34 - Wednesday, March 17, 1999 — North Shore News sidelines BASKETBALL ... A _for- mer News Athlete of the Week has nearly finished her post secondary basketball career. J.R. Payne graduated from Windsor Secondary in 1995 when she accepted a full scholarship from St. Mary’s College, San Francisco. Payne has led her team in assists, steals and three point shot percentage for the last two years. Last week, the 10th leading scor- er in West = Coast Conference tournament istory was named to the All West Coast Conference squad. Payne will graduate in May with a degree in French and plans to attend graduate school. eee GYMNASTICS ... North Vancouver's Flicka Gymnastics Club) member Lise Leveille and her coach Nancy Beyer are taking part in the prestigious Moscow World Stars meet. eee BASKETBALL ... The girls’ single-A elementary school basketball champi- onships were played out last week and saw the Norgate squad emerge victorious. The Norgate team beat a spirited Queensbury squad 29-19 in the final game. eee SLOPE SPORTS oe Collingwood, Seycove and Handsworth all had top ten finishes in the team stand- ings at the B.C. high school skiing and snowbearding championships on Red Mountzain, near Rossland. In the boys’ skiing com- petition, Chris McCullough took third with a combined slalom and giant slalom time of 2:17.59 to lead -. Collingwood to sixth place and Seycove’s Marcus Waring was first individually in 2:14.04 while his team came seventh. Seycove, led by David Short, claimed sixth; and Handsworth tenth in boys’ and girls’ snowboarding respectively. eee GYMNASTICS ate Seycove topped the girls’ team standings for “AA” schools at the B.C. high school gymnastics meet in Duncan with just one com- petitor. Jennifer Clarke, who won the Level 5 all-around title over seven others with a 34.475 total score based on firsts in floor exercise (9.20), balance beam (8.80) and vault (8.75), plus a fourth in’ uneven — bars (7.725), gave the Seyhawks enough team points to fin- ish first. Collingwood was fifth. Handsworth _ placed sixth, Sutherland 11th and Windsor 20th among “AAA” girls’ teams. Other individuals placing in the top dozen: Level 4: Kelsey Fleming (Sutherland) 12th out of 22 entrants; Level 3: Kathleen McConchie (Handsworth), fifth of 43; Level 2: Emma Seddon (Sutherland), fifth, and Kelsey Smart (Collingwood) ninth of 58; Level 1: Melanie Burgon (Sutherland), 12th of 61. — Robert Galster north shore news © SPORTS N. Van fencers carve first place in sabres Robert Galster News Reporter EN garde, North Vancouver. About 80 fencers descended on the municipality last weekend as the North Vancouver Fencing Club hosted the provincial championships in the cadet and junior categories at Lynn Valley's Seylynn Hall. The local club completely dominated the men’s sabre event where they finished with the top four plac- ings. Jason Whiteman led the charge in the category and was followed by Mahdi Shams, while Matthew Yun and Patrick Tam tied for third. The local club was started in 3985 and currently boasts about 40 members. In fencing the cadet category covers athletes under 17 years of age while the junior covers those younger than 20. Other North Vancouver contestants to place in the event were: ® Atanas Dimitrov placing first in the junior men’s foil and second in the cadet men’s foil events, @ Andrea Guild grabbed a share of third place in the cadet women’s foil and again in the cadet women's epee; &@ Leslie Andrews tied for third in the junior women’s foil and ® George Dimitrov tied for third piace in the mosqui- to men’s foil. The championships were organized by North Vancouver Fencing Club’s Zbigniew Pietrusinski who was pleased not only with the turnout for the event but also the rising popularity of the sport. “Since coming here in '81, it was the biggest cadet and junior tournament I’ve seen. To get them in one place was kind of amazing,” said Pietrusinski adding that positioning the tournament to coincide with spring break freed up a lor of the participants to travel. “It’s (fencing) growing (in popularity). Surprisingly, it’s growing in little towns like Smithers and Nelson ... it used to be just the Lower Mainland.” Bearing out his point was the variety of clubs repre- sented at the provincial championships. They included representatives from Vancouver, Vernon, Kelowna, Smithers, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Victoria and Aldergrove. In addition to last weckend’s success, nwo members of the local club recently returned from the Canada Winter Games in Corner Brook, Newfoundland in the wake of successful performances. Shams returned with a bronze medal in the men’s sabre while Dimitrov finished in 8th place in the men’s Avoiding Sai robert@nsnews.cont Av IT is called the beezy- , weezies, bottle ache, next morning suisses, ork-orks, screaming meanies, snozzle wob- bies, woofits and the blahs. Fer the foregoing and much of what is to follow, I'm indebted to the late Charles McCabe, a wonderful Irish-American essayist whose stuff appeared regularly in the San Francisco Chronicle dur- else who would be an on this 17th of Ireland. their descendants all over rhe world, but includes everyone Irishman, if just for the day ing the 1960s. What he was writing about, you'll no doubt have guessed, is the old-fashioned hangover, which a lot of peo- ple on the North Shore and elsewhere are going to be suffering tomorrow. It will be the result of indulging, perhaps without too much training, in the Irish vice of over-drinking in honour of St. Patrick. This painful awakening is not limited to the Irish or The Swedes, for instance, call it bone i karet or “pain in the roots of my hair.” The Germans call it katzenjammer or “the wailing of cats.” Italians call it stonato or “out of tune” and the French call it guelle de bois or “woody mouth” while Norwegians may have the mosi accurate description of all — jeg bar tommermenn or “workmen in my head.” * Perhaps the most pic- turesque description of all comes trom Mexico — crada moral, This is where you feel so terrible in the morning, every bad thing you ever did in your life comes back to you, and with it, the sadiy impossible hope of retribu- tion. What causes a hangover? If the doctors weren’t taking this week off, they’d be avail- able to tell us it is really an acute form of fatigue. Booze acts upon those brain cells thast ordinarily tell us we are tired. Tt biacks them out. So, we stay up far longer than we should, and get to bed far later than we usually do. Thus, jogging or a fast set of tennis or going for a vigorous walk (all of which are about as close as today’s prose piece will come to the subject of sport) are about the werst things you can do. You'll be flogging a pretty dead horse. Likewise the often prescribed cups of black coffee. Coffee is a stimulant and just about the last thing your body needs. Hangover remedies are as varied as national drinks. The Russians like salted cucumber juice and the Norwegians drink a glass of heavy cream. The Swiss use brandy with peppermint, while over here we tend to bloody Marys, prairie oysters or aspirin. The plain truth about these sorts of remedies is that the best one is the one you think works best. The katzen- jammers really are all in your head. Obviously, because fatigue is what you’re suffering from, the only real hangover cure is sleep and rest. If you’re not a nine-to- fiver this is fine and joyously prescribed. Unhappily, most people are nine-to-fivers and must face the day ahead. For them McCabe had a couple of recommendations, based on long experience. There are hangovers thar NEWS photo Paul McGrath LAST weekend's provincial fencing championships were hosted by the North Vancouver Fencing Club at Seylynn Hall and featured 80 fencers battling for the top honours in several categories. nt Pat’s green meanies affect the head and those that affect the stomach. And there are hangovers that affecc both. ) The only thing you can-do about a headache is rake one of the many headache pills available. : For gippy tummy his sov- ereign remedy was a terrible. tasting concoction of herbs called Fernet-Branca. You down it in one bitter gulp. The effects, he swore, Were instantaneous and miraculous. Of course there is one way, on this day so perversely Irish thar it honours not the birth date — bur the death dare — of the country’s patron saint, to have no cause for a hangover cure. And that is not co drink anything stronger than milk or tea, although in my experi- ence I have tasted tea in Ireland that would straighten the spine of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. In any event, Slainre!