SPORTS

Blow the roof off |

stale B.C. Place

Jim
Kearney

alvi "

THE SPECTATOR

MAKE THE most of the
next 48 hours you television
sports junkies. Time to rest
the eyes. Time to go out-

doors and breathe in some
fresh air. Time to make the

most of what passes for sum-’

mer before plunging back
into the great indoors for
another month of couch
potato life in from of the
idiot box.

Last night we saw the latest
ever finish to the most exciting
Stanley Cup final in several years,
the first one since 1987 to go to
seven games. That gives us today
and Thursday to prepare for
Frigay’s televised start to the
World Cup soccer tournament.

The Sports Network (TSN) tells

us it will carry every match, live or
on tape delay, from now until the
show winds up ia mid-July.

A day won't go by without one
or more games. At the end, no-
doubt, we’ll emerge from our
video caves like the February
groundhog, blinking and squinting
in the sunshine, wondering where
the summer went. ;

Indeed, in many households
hereabouts, World Cup games can
raise the same sort of passions the
just-ended Canucks-Rangers
series did.

Those passions began to boil a
little during the past two weeks
when Bob Lenardwzzi’s

_ Canadian national team played
five World Cup contenders in pre-
tournament matches. .

They boiled because none of the
games was played out here in the
rain forest, where most of
Canada’s national team players are
grown and harvested. Anytime
Canada trots onto the field, you
may be certain at least seven of the
starting eleven are from this corner
of B.C. ‘

Rugby fans have the same com-
plaint.

While the soccer guys were per-
forming in Toronto and Montreal,
with a side trip to Edmonton for a
J-1 draw against World Cup
favorite Brazil, the national rugby

side also was back east, playing the
national teams of France and
Wales. Thirteen of the starting XV"
were B.C. products. Even more
than soccer. first class Canadian
rugby is a B.C. monopoly.

So, who’s to blame?

Rephrase that question to:
What's to blame? Answer: B.C.
Place Stadium, the one with the
yeasty dome that looks as if it
should be crowned with a giant
Pillsbury doughboy.

It has 60,000 seats, but you
can't play soccer or rugby on artifi-
cial turf. Maybe you can, if you
don’t mind multiple rug burns and
shredded skin.

But the international governing
bodies of both sports expressly for-
bid it.

There being no other stadia on
the Lower Mainland with enough
seats to pay the cost of these inter-
national visits, the home base for
both national teams is excluded.

There may be heavier irony in
the world of jock, but at the
moment this is the Canadian con-
tender.

But there is a solution. Take off
the roof. Plant a real lawn in place
of that nylon carpet and, so to
speak, bring the boys back home.

Four years from now, the World
Cup final will expand from 24 to
32 nations, an almost certain guar-
antee that Canada, which just
missed getting in this time, will be
there to take part. ;

It would be nice to see our guys
go through the qualifying rounds
without having to fly to Edmonton
or Toronto, where they have both
real grass and sufficient seating.

For those not really tuned into
this competition, the World Cup is
being played for the first time in
the USA in the hope that the game
will take root there as a big time
professional sport. It won't.

Where soccer is big, it’s the
only team game in town. Over here
it has to fight the already estab-
lished sports: baseball, football,
basketball and hockey.

Germany and Brazil are co-
favorites. Remember this, if you
plan to wager: whenever the tour-
nament has been played in the
Americas, no European team has
managed to win.

That goes back to 1930, when
the host country, Uruguay, won
the very first World Cup, beating
Argentina in the final.

FIFA (Federation of
International Footbal!
Associations) gave Uruguay pride
of place because it had won the
1928 Olympic championship. In
that early part of the century the
Olympic champion was consid-
ered, unofficially, to be the world
champion.

In that context, then, Canada
has had one moment of shining
glory in international soccer, It
won gold at the 1904 Olympies in
St. Louis. No B.C, players on that
team, though. [t was a club side
from Galt, Ontario.

Varsity soccer all-stars

THE NORTH Shore high schoo!
girls’ soccer all-stars have been
made by the coaches of the senior
teams.
FIRST ALL-STARS

Liz Ayre, Sentinel: Sian
Ba. shawe, Sutherland: Sarah
Cunningham, Argyle; Kelly
Donaldson, Handsworth: Jeanette
Haas, Sentinel; Julie Harris,
Sentinel; Keri Jesson, Argyle:
Veronica Lie, Argyle; Aly
Paterson, Handsworth; J.R.

Payne, Windsor; Joey Pelletier,
Sutherland;

SECOND ALL-STARS
Sam Audley, Argyle; Nicole
Barre, Sentinel; Laura Barton,
Handsworth, Sarah Coilings,
Handsworth; Leanne Hancheroff,
Windsor: Mandy Henderson,
Carson Graham: Gillian Hicks,
Argyle; Sharlene Kolesar, Argyle;
Litsa Pantelidis, Seycove: Maelle
Ricker, Sentinel; Jen Walker,
Windsor.

Wednesday, June 15, 1994 - North Shore News - 15

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