BASKETBALL... The Saint Thomas Aquinas senior boys team finished second at the Lith annual B.C. Catholic Basketball Tournament last weekend.

STA lost 52-49 to St. Thomas More in a hard- fought final. STA player Mark Curtin was named as the tournament’s most inspi- rational boy player, and also joined tcammate Daniel Shnurrenberger as a first team all-star selection.

The STA senior girls placed sixth in the 11-team tournament.

CAPILANO COLLEGE... The Blues men’s and women’s basketball teams went a combined 2-4 on their Vancouver Island road trip in B.C. College cager action last weekend.

On Friday in Nanaimo, the men lost 87-57 to the league-leading and unde- feared Malaspina Mariners. The women Blues fared little better against the Mariners, dropping a 79-51 decision to third-place Malaspina.

The next day in Victoria went better for Cap, as both teams beat their respective Camuson College Charger squads. The men won 84- 62; the women 73-54.

The Blues next games are this Friday and Saturday at the Sportsplex on college’s North Vancouver campus. The action tips off Friday at 6 p.m as the women host Douglas College at 6 p.m., followed by the men’s game against Douglas at 8 p.m.

On Saturday __ night, Trinity Western University comes calling with the women playing at 6 p.m. and the men at 8 p.m.

FIGURE SKATING... North Shore Winter Club skater Michael Steinbach placed first in the novice men competition at the recent Canadian Championships.

Fellow Winter Club skater Caroline Piggott laced cighth in the junior ladies category.

. eo 6

LITTLE LEAGUE BASE- BALL... Highland’s Little League Baseball Association is holding a registration sign-up for all five to 18-year-olds.

The two-day — sign-up takes place Monday, Feb. 2 and Tuesday, Feb. 3 at Braemar Elementary school from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. (Braemar is located in North Vancouver zt 3600 Mahon Ave.).

For more info call Dan McLaughlin at 986-9474.

— Andrew MeCredie

ree en oe

Wednesday, January 21, 1998 — North Shore News ~ 35

north shore news

Board meeting

NEWS photo Paul McGrath

THREE competitors jostle for position during a training session last Saturday at Mount Seymour during the Kokanee Kross Grand Nationals. Both pro and amateur riders took part in the competition, which fea- tures six riders going head-to-head on a bumpy, banked course.

ron Mike not the first to

Does history really repeat? Repeat? It positively belches.

Mike Keenan, meet Wayne Robinson, wherever he is. Substitute a guy named Paul Cameron for Trevor Linden, Keenan's current whipping boy, and you have evidence in support of another old saying: the more things change, the more they remain the same.

We're digging back nearly 40 years into Vancouver sports histo- ry here, to the forma- tive years of the B.C.

Lions. To 1959, in fact,

when the Lions hired

Robinson, an assistant

to Bud Grant at

Winnipeg, as their head

coach. Iron Mike is one

tough cookie, ch? So was Robinson. Only more so.

At the very beginning, in training camp, he let the entire team know, ina Most graphic fashion, who was the supreme boss. Who was Mr. Big among the players? A superbly talented back- ficld import from USC and the Titsburgh Steelers named Cameron, that’s who. He had to go.

Robinson was about as subtle as a kick in the teeth. At training camp, he tried everything he could to make Cameron quit. But the object of his humiliating ploys was just as stubborn and refused to make any disparaging comment about what was happening to him. He wouldn’t react. He wouldn’t quit. So, in that long ago time before player's unions and agents and bi multi-year contracts, the coach admit- ted defeat. Robinson fired him.

cker-r¢

He also got his point across. No one was safe. And that season the Lions made the playoffs for the first time in their otherwise short and futile exis- tence. They were beaten in the opening round, then failed to build upon this limited success.

The following year they missed the playoffs and in 1961, winless after 10

games, Robinson was fired. He had proven that tear and intimida- tion can provide short term results. But in the long term, even in those unenlightened days when the players had no power at all, it was destructive. His top assistant, Dave Skrien, succeeded him and, using a diametrical- ly opposite approach, steered the Lions to a Grey Cup final in 1963 and the championship itself the following year. But there seems to be no way a coach can really win. His laid back reign ended in 1967 when it became appar- ent he no longer was running the zoo. The inmates were.

Fast forward to the present and the Canucks and a reverse spin. A team going nowhere and a coach, Tom Renney, perceived as being too forbear- ing and having failed to get his players’ respect. So he was fired and replaced by the man known as Iron Mike, who has targeted the team’s 10-ycar fan favorite, using him as the anvil in an effort to hammer others into improved perfor- mances.

Only time will tell if it works. Apparently it worked in Chicago, where he landed with both feet on the

om whip

Blackhawks’ best defenceman, Chris Chelios, goading him to greater efforts. Also in New York, where he targeted Brian Leetch. They bit their lips and played well for him.

At St Louis he homed in on Brett

Hull. Hull didn’t bite his lip. He ai

fought back and, as events have proven, he won. Keenan eventually was fired. Under a new and more faid back coach this season, the Blues have become the NHL's most improved team. Similarities abound.

Back in those carly Lions days Robinson lasted two-and-a-half seasons. Keenan lasted about the same length of time in Chicago and St. Louis. He walked out on his own after one year in New York, the season the Rangers beat Vancouver in the Cup final.

But the similarity with Keenan’s cur- rent situation ends there. Both the Hawks and Blues were contenders when he took them over. Although they had missed the playoffs the season before he got there, the Rangers had been making regular appearances for a dozen years previously.

So, the Canucks are the first truly non-performing outfit he has been commissioned te lift to another level. So far he hasn’t had much luck. Whether his dressing-room trashing of Linden will scare lesser players into bet- ter play remains to be seen. Whether his seemingly unfair outburst was a sign of frustration or a calculated ploy was something we'll probably never know.

In any event, if the Canucks don’t start closing the gap on the other sad sack teams in the bottom half of the Pacific Division, tucy may inspire a new definition of retrospect: Tom Renney wasn’t such a bad coach after all.

Arnoid’s hat-iriek still noi enough

By Andrew McCredie

Sports Editor andrew@nsnzws.com

DESPITE 2 niztural hat-trick by :ptain Ryan Arnold, ne North Shore Griffins fell 4-3 to the Grandview Steelers Monday night at West Van Arena.

Coupled with a 5-4 over- time foss in Abborsford Friday night, the expansion Junior B hockey club remains in the Pacific International Tunior Hockey League cellar with a 4-30-] record.

“I thought we played very well in the third period,” Griffins head coach Norm McNamara said following Monday _ night’s game.

“Theyre (Grandview) a much better club than the last time we saw them, and they’re fighting for a playoff position.”

McNamara added he was proud of his team’s desire in the third period, as the home team — backstopped by solid play by Tomo Ushida — fought back from a two goal deficit to draw within one with nwo minutes to plav.

One positive the coach noted is teams seem to be giv- ing the Griffins more respect than they did at the begin- ning of the year.

“They're not yapping at us as much,” he said. “The last four games we've played the other ceasa has known that they’ve come out of the game lucky.”

The Steelers drew first blood 15 minutes into the first, bur Arnold answered back with his first of three goals qwo minutes later.

The teams traded goals in the first half of the second period before Grandview took a 3-2 lead. Each team scored once in the third. Ushida faced 30 shots while his counterpart at the other end faced 22.

The Griffins travel to Maple Ridge Friday night to face the Flames, then host Seattle next Monday night at

Com

West Van Arena (7:45 p..m. «gw

start).

Ice chips: Four North Shore Griffins are taking part in tonighet’s PIHL All-Star Game in Port Coquitlam.

Ryan Arnold, Mike Blades, Jordan Sigalet and Clayton Whitman will be representing the Griffins.

(See page 36 for the Griffin of the Week feature).