40 — Wednesday, September 2, 1998 - North Shore News COULD a fast-talking salesman convince you to buy a yet-to-be- built condo, for which the blueprints are not yet complete and with no guarantee that it won't leak? He might if you’re as thick as a block of granite and he had a gun in your back. This analogy came to mind in late August as the Orca Bay advertising machine started to gear up for yet another hockey sea- son, urging onc and all to buy various scason ticket packages to the 1998-99 Canucks games. Despite the team’s atro- cious record of the past two seasons. Despite the face it hasn’t yet acquired a first class goalic. Despite the fact it has lost a probable 50 goals with Pavel Bure’s refusal xo play another game for Vancouver. Despite the fact the team has lost its best attacking defenceman, Jyrki Lummi, to free agency and the Phoenix Coyotes. And despite the fact, if you have the stomach for it, you'll be able to catch more than half the home and away games on TV, you may be certain that about 10,000 season tickets will be sold by _ the time the new season opens a month from now. Barnum was right. There really is one born every minute. So was Alexander Pope. He’s the guy who sug- gested hope springs eternal in the human breast. Also that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. That was 300 years ago. He knew a dedicated hockey fan when he saw one. In case you hadn’t noticed, September arrived yesterday. In most countries this is the month of harvest festivals. In Canada they run a distant second, for this is the month the hockey season starts. Training camps open in about 10 days. The Canucks, as usual, rs wil will lead the league in high class surroundings. Once more they'll train at Whistler. And because the union contract permits the wage slaves to be put upon for only one practice a day, theyll wind up spending more time hitting tee shors ai Nicklaus North than prac- tising slapshots at the local ice arena. If there was real justice in the smail world of hockey, something to give the Vancouver fans a little more than just high hopes, they'd be pitching their camp next week in Prince George, downwind of the city’s pulp mills. There they'd be able to live 24 hours a day with the sort of smell they regularly generated the last two sea- sons at GM Place. Fitting? Certainly. Motivational? Just maybe. But be it Prince George or Whistler, one thing will not change. The media coverage will be intensive, extensive and jargely irrelevant. Optimism will prevail, especially among the reporters who work for the stations that hold the TV and radio rights to the Canucks games. There will be stories about young prospects, their names hitherto known only to immediate families and close relatives, who just may be the answer to the missing Bure, the departed Lumme and, if the Canucks don’t manage to swing a dea! for Toronto’s demoted Felix Potvin, to that four-by-six gap in goal. The coverage will be constant and fulsome. Indeed, | have it on good authority that The Vancouver Sun, by not sending a reporter to Kuala Lumpur to cover Canadian athletic endeavor at the Commonwealth Games, will use the money saved to dou- ble, triple and even quadru- ple-team the events at Whistler. That‘ll teach those Commonwealth Games peo- ple not to schedule their quadrennial clambake in the same week as something truly important — the Canucks training camp. So what if some B.C. athletes win gold and there’s no Sun reporter there to interview them? The important thing is Whistler will be covered like a blanket of snow. And if some kid from Gopher Groin, Sask., shows even a passing resemblance to Bure, Register for bowling *TIS the season to get your bowling balls buffed. The Greater Vancouver Tenpin Association is calling for | bowlers to regisrer in one of their recognized leagues. The Vancouver and District Junior Tenpin Bowling Association, the Vancouver and District Women’s Bowling Association, and the Greater Vancouver Tenpin Association collectively boast 5,500 members who bow! in 130 leagues from Vancouver to Abbotsford. The leagues bowl weekly from September to May, which includes a number of tour- naments throughout the year. Interested bowlers should reg- ister now before time runs out. In West Vancouver, call Park Royal Lanes at 925-0005. north sh ore news @ SPORTS The Sun won't be short of a reporter to give him the full treatment. Perspective is everything. But then, when it comes to the mindset of the dedi- cated fan, perspective is nothing. If he was a rational being — remember, fan is short tor fanatic — he'd remember last season and the season before; he'd contemplate the prospects for a team in the Canucks’ current state of disrepair and chen he'd make a sensible decision. He’d stay home and watch the first pve months of the schedule on TV. if, by Christmas, the Canucks were showing they SEPTEMBER 12-20 Entries close September 4, 1998 Ranked, Competitive, Recreational, all players welcome! Complimentary T-Shirt to all participants could be a playoff contender, only then would he go out and buy tickets for the rest of the season. If they were showing nothing, then he would take the money he saved and use it as a down payment on a waterfront home in West Vancouver, But he won’e. When he hears and reads all the encouraging reports from Whistler, he'll take out a second mortgage on the old homestead and once more become a season sub- scriber. On second thought, Barnum didn't get it quite right. It’s not every minute. It’s every second. £t0¢e nout* 7. PRINTING & MAIUNG {TO north shore # KINS YS ACTIVE SHORTS CARE yyisun SPORTS FAP PARE ROYAL Tournament information: 983-6556 Entry forms available at all recCentres | spend on Ganuck season |