GRUDGE MATCH TIME FOR LACROSSE SQUAD

The North Shore indians Senior B lacrosse team, undefeated in its
first five games this season, will do battle witii the Abbotsford
Bandits Friday night at 8 p.m. at the North Van Rec Centre. Last
season at the Canadian Championships the two sides met in the
final, where the Bandits handed the indians a 9-5 loss. League-
teading scorer Al Truant will lead the way for the tribe.

KEVIN.“T-bone” Tkachuk:

piayed for Capifano RFC:
clubs

Jan-Christian Sorensen
Contriineting Writer

a -
“rugby. mre toa 29-11

victory over Tonga in
Epson Cup action
Saturday at UBC.
“Saskatchewan. native Kevin
Tkachuk — : better‘ known as
“T-bore” to his friends and
teammates — played prop for-
ward with the local squad
from. 1994 to 1996 and
-attended :. Capilano’ College
“duting that time.
. Saturday’s game
‘Tkachuk’s first eepresenting
the counrry.
-; \> He’s currently enrolled in
~ the University of Victoria and
last season helped to anchor

othe fon row Tor the British

NEWS photo Paul McGrath

COACH David Clari, in whitz, got down and dirty as the Canadian national rugby
squed practised scrum break-out plays at Klahanie Park last week.

Columbia Rugby — Union
(BCRU) champion Castaway
Wanderers out of the Capita!

city.

Rugby Canada liaison
Craig Slay said he expects the

six-foot Tkachuk to be a fix-
ture of the national team. for
years tocome.

“He'll be around for the
next six or. seven ‘years at
least,” he said. “He’s a big
man and he’s incredibly
mobile. He can move around

Jean Beliveau

- September training
’. camp beyond the city
fienits of Montreai.

| _ This one time they came as

far west as possible, setting up

. shop in Victoria's Memorial

Arena and the Empress Hotel.

“This singular visit came to

’... mind last week when Jean
'’ Beliveau disclosed he now is

fighting cancer — a malignant

tumour in his neck. His past
glories, and there were many,
were bountifully recorded in

. the nation’s dailies, for this

~ gall and dignified nian is one
of hockey’s greatest icons.

The trip to Victoria came
just after the retirement of
that other Montreal icon,

- Rocket Richard, who also
returned to the news last
week when stomach cancer —
“which had gone into remis-
sion after the first alarm two
years ago — returned and

~~ sent him into hospital, where,

ze

TS Pa RE Ae Te Hm

at time of writing, he was still
alive but decidedly unwell.

But today’s piece, because
of an almost local but unpub-
licized angle, will be about
Beliveau.

It has been dutifully
recorded in recent days that
he played for 10 Stanley Cup
winners and captained five of
them, a record beyond
approach j in an NHL where

© watering-down process,
free agency and ludicrous pay-
roils have combined to climi-
nate anything approaching a
dynasty.

Recorded, as well, is the
fact this man turned down
proffered appointments to the
Senate anda as Governor-

* Hockey Night in

TTS earn Heehhoeheene

the field very fast.”

The Epson Cup game is
part of a six-nation tourncy
that pits Canada teams
from the United States, Fiji,

Japan, Tonga and Samoa.

Another Capilano RFC
player, Ron Johnstone, was
named a reserve player for
Canada as a late addition.
Johnstone, however, did not
see any action during the

game.
Both Tkachuk and

General because being a full-
time surrogate father to two
grandchildren, who lost their
father when they were mere
babes, was more important to

Pit nrecorded, however, was
an incident at that long age
Victoria training camp that
likely still fives as a class act in
the minds of a few middle-
aged men, who were just
school kids at the time, in
search of players’ autographs
following a Saturday morning
practice.

While appreciating what
Beliveau did for them that
morning, they still may be
wondering just why this most

- elegant of centre ice stars and

his illustrious teammates came
all the way to Victoria to get
ready for the new season. So,
first of all, we'll deal with that
lirdle mystery.

This was a time when
Cannda’s
Foster Hewitt and the
Toronto Maple Leafs owned
the West. Nationally televised
hockey was still relatively new
and all the Saturday nigh

SAE SE

Johnstone are former players
on national team coach Dave
Clark's Pacific Pride develop-
ment squad out of Victoria.

_ With a few roster “moves

"Capilano PREC member
Bob Bren:ner also tried out for
the national squad earlier this
year but didn’t make the cut.

was more than

telecasts originated in
Toronto. They were merely a
continuation of the now icg-
endary Hewitt national radio
broadcasts, dating back to the
early 1930s.

As far as the West knew or
cared, there was just one
NHL team in Canada — the
Maple Leafs. Bert Olmstead,
who finished his career in
Toronto but was a member of
the Canadiens dynasty that
won a record five straight
Stanley Cups from 1956 to
1960, used to tell a story
about the total Toronto grip
on the minds and loyalties of
westerners.

He had come home to his
farm near Sceptre, Sask., in
the, s rin of 1958, in the

of that championship
avnasi “and was greeted on
the town’s main street by an
oldtimer he knew. The con-
version went like this:
perliey there, Bert.
eeer OU been all win-

ocken™ “a Montreal, playing
“is that right? What kind

Wednesday, May 24, 2000 —

North Shore News - 41

RASOR TWINS TAKE TWO IN VICTORIA

The North Shore Jr. Twins baseball squad posted a 2-1-
1 record at the annua! Victoria Day classic on the Island
this weekend. The squad eked out a 1-0 win over the
Victoria Capitals and defeated Ferndale High 5-4 for the
pair of wins, but tied Dow Baseball of Washington State
3-3 in extra innings and dropped an 8-0 game to the

Cowichan Canadians.

PLAY

Rounding up
rugby playoffs

TT’S playoff time for
several North Shore
boys and girls rugby
leagues.

On the boys side,
Balmoral’s junior rugby
squad defeated Carson
Graham 30-7 to claim the
North Shore and Vancouver -
and District Championship
title on May 18
Balmoral will now advance
to play the Fraser Valley
champ on Friday at 3:45 p.m.
at Klahanie Park in North
Vancouver.

Also, beginning today and -
continuing through Saturday,
the provincial AA and AAA
rugby championships will

take place at UBC.

Each division wili field 16
teams from across B.C.
"Squads will play a total of
four tilts before champi-
onship play wraps up on
Saturday at Thunderbird
Stadium..

The AA final gees
Saturday at 12:30 p.m. with
rhe AAA tide on the fine at 2

Parson Graham will field a
AAA squad in the event,
while Collingwood will make
a AA appearance. Carson is
ranked second overall in the.
province while Collingwood.
is ranked

Meee hte, a sweet sea-
son ended on a sour note for
the Carson Graham AAA
girls rugby team.

After a best-ever 15-1 reg-
ular season showing, the
Carson Graham girls
squad dropped the B.C. invi-
tational tourncy to
Coquitlam 15-7 in ‘White
Rock on May 13.

-.« Aidan McKinnon scored a

and Andrea: Burk. Kicked.,,,
tle convert. for Carson in the

affair.

Following the game,
McKinnon was selected to
the President’s 15 team.
Sutherland’s Brooke Spence
was also honoured with 2
_ promotion to the clite squad.

To reach the title match,
the girls blanked Brookswood
from Langicy 35-0 in the first
round and defeated
Sutherland 25-0 in the sec-
ond round before handing
Cowichan a 33-5 licking in
the semi-finals. ‘

Head coach Brad Baker
said the loss was especially
hard because the girls played

witlam earlier in the year
and defeated them handily,
29-5.

The team will lose almost
half of their 32-player roster
this summer, but Baker is still
confident that they can con- ,

_tinue with their winning ways -; ~

next season.

. “Next year’ 's team will be
competitive,” said Baker, who *
has coached the squad for five a
years. “We'll definitely be»
among the top cight teams in -
the province.” :

_ Jan-Christian Sorensen .

a great player |

of year did you have?"

“Pretty good. We finished
first in the regular schedule.
Then we won the Stanley

up.”

“That’s nice, Bert. But
how about those Leafs? They
had a great season, didn’t
they?”

ks a matter of record,
Toronto finished dead last.

The lesson? Never under-
estimate the power of con-
stant brainwashing.

And that’s why Canadiens’
management of the day decid-
ed it might be a good idea to
have a training camp in the
West; just to let the people
out this way know there was
another NHL team in
Canada. Presumably, Victoria
got | the nod because that
city’s Cougars in the now
long gone professional
Western League were a
Montreal farm team, °

The incident was a small
one, but Beliveau’s handing
of it was a measure of the
man’s character and the
respect he commanded. The
players were re walking out of

the rink to the team bus, ¢ sdil

sweaty and in uniform, for

they had changed at the |

hotel. ;
Some st to sign the -

pieces of proffered paper. But

most ignored the kids and...

hurried onto the bus.

- Bringing up the cear, Beliveau >

saw what was . He
went to the bus door, ordered
the players back onto the
sidewalk and told them to .
keep signing as long as there | |.
was a youngster cut there still.”
in need of an aut h. To a

- man, and without audibie -

complaint, they obeyed their ‘

captain.

These kids,” he reminded .
them, “ are the future of our of

¢.”

One of the witnesses was ©
your agent, there on assign-
ment. His admiration of the
man, as a ayer an and a a person, .

_ hever stopped

The samme idbely applies too
the middle aged men who .
were the kids outside the
arena that long ago day. 2°
Hurry up and get better,
Jean.. . -_

ERSEED gies SH AARE SSG ETeietiee PRETENSE PERSE ROUAES ETERS