Time to play ball! Baseball and: softball are in full swing on the North Shore. From Deep Cove to Horseshoe Bay ~- and all points in between -- boys and girls donned their caps and lifted heir bats tor a brand new season of strikes and balls and outs. Sotthall girls celebrated the opening of a new diamond at West Varcouver’s Sentinel secondary. Highlands Little League said good bye fo tireless volunteer Dan Mel aug ‘in. And a new batch of cookies kick campaign at Cypress Lirtle League's home ballpark, Rockridge middle school. edeatf the Wednesday. Apri! 28, 1999 - North Shore News - 43 NEWS photo Brad Ledwldge A Port Coquitlam Raven makes it to second safely in a game against the West Vancouver Eagles. "NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge Alison Reynotds (left) and Gemma Pollock catch the opening pitches trom mayor Pat Boname and school trustee David Stevenson at Sentinel sec- ondary’s new softbail diamond. NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge Opening day jitters for members of the Cypress Park Little League Comets, who wait for their first game of 1999 at Rockridge Middle School. Stanley Cup format shou THE way I see it, the National Hockey League has come up with a wonderful opportunity to make history. Given this year’s Stanley Cup plavotf schedule, if the final series lasts the full seven games (which it hasn't since the Canucks- Rangers set-to in 199-4), the shinny-sur- glace season will end June 22, Give commissioner Gary Bettman fill marks tor imagi- nation. The NHL, with a possible playoff windup on the second official day of summer, now can truthfully brag it’s a game for all sea- sons, Uneil chis vear. it covered oniy fall, winter and spring. Making it into summer might open new playoff vistas, For instance, how about the sev- eath game of the final sched- spectatos uled as pare of the July 1 Canada Day celebrations early in the next century? On second thought, thar might not work, By then there could be no Canadian teams lett in the league. Maybe Bettman could arrange for the ultimate game to begome part of the July 4 Indcpendence Day show. And played in a hot weather city like Dallas or Phoenix, it could be something really special — the players replac- ing their skates with gun- boots as they prope! che puck through the driven slush. Ridiculous? Of course. Bur no more ridiculous than Don Cherry intoning, as he does every vear ac this time: “Now the real season begins!” Really? Then just what in hell was that 82- game schedule, covering Nearly seven months, all about? Was that just Practice time the stickers were paying $70 a seat to watch? Essentially, ves. Look at ir this way, At the end of six and a half months of regular season play, Dallas Stars had more points than any other team in the league. Bur they'll have to win the Stanley Cup to,be remem- bered as the best of the 1998-99 semester. Such is the Stantey Cup Iype, tirsi place over the long haul counts tor nought in the public memory. Bar back to the pending Midsummer Night's Nightmare. Has it ever NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge Longtime Highlands Little League coach, umpire and presi- Washington. dent Dan McLaughiin throws the first pitch for the last time. McLaughlin volunteered for 22 years. He's moving to occurred to you that if base- ball took as fong to complete its season and playotts, the seventh game of the World Series would be played about a week before Christmas? That if the NFL took as Jong ro complete its schedule and playotts, they could play the Super Bow! outdoors in Seattle? On the second Sunday in May. What Cherry and many players dub “the real season™ means that alter nearly nine weeks of play, each member of the championship team will receive $50,000. During the regular schedule most of them make that much — and more — in a single week. For the team owners, however, it definitely is the real season, The players no longer are on salary, The kindly boss gets to keep most of the gate receipts, If his mercenaries can keep plaving umil mid-June, he has hela hope of finishing in the black. i may be as old-fashioned asa road apple puck, but I like the idea of cup and league play intermingling during the regular season, as it does in soccer, where league champion and cup champion get equal recogni- tion. It would mean returning the Stanley Cup to its origi- nal status as a challenge tro- phy and letting evervone, say, toa total of 32 teams in or our of the NHL, having a crack at it. Play back-to-back home and away games in each round, away goals to count double asa means of avoiding repia Only four weekends ina 28-week-long schedule would be needed to decide the nwo trualists, who would then play 4 Auckev- traditional best-of seven series right after the mid-April end of league play. By the end of the month id be refashioned it would be all over and we could all be outside, enjoying the darling buds of May, instead of wasting the long sunny evenings in front of our TV sets for another seven weeks of the same old stuff. Right? Right. The News would like ta conqratulate Jim Kearney on his induction to the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. Kearney was hon- oured Tuesday at the 31st annual Banquet of Champions. The,77-vear-old Bawen Islander beqan his newspaper career 39 years nao with the Victoria Times and das worked as a reporter and columnist with the Vancouver Sun, Province, Reuters, Canadian Press and CBC Radio, Along the way be bas covered four summer Olympics, three winter Olympics, three Commonwealth Games and several Stanley Cup finals.