@ SPORTS Wednesday, June 9, 1999 - North Shore News - 43 north shore news Super league Stars come to Klahanie Bob Mackin News Reporter THE Vancouver North Stars rugby club hopes to douse the Prairie Fire Thursday. Without the help of rain. The North Stars are making their debut at West Vancouver's Klahanie Park after playing their inaugural 1998 season at Brockton Oval in Stanley Park. The team is the Vancouver Rugby Club's catry in Rugby Canada’s semi-professional Super League. The North Stars are coming off a 29-15 season-opening loss to the Crimson Tide last Saturday in Victoria. The North = Stars outscored their host. three trics to one, but Jeff Frender scored cight penalty kicks for the detending champion Tide. Troy MacDonald had the team's fone cry. Barry Ebl, Geoff Chalmers and Leif Carlson had Vancouver’s tries. North Stars’ coach and general manager Bill Turpin said the offici- ating of the match was suspect. “There was never any flow tw the game, it was just whistle, whis- tle, whistle,” Turpin said. “It basi- cally destroyed what could’ve been a really entertaining game.” fhe North Stars’ — roster includes ‘players from throughout the Premier League, including at least six from the Capilano Rugby Club: second row partners Ron Johnstone and Darren Graham; halfbacks Geoff Chalmers and Stuart Wright; winger Ryan Stewart and reserve Natsuki Kurosu. The team is led by captain Colin MeKenzie, a veteran of Burnaby Lake. “He brings a great deal of expe- rience at all levels of play and is ‘able to translate thar into clear, positive direction to his players on the field. We look for leadership from Colin.” The North Stars piayed at Brockton last season, burt moved VANCOUVER North Stars’ Ron Johnstone (‘eft), Colin McKenzie, Doug Whidden and Mark Reid practise Monday at Klahanie Park in West Vancouver. Tie Super League semi-professional rugby team's home opener is Thursday at 7 p.m. against the Prairie Fire. -across the Lions Gate Bridge because of scarce parking in Stanley Park. “It makes it difficult for fans to get to Brockton anymore. The parking is the problem. If you do manage to get parked, you hope you don’t get your car broken into.” The North Stars’ first oppo- nent on the North Shore is the Regina-based Prairie Fire. The 0- 2 team is the Saskatchewan Rugby Union's entry in the Super League and has a budget of $220,000. Turpia says “We have the potential, if we stay healthy, to field a team that should — fy be entertaining for the fans.” his budget is about $25,000. “Their manager Kar! Fix spends a great deal of rime traveling around to recruit players from other parts of the country to play for Saskatchewan.” The Fire “brigade” includes imports like Irish fly half Brendan O'Farrell, Welsh 4 half Jason Durbin, and South African Dean Coetzer. The Fire organiza- tion is modelled after the Canadian Football, League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. More than 2,000 fans were at the Fire’s home open- cr last Saturday when Calgary won 26-25 with an injury time try. The North Stars are one of three Super League tcams in southwestern B.C. along with the Tide and the Surrey-based Valley Venom. . None of ‘the tcams are subsi- dized by the B.C. Rugby Union. The North Siars rely on ticket sales, sponsorships and donations to fund the team. “It's a difficult sale for us, but we hope we're going to make the game sufficiently attractive that people will want to come out and watch cach of the games. We have the potential, if we stay healthy, to field a team that should be enter- taining for the fans.” Kickoff is 7 p.m. Tickets are S10. The Vancouver North Stars play in the Western Conference of the 13-team Rugby Canada Super League. The semi-profession- al circuit, founded in 1998, is modelled atter feagues in England, Australia and the United States. Victoria's Crimson Tide defeated the Nova Scotia Keiths 28-8 in Halifax on July 11, 1998 to win the first championship. 1999 TEAMS Black Spruce Rugby, Fredericton, N.B.; Calgary Mavericks; Crimson Tide, Victoria; Eastem Oni tario Harlequins, Otrawa; Edmonton Gold; Manitoba Buffalo, Winnipeg: Montréal Menace; Nova Scotia Keiths, Halifax; Prairie Fire, Regina; The Rock, St. John's; Toronto Renegades; Vancouver North Stars; Valley Venom, Surrey. VANCOUVER NORTH STARS SCHEDULE June 5: Crimson Tide 29 Vancouver 15, Victoria Thursday: Prairie Fire @ Vancouver, Klahanie Park, West Vancouver dune 19: Vancouver @ Calgary Mavericks, Calgary dune 20: Vancouver @ Manitoba Buffalo, Winnipeg dune 27: Edmonton Gold @ Vancouver, Klahanie Park, West Vancouver duly 3: Valley Venom @ Vancouver, Klahanie Park, West Vancouver duly 24 or 25: final game, home of westem champion STANDINGS Week three through June 5 Western division Team Valley Venom Edmonton Gold Crimson Tide Manitoba Butfaio Caigary Mavericks Prairie Fire Vancouver COnawauan te -~N44o40r eoooesoos onunnaaae -MNH ANA DO Eastern division Montreal Menace 1 Black Spruce Rugby 1 E.Ontario Harlequins 0 Nova Scotia Keiths 0 The Rock 0 Toronto Renegades 0 Nationa IF one can simultane- ously bogele while turning over in one’s grave, then old Lord Stanley must be the world’s most popeyed and fastest-spinning cadaver on this virtual mid-summier’s eve. For the fifth straight year, the $50 rose bow! he donat- ed for “the hockey champi- onship of the Dominion,” is being contested by nyo U.S.- based reams. Either Buffalo or Dallas will be remembered — if remembered at all in the ocean of hype washing over all sport these days — as the last team this century to win the wopby donated in 1893 by Canada’s fitth governor- general, Less memorable will be the facr the 1994 Vancouver Canucks are the last Canadian-based team to reach the Cup final in the 20th century. Its aditde piece of memorabilia the locals will be able to put onto one of the many empty shelves in their display case. Montreal Canadiens were the last Canadian-domiciled team to actually win the Cup this century. That was in 1993. You might do well to mark it down because, very likely, we'll be well advanced into the 21st century betore or if — it ever happens again. The reasons, of course, are obvious. And they aii add up ta money. . This has been a bad spring for inventors of games, We are so Wrapped up in our national sports pastime, we tend to forget alot af other things in a-sporting nature ave going on in the rest of the world. Hfyou think :he foregoing is sort of tough on Canadian egos, think of the poor bloody English. At the same time Toronto Maple Leats were disappear- ing from this year's Stanley Cup play, England was being, eliminated in the opening round of the World Cup of Cricket. And, to add to the general embarrassment, the inventor of this most quintes- sential of all English games is the host country. So, England is merely a spectator this week as the teams dubbed the Super Six — India, Pakistan, Austratia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and New Zealand — move on to decide a championship replacement tor Sri Lanka, also a first round casualty. I'm ceasonably certain, though, that thoughtful Englishmen have not been setting records the past few days for the running high dudgeon, They must be get- ting used to this sort of thing, inasmuch as their ancestors invented many of the games we play today and their descendants can’t seem to wir at any of them, any- more, In overall international ratings, the country that invented soccer barely scrapes iato the top 10, Manchester United’s heroics last month notwithstanding. The list goes on. The world’s best rugby countries are the All- Blacks, the Springboks and the Wallabies. No Englishman has won the Wimbledon singles final since Fred Perry in 1936. On and on it goes, includ- ing, obviously, cricket, the most English game of all. Ir goes back 700 years in English history. In Elizabethan times it was known as “creckett.” The Marylebone Cricket Club coditied it in 1835. During, the rest of the 19th century England exported it to every corner of the then far flung Empire. The Empire is long gone, but if there's a fasting legacy thar supersedes all others in the former British colonies and dominions, it is cricket. Wherever the English intra- duced the pastime, it not only took coor, it became a national passion. Except in one country, Canada. Oh, we've had cricket here for a couple of cen- turics, but it never became our dominant summer sport. That’s largely because the Americans were reconstruct- ing another English inven- tion, baseball, in their own image. This is the bat and ball game we took up. Just in case you were wondering, Jane Austen makes reference to baseball, by that very name, in Northanger Abbey, which she wrote in 1798. That was 41 years before Abner Doubleday allegedly inveated the game. Which, of course, he didn’t, American hype to the contrary. ' But the U.S. and Canada do share a first: in 1844 they plaved each other in the first ever international cricket match. On a more local scene, cricket was the first team sport played in B.C. The Victoria Pioncer Cricket Club, formed in 1849, played regular matches against sides from Royal Navy ships sta- I sports languish in Canada and U.K. . tioned at Esquimalt. Indeed, Victoria was cricket-mad, as’ witness this notice inf the British Colonist _ in the spring of 1863: “The first cricket match of the sea- son will be played tomorrow at Beacon Hill. Lovers of this, our distinctive national sport, are requested to attend.” Our distinctive national spore? Why not? This was eight years before we decided to join Canada. Some might say Victoria hasn’t joined yet. Certainly an early century Colonist sportswriter hadn't really joined. Following the first ever hockey game played there Jan. 3, 1912, he wrote: “With all duc deterence to hockey, U think cricket is a trifle faster.” Nearly 90 years later, ic might be nice if Canadian hockey were to send a note of condolence to English cricket. Also, let them know at the same time, and, in the spirit of misery loves compa- ny, that we, too, are having a bit of a tough time in our national sport.