Newfoundland. The Saturday B.C. boy Canada Games. Morning victory at Stephenville Dome marked the first ume in 12 * hockey team has stood on the podium at the Cornerbrook’s ars that a “Tt was unbelievable, we had 4,000 people at cur fist game, of the hocke Team BC in large part to Fun! nea perfect ’s play, be the semi-finals on Friday at Canada Games downed Quebec 3-2 in the gold “We didn’t know how well v ~ said Funk tram Osovoos yesterday. “And the speed was just unreal. It was so much fun.” 0 in round robin play, thanks fore losing 3-1 10 Quebee in ntre. Alberta me on Saturda do going in, but once we beat Ontario +-1 in the opening game we just got on 3 roll,” the 17 year old said, adding that Team Ontario was the biggest- -sized team he’s ever faced. Funk's young career has also been on a roll as of hate. A last minute add. last. spring, Funk i on to the B.C. Best-E rT program Team BC coaching statt through district camps, B.C. C up competitions (his team tied for first) and ultimate! at the Team BC team tials. Last July Funk was selected as the tep Under-17 goal in the province and with it a job berween the pipes at the Canada Games. Word had gor around about Funk, and Jase fall he made the rounds with a couple of junior A teams looking for tresh young goaltending talent. He played well in the exhi- bition season with Penticton, but it s decided he would get more playing time, and invaluable with the Junior B Osoyoos Heat, an affiliate of junior A squad. enticron $ That advice has served Funk well, as he was one of just four 16-year-alds named to the Junior B league's all-star squad in December (he has since turned 17). An added bonus for Funk is that in his absence his Junior B ream won its opening round of the plavofts in four straight. He’s got his Canada Games medal and he’s sdll playing hock “We open th game. “FT can’t wait.” Nighthawks on Friday night,” next round against Beaver Valley Funk said of his next big NEWS photo Mike Wakefield TREVOR Funk backstopped Team BC to a bronze medal at the Canada Games Cornerbrook, Newfoundland. The West Vancouver goalie stopped 43 shots in B.C’s 7-6 bronze-medal game victory over Ontario on Saturday morning. : N Van’s Grant Connell: Life after tennis YOU'LL have found out last Sunday why pro golf and its spon- sors favour medal play over match play, even when a million dollar purse to the winner is at stake. Or rather, mostly because there’s a million at stake. How many viewers tuned in to the richest match play final of the year, that ju: completed event at Carlsbad, California? Not tvo many, I'd wager, not when the 24th seed played the 50th seed tor the big pot after all the big names had been eliminated earlier in the week. Match play is just an occa- sional aberration in tourna- ment golf. Medal play, of course, is designed to keep the top attractions on the course and playing for the entire week. The foregoing is a round- about way of introducing Grant Connell, the North Van product who has just been named to the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. In case you hadn’t heard, his sport is tennis, which has no second option, as does golf, to assure the customers that the big names will still be around on Saturday and Sunday. So, how do the pro- moters and sponsors protect themselves against no-name commercial disasters such as Sunday’s golf final? Pre-sell all the seats for the entire week, Connell says. Bur to do that, the pro- moters have to be able to announce the big names — Sampras, Agassi. Rafter, Kafelnikov and company — detinitely will be there, swinging their racquets tor as long as they keep advancing. And this is how it’s done. If, for example, there’s a mil- lion dollars in prize money available at a given tourna- ment, the event is advertised as maybe 2 $300,000 compe- tition. The rest of the loor is used to pay appearan.¢ to the stars, just to make certain they'll be there. This looks after the pre-sale and, with luck, a couple of them will still be there at the end of the week. Connell points out, how- ever, that no appearance paid at the Big Four — Wimbledon and the U.S., Australian and French Opens. They, and especially Wimbledon, transcend the star system. The events are bigger than the players. Wimbledon is so big, so sponsor-rich and commands so much TV lolly, it’s able to pay out the most prize money in the game and still clear 20 million pounds 3 year. Just how much of this profit is accounted for by miniscule bowls of strawber- nies and cream at S14 a pop, Connell doesn't knov he docs know that be! retirement, just over ago, Wimbledon was his favourite stopover. Partly because he'd rather play on grass than any other times in that competi- orphan, men’s doubles {in 1993, 94 and 96). Ic wasn’t the way he had things planned when he took up the game at the North Shore Winter Club. Connell was a 15-year-old student at Argyle, dividing his time berween hockey and competitive swimming, when he first became serious about tennis. A natural, as the saying goes, he won an athletic scholarship to Texas A&M at 17, wens from last to num- ber one on the school team by 19, then turned pro. He says he couldn’t break an egg his first owa years on the tour, but along the way discovered doubles play. Having never climbed higher than 67th in singles, most of his 11 more than two-and-a-ha million came tre 4 doubles. Partners © Canadian ar career earnin of Glenn Michibata to American Patrick Galbraith helped him reach 48 career finals, 22 championships, a number one world ranking in 1993 and the world championship (with Galbraith) in 1995. “We didn’t draw flies,” he remembers. “No big names. More and more the star pl. ers are avoiding doubles. It a dying event, dominated by guys who can’t make it in singles play but are in doubles because th constantly teamed together. Bur it can be revived if some of the big names. start taking part again.” Recently married and back in Vancouver to stay, at least for new, Connell’s new job is point man for Tennis Canada, using his tour con- tacts to help get the best players available for the annual Canadian Open championships — men and women — in Toronto and Montreal. His heart's desire, though, would be to get a regular tour date tor Vancouver. But where to play it? “A stand alone tennis facility here would be like Mirabel. But if it can happen, the women would be a better buy than the men. More characters. Fight to 10 really marketable players.” Meanwhile he thinks it’s great to be in one place tor more than a week at a time. The Canucks and Grizzlies complain about long road trips His last one started Dee. 29 and ended Nov. 22. Time zones? All 24, How many air miles did he pile up? Enough that he travelled free of charge in his entire final year. How many countries did he play in? “fF couldn't really tell vou. But two I haven't played’in are India and China. ! had the opportunity one year to play in India, but instead I went to another tournament that week in Stockholm. Did you know, most ten- i in India are made of compressed cow dung?” No, I didn’t. Bur now that | do, Stockholm sounds like an attractive alternative.