E PREESTYLE SKIING... + Glen Mitterrdorfer fin- ; ished 13th in the mogul com- ' SEES aos aon =, pees Sete Se eg a Sportsmanlike Team honors. . Li Christine ta Natasha Andrews, Shelby ] Dolter, Sepa a na ey petition at last weekend’s Nor-Am Freestyle stop at Fortress Mountain in Alberta. The North Vancouver % skier is returning from a knee-injury that saw him A miss early-season racing. ees RINGETTE... The North Shore Winter Club’s Petite * ‘A’ girls’ team won a silver medal at the recent & Edmonton Silver King tour- : nament, Coach Jeff Mann saw his ; nine-member squad play their best ringette of the sea- son, as the team went a per- fect 4-0 before losing to the Calgary Lightnings in the tourney final. In addition to winning the ert silver medal, the Winter Club ‘¥; team was awarded Most Team members include: Kristen Gray, Mann, Karen Andrews, #2: Tiffany © ‘Michalok,. Jenma Mosher. § Lauren . Oddleifson and } | is managed by Kay Gray. favorite . tennis-playing «son Grant Conneli and new AG Felicity Ribalkin. The tcam i North Van’s a @ doubles partner Byron Black . “S ee SS RES poser: Seer # cruised to their first’ tourna-. j ment title at the Dubai Open @ on Sunday. ‘The pride of the North # Shore. Winter Club and Black, competing in their # frst tournament as" a team, beat the Czech Republic's ie Karel Novacek and Jiri ¢ 8) Novak 6-0, 6-1. : GRANT CONNELL - Next up for Connell and Fe his Zimbabwe partner is the ATP Tour tournament in E | Memphis. eee CA OR : WINTER GAMES COR; ! = tion contained _ scheduling information. RECTION... Information supplied to the North Shore News and published in last Sunday’s special 1996 Winter Games pull-out sec- Figure skating on Friday, Feb, 23 at the North Shore Winter Club is a practice ses- incorrect 7% {sion only, No figure skating | bee medals wil! be presented on Friday. ayn Ort PTR ee, Ee Marathoner on WHEN NORTH Vancouver marathon runner Bruce Deacon learned he’d qualified for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta he hit the sauna, By Neville Judd Contributing Writer It seemed the most practical way to simulate the conditions he'll be facing next summer. “[’ve been going to a couple of saunas and‘ running on the spot,” explained Deacon. “I've been getting a few strange looks." If you think that a little extreme, consider this: measurements carried out in Georgia last summer on the exact date less a year of this sum- mer’s marathon recorded road tem- peratures on Atlanta's streets of 146° F, more than 50° C. Throw in 100% humidity and that sauna begins to sound pretty comfortable. “No one’s going to run fast,” Deacon predicted. “It’s a gross course, more hills than you would believe, awful weather.” Despite that, the Richmond Kajak member is the first to admit that mak- ing it to the Olympics fulfills a life- long dream. Making the Olympics was more of a fairy tale than an actual realistic aspiration,” Deacon said, adding that things really began to move for him when he started training with the Kajaks in 1990 when he arrived on ; the North Shore from Ottawa. ‘Then I started making breakthroughs.” Those breakthroughs led to a ninth place finish in the 1994 Commonwealth Games and an i lth at the World Championships in Sweden last summer. Wanting to complete a marathon Olympic course in under the Olympic entry standard of two hours, 16 minutes, the North Van teacher/principal duly obliged in December by winning _ the Sacramento Marathon in 2:13:59. “tt hasn't fully hit me yet,” Deacon admitted about his pending Olympic experience. “It's something you dream about for such a fong time, it motivates you through the wet, cold rainy nights, the nights training in Oitawa in minus 25 degrees and a blowing gale. It's thoughts of making the Olympics that make you want to suffer enough to achieve it.” Deacon was somewhere around the age of the Grade 4 to 6 pupils he teaches at King’s Christian School when he first prayed for a sport he could excel at. At age 11 he discov- ered running as the answer to his prayers. One year later he competed in his first-ever marathon, finishing the race in an impressive sub-3:30 time. “Any athlete who's going to com- pets for 18 years is going to go through a lot of peaks and valleys,” Deacon said. “I credit Jesus for get- ting me through the valleys. Without him I wouldn't have had the strength to see the peaks. And though he sees his faith as the comerstone of his athletic suc- cess, he also credited something he | heard many years ago: “My father once told me he was pleased { was enjoying my running and that I was good at it — but world class? He didn’t think so.” Deacon knew his father wasn't trying to be mean, just honest. “But nothing that any coach or trainer ever told me motivated me more to succeed than what my dad said to me that day.” Neville Judd is ‘ihe sports editor of The Richmond News. WHO TO CALL: Sports Editor Andrew McCredie 985-2131 (147) pe MARATHON RUNNER Bruce Deacon laced up | a a ilfe-ton dream in December as he qualified to compete in the men's ma hon ‘at this summer's Olympic Games In Atlanta. ckey Nuts cross the ' YOU DON’T have to be crazy to become totally fixated on some project, but sometimes it helps. And to actually admit it and advertise it is an added dimension most zealots don’t care to talk about. " But not the London Ice Hockey Nuts Club, That's London, as in jolly old England. These overseas hockey fans are Exhibit A in proving that the word “fan” indeed derives from fanatic. If their club and their fanaticism can survive last Saturday's stinker at the Garage between the Canucks and a team from Bosior, masquerading as Bruins, then they might be in for as long a run as Magna Carta. Proudly wearing a pinkish necktie Jim Kearney _ spectator the storied sions. bearing the Anaheim and Boston. . Last night they watched the Sharks in Calgary, tonight and Friday they'li see the Kings and Bruins in Edmonton and then fly home Saturday, They count their vis- its in terms of games, not days. Days between the games are consid- ered a waste of time. For instance, during their week on the coast they also did the obliga- tory tourist things — day trip to Victoria, the ride up Grouse Mountain, the walk across the Capilano Suspension Bridge and similar diver- “All very nice,” reported de Mesquita, “but monogram LIHNC, club leader Norman de Mesquita (how’s that for a fine old English name?) sat in the press box during three periods of rubbish and declared he had thoroughly enjoyed himself. And he had no doubt that another 16 club members, down below among the paying cus- tomers, enjoyed it every bit as much. If that’s the case, then these guys truly are nuts. And have been for a long time. They've been making these annual pilgrimages to Canada and the States since 1979. This was their first trip out west because the object of the exercise is to fit in as many games as possible in a two-week pertod. So they headed to Vancouver to see the Canucks play Winnipeg, given a choice, they'd rather have been watching hockey.” So, who is this Spanish-sounding Londoner? He's a freelance journalist, who does work for the BBC, chiefly as a cricket commentator. He's 64, saw his first-ever hockey game at Wembley Arena in 1946 and fell in love with the pastime. Fell in love to the extent of learning how to skate and became a referee for [4 years in the English National League during the 1950s and ‘60s, at which time he also covered the Wembley, Harringay and Earls Court arena franchises for the still thriving weekly British magazine, /ce Hockey World. Hockey in England now has 24 senior level teams in three divisions, with annual promotion and relegation. But the problem for de Mesquita (his antecedents came to London from Spain in:. the early 19th Century) i is that there ; are no teams, in the country’s largest city. . ‘The Harringay and Earls Court sites are oct, pied by highrises and Wembley is so busy it doesn’t have room for hockey. It wasn't always” thus. Back in the dirty ‘30s, it was heaven for. / fanadian players not quite good enough to play in e NHL. They played to packed houses and lived the: good life in Mayfair mews flats on the £10 a week and bonuses they were earning at a time when. Britain's top soccer players were earning only £2 a week. . The start of the Second World War i in 1939 ended their idyllic existence. The league resumed after the war at a less talented level and has being going ever since. But, for the last couple of decades, with no London teams. A travel agent friend, looking to boost his busi- ness, suggested trips across the Atlantic for hock- ey-starved fans in London. That was in'1979 and de Mesquita has been the tour leader ever since." First time out they went te New York and - fanned out to games in Boston, Hartford, Long Island and Philadelphia as well as Madison Square Garden. Two years ago was the best. ; Thirty hockey nuts saw four games in Toronto, four in Buffalo and one in each of Detroit and Hamilton. Club members who can afford it, make the trip every year. Most of them do it every second or third year. This year’s trip cost them the equivalent of $2,300 Canadian for transportation and game tickets. Meals, drinks and tours are extra. “We are,” says de Mesquita, “the hockey nuts.” : You can say that again.