. . sidelines CYCLING... Larry Zimich finished fourth in the Atomic Road Race in Vernon jast weekend. The North Vancouver rider completed the 135 km distance in three hours, 45 minutes. Zimich — travels to Courtney this Friday to defend the Canadian Multi Sport Championships’ cycling tithe he won last year, eee MOUNTAIN BIKING... Alison Sydor won the gold medal in the women’s cross country race Saturday at a World Cup mountain bike competition in Australia which is also serving as the test event for the 2000 Olympic Games. Sydor, 32, built a huge lead over the first ove of four laps and finished the 31.2 kilometre race in one hour and 40 minutes and 25 seconds. It was the 15th career World Cup victory for the 1996 Olympic silver medallist and defending Worid Cup champion. “It’s fantastic to win here,” said Sydor, third two weeks ago at the World ALISON Sydor won her 15ti? career smountain biking World Cup Saturday in Australia. Cup opener in California despite a chest infecticn. “I wasn’t expecting to be in top form this weekend but as soon as I grabbed a big lead I knew I'd be difficult to catch. “I have 18 months to think about the Olympic Games, and Ill have a real coniidence boost trom this periormance.” Fellow North Shore pro rider Leskey Tomlinson place 11th. With the win, Sydor grabs the overall World Cup lead after ovo of cight World Cup events with 420 points. SOCCER... Norvan Soccer Club has qualified for the Province Cup after blanking Surrey United B 1-nil Saturday in Surrey. Anthony Alavaro notched the lone marker for the locals who qualified for a one-game playoff with Surrey thanks to a strong late season surge. Norvan’s Nick Seddon may be lost for the year as he took a nasty blow to the head which lett him with stitches and a concussion. Pegasus S.C. and West Van Trollers have also qual- ified outright for the 16- team Province Cup tourna- ment which starts this weekend. Photo courtesy of B.C. Sports Hall of Fame THE 1936 Squamish Indians (above) won the Western Canadian box lacrosse championship. A!so known as the North Share indians, the team was one of the few Great Depression success stories hereabouts. Later this month the team will be inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. nan Arena heroes honoured THE National Post car- ried a big sports page story last week on the Toronto Rock, a box lacrosse team that’s averaging bevter than 11,000 customers a ¢ in recently vacat- ed Maple Leaf Gardens, This box office success story — just part of boffo business in the seven-team National Lacrosse League — ties in neatly with the subject of today’s prose piece, the Squamish Indians lacrosse team of the 1930s. They, too, used to draw 11,000 a game to the long gone Arena on the northwest corner of Denman and Georgia. Indeed, they were the hortest sports ticket in town, an outstanding and colourtul outfit that will be formally inducted, April 27, into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. In the more than 60 inter- vening years, crowds of this size for the boxed version of the field game were never seen in Canada. Toronto and the semi-pro league back cast have probably have got it right — on two counts: 1) Thev’re playing in the winter, when spectators would rather be indoors. 2) And, ata time when a family night out at NHL hockey and NBA basketball can run to more than $300, the price is right. By today’s standards, $15 co $20 a seat is truly a bargain. Circumstances were a little different in the Dirty *3Qs. The game was played in the summer, as it is today in these here parts. And at a time when, quite literally, hardly anyone had any money, the price was really right — 25 cents for league games, 50 cents for the play- offs. The Squamish Indians, also known as the North Shore Indians, were the guys who made the old Inter-City League one of the few Great Depression success stories hereabouts. The idea of an all-Native team, playing the game their forefathers invent- ed hundreds of years earlier, against such all-white teams as the Vancouver Homes, Richmond Farmers and the “They were the hottest sports ticket in town, an outstanding and colourful outfit...” Salmonbellies and Adanacs of New Westminster, had great popular appeal. Invented in Ontario in 1932, the boxed game arrived here in 1933. And, two years later, the first Indians team. Until then, the Indian players from the North Shore had been play- ing for the Salmonbellies. Andy Paul, who put the team together, brought them back home, recruited a covey of fine players from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario and turned them loose on the league. The Indians were an instant power. Richmond edged them out for a Mann Cup appearance in 1935, but the following year they won it all locally, then lost to Orillia for the national title in a series played in the East. As the story is told, they went cast on such a narrow shoe- string and with such meagre meal money, they were done in by malnutrition as much as by their opponents. Only the former Squamish Band chief, Simon Baker, remains from that fine team. All the others — his brothers, Henry and Ray, Stan and Moses Joseph, Harry Newman, Louie Lewis, Cece Van Every, Hubic Smith, Stu Bomberry, Beef Smith, Scotty Martin and others — are gone. Now rising 82, but back then an 18-year-old rookie breaking in with Richmond, Johnny Cavallin has ever- green memories of those times: “In 1935 we beat the Indians in the local final to get to the Mann Cup against Orillia, Boy, was that ever a team! Ray Baker, he was 2 grandad and he won the scor- ing ttle! “Most of the Indian play- ers worked as longshoremen. There was a waterfront strike that summer, so they were out of work and on the pick- et fine. All che fans were on theie side. One of our players was a big policeman named Angie McDonald. One of his jobs was escorting strike- breakers through the picket lines. “As soon as he stepped on the floor, the fruit and veg- etables came flying down at him. That wouldn't have been so bad if their aim had been better. We all caught it, including the Indians. My, the crowds were big. They were turning away from 3,000 to 5,000 people a game during our final against the Indians. “J'll tell you how big they were with the fans. The ticket centre was a United Cigar store at Granville and Dunsmuir, on the northwest comer. Tickets went on sale at nine in the morning, but people started lining up the evening before. The store issued numbers so you could leave, then come back and get your place in line. The Coionial movie house across the street opened its doors so many of them could sleep overnight there. “They weren't all lacrosse and Indians fans. That’s how some of them bought their groceries, scalping those four- bit tickets at five and 10 dol- lars a throw.” The old Arena, built in 1911 by the Patrick family for the start of major league hockey on the coast, burned to the ground in the late summer of 1936. : The Indians —~ and the league — finished out their season at the PNE Forum, where there were only half as many seats. - It didn’t matter. The crowds didn’t follow. But the Indians kept playing, finally folding the team in 1941 for the duration of World War Two. Andy Paul revived the team in 1945, but the magic had gone. By the time it fold- ed for good in 1951, goalie Stan Joseph Jr. was the only Indian on the team. Of all the players on those 1935 and 1936 clubs, Beef Smith went on to the greatest glory — in Hollywood. Changed his name to Jay Silverheels and made a life- time career out of playing Tonto, faithful sidckick to the Lone Ranger. NEWS photo Brad Leduidge Getting their kicks NORTH Shore Rebels’ Julie Lyons (right) challenges a Richmond player during recent soccer action in North Vancouver.