TOP 10 BOARDERCROSSERS (FEMALE) Canada’s top 10 women in boardercross (with international rankings): 1 Maelle Ricker (ISF number 5); 2 Mayumi Fukuda (8}: 3 Carlee Saker (3); 4 Alison Clark (17); 5 Candice Drouin (20). 6 Kim Dunn (23); 7 Annie Boulanger (130); 8 Stephanie China (22): 9 Leah Wagner (47); 10 Mercedes Nicoll (63). Bob Mackin Sports Reporter BORED of January already? Don't despair, because Mount Seymour is the place for all things “board” during the next wo week- ends. Tomorrow brings the Kokanee Boardercross Grand Nationals to North Vancouver through Saturday. The second jewel in the Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding comes the following weekend. The Kokanee Grarid Nationals are in their seventh years on Canadian slopes. Boardercross is a hybrid of alpine and freestyle snowboarding dis- ciplines where six racers at a time head down the slopes on a man-made course of jumps, banked turns, whoops and tollecs. . The Jan. 6-8 meet ar Mount Seymour is the first. of four monthly stops. It happens again in February in Sunshine Village at Banff, Alta. and Barrie, Ont.’s Horseshoe Resort in March. The tour wraps up with the North American championships at Blackcomb April 19-21. Each event will be aired twice in prime time on CTV SportsNet and OLN TV. A $10,000 cash purse for the first three events is offered and a $25,000 cash purse is available for the North American championships. Registration and training begins tomorrow. Time trials open to the first 250 registered riders on Friday, with the finals: going Sarurday. The top 24 women and 48 men will bazile on the * slopes from 10 an. to 3 p.m. Awards are at 4 p.m. followed by a 5 p.m. party. . The Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding comes to Mount Seymouc Jan. 12-16. Registration begins Wednesday Jan 12 with training from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Qualifying begins” Thursday for boardercross. Halfpipe and big air contests will also be held chroughout the weekend. The triple crown began Dec. 3-5 at Breckenridge, Calif) and concludes Feb. 25-27 in Sierra at Tahoe. Maelle Ricker, who lives near the base of Mount Seymour, plans to enter both events. She was second in the Vans Triple Crown haltpipe owo years agu and was the Winter X Games boardercross champion and international Snowboarding Federation boardercross champion in 1999, She also was a double gold medailist. in| December’s world cup halfpipe and boardercross events at the Whistler WinterStart Festival. Also on Ricker’s busy schedule this Winter are the made-for-TV Gravity Games, Jan. 18-23 in Mammoth, Calif. and the X Games on Mr. Snow in Vermont from Feb, 2-6. The 21-year-old, who has been boarding seven years, won the 1997 junior world championship in Ruka, Finland. The former ski racer was con- verted to the “uni-board” by her older brother Jorli, a competitive snow- boarder. He has since turned his atten- tion to filming snowboarding and mountain biking. His latest film, Momentum, was premiered at Mount Seymour lodge in the fall. Ricker’s WinterStart’ performance was her best on the World Cup circuit. “I was really happy abour winning the boardercross. The half pipe wasn’t built right, it was in bad shape. 1 wasn’t as good as on the boardercross, for sure. “As far as boardercross goes, [ want to win as much as I can. On half pipe, I want to progress and learn new tricks.” She was at the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998 when snowboarding made its debut and is working to return to the Olympics, which happen next in 2002 at Salt Lake City, Utah. She says she'll be subject to less pressure by competing at home. “AH my roommates and friends are going to come up and watch. It should _be a very relaxed, more of a fun event than a competition for me.” Drew Neilson, Ricker’s roommate, Wednesday, January 5, 2000 - North Shore News - 23 CANADA'S TOP 10 BOARDENCROSSERS (MALE) Canada’s top 10 men in boardercross (with international rankings): 1 Drew Neilson (ISF number 6); 2 Scott Gaffney (10); 3 Ben Wainwright (69); 4 Jason Moore (36); 5 Darren Chalmers (1,104); 6 Mathieu Morency (2,064): 7 Nelson Jensen (145): 8 Jeff Ihaski (38); 9 Andrew Hardingham (52): 10 Cari Cowian (42). hala NEWS photo Cindy Goodman NORTH Vancouver's Maelle Ricker will compete for two consecu- tive weekends at Mcunt Seymour in the Kokanee Boardercross Grand Nationais and Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding. was ranked fitth by the ISF last year and the two-time defending champ of the Kokanee — Boardercross’?’ Mount Seymour stop. He'll be going for the hat-trick Saturday. Others to watch include: 17-year snowboarder Brett Tippie (third over- all on last year’s Kokanee Boardercross tour); Jeff Thaksi (1999 Kokance North = American Boardercross Champion and top-ranked Canadian); and) = North Vancouver’s Kevin Sansalone (big air gold medallist at the 1999 Winter X Games). Senior men’s curling championship at NSWC Bob Mackin Sports Reporter ‘THE first major curling _ event of the new year in the Lower Mainland begins tomorrow night at North Shore Winter Ciub. The 26000 B.C. Senior Men’s ” Curling Championships will be con- “tested over a four-day period. No local rinks will be there to cheer for, bur the ‘best masters” rinks from the four corners of B.C. should provide for some excitement. Eight teams qualified through the provincial playoffs — four teams are from the Coastal conference and the other four are from the Interior. Three teams are returning from last year’s championship in Williams Lake, including defending B.C. champion and Canadian runner-up Ken Watson of Richmond. He’s also the only coastal returnee. Vernon's Wayne Laface and Prince Rupert's Tain Cullen are also returning. The top interior seed is Jerry Martin of Kelowna. He won the Canadian senior men’s championship in 1990 and 1991. Jerry Martin leads the coastal contingent and is hoping to regain the trophy after 10 years. Others include: Fizz = McKie (Sparwood, interior number three); Al Frame (Victoria, Coastal number three) and Steve Thorson, (Royal City, coastal number four). Martin takes on Laface in the first round at 8 p.m. Thursday. Other matches are: Frame vs. Cullen; Watson vs. McKie and Thorson vs. Ursel. The A event continues Friday at 9 a.m. through Sunday. The winning rink gets a tip to Portage La Prairie, Man. Jan. 22-30 for the Canadian seniors champi- onship. The North Shore Winter Club is home of the North Shore’s only pub- lic curling facility. 4 NEWS photo Cindy Goodman NORTH Shore Winter Club’s curiing manager Richard Brower is welcoming the top senior men’s curlers in the province to the NSWC house from Thursday to Sunday. athletes get say ONE of the few recent signs of humility ema- nating from Toronto was Bruce Kidd’s reac- tion when the International Olympic Committee announced last month there would be no more wine-and- dine visits by members to prospective Games sites. A world class middle dis- tance runner in the 1960s and now a member of the top . brass in Toronto's bid to land the 2008 Summer Olympics, Kidd expressed dismay at the new ruling. —- It will put his city at a dis- advantage, he said on national TV, because it’s not as well known as the other top con- tenders, Beijing and Paris. And ali this time we’ve been - given to believe that Toronto is the Centre of the Universe: Even though Charmaine Crooks is from Teronto, North Van’s newest gift to the ranks of the IOC brass man- aged to chuckle at the thought over coffee cups the other day. She’s a member of the Athletes’ Commission, which has been around as an 10C auxiliary of sorts since 1981. But last month, when the largely geriatric IOC met in Lausanne to announce the details of its image cleanup in the aftermath of the bribery scandal at Sale Lake City, site of the 2002 Winter Games, 10 commission members — including Charmaine — were named fuil IOC members. They now have a vote on all IOC decisions. Amazing, isn’t it? Current and recently retired Olympic athletes, who've been there as conipetitors and know what it’s all about, tinally are going to have a say in how and where the world’s biggest fes- tival of athletic youth is staged. You can’t stop progress? } guess not. The lady pointed out that under the new no-pre-Games- visits rule, the technical aspects of the various cities’ bids become far more impor- tant. And this is where the See Crooks next page