The Prince George Citizen - Wednesday, November 10,1993 - 17
Sports
ED MILLS, Sports reporter Local 515
DON SCHAFFER, Sports editor 562-2441 Local 517
GORDON HOEKSTRA, Sports reporter Local 516
SIDELINES
SCORES Hockey
NHL
Winnipeg 5 NY Islanders 2 Washington 2 Quebec 1 Edmonton 4 Detroit 2 Calgary 3 Los Angeles 2 Toronto 2 San Jose 2 St. Louis 3 Pittsburgh 3 Anaheim 4 Dallas 2
Rocky Mountain
Kimberley 9 Quesnel 4
Basketball
NBA
New York 95 Philadelphia 86 Washington 118 Detroit 112 Cleveland 113 Charlotte 108 Orlando 104 Indiana 98 San Antonio 110 Minnesota 95 New Jersey 86 Dallas 80 Seattle 118 Denver 86 Phoenix 114 LA Clippers 99 Houston 102 Golden State 93 Portland 109 LA Lakers 102
UP FRONT
Ursel still unbeaten after makeup win
Bob Ursel and his rink made up a missing game in grand style Tuesday night.
Ursel started with two straight steals and cruised to an 8-3 win over CC Industries (Bill Fisher) in a ReMax-Centre City Realty Super League makeup game at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.
“They’re playing really well right now,’’ said Fisher. “They’re probably playing better than they were in Kamloops (two weeks ago at the Labatt’s Crown of Curling cashspicl).
“Things really seem to be coming together for them.”
Ursel stole in the first and second end and scored a deuce in the fourth before taking three in the eighth end to put the game away.
“My last rock caught a hair . . . and left him with a free draw for three,’’ Fisher sighed.
The win put Ursel tied for first in the overall standings at 6-0, and his rink leads the A Square as well. Auto Magic (Laurie Rustad) is also unbeaten in C.
Super League games resume at 9 tonight at the PGGCC.
ON THE TUBE
TODAY
■ NHL: The Los Angeles Kings visit the Vancouver Canucks at 7:30 on BCTV (ch. 12, cable 11).
■ NBA: The Boston Celtics visit the Philadelphia 76ers at 5 on TSN (cable 16).
THURSDAY
■ GOLF: The World Series of Golf begins at 10 a.m. on TSN (cable 16).
SPORTS CALLS
Citizen Main Line 562-2441 FAX 562-7453 Answering Machine 562-3101
Pocklington, lawyers return to Edmonton to battle suit
EDMONTON (CP) — Peter Pocklington returned home Tuesday to fight a court injunction aimed at preventing him from moving his NHL Oilers from Edmonton.
Pocklington returned to Edmonton after cancelling meetings he said he had with Minneapolis officials about negotiating a deal to move the Oilers to Minnesota.
He has said he has a verbal deal with Minneapolis to move the team there.
Lawyers for the businessman said they were not immediately aware of the interim
injunction granted to Edmonton Northlands in a Calgary court Monday.
“Lawyers for the Oilers were not given any notice that Edmonton Northlands was making the application and were therefore unable to oppose it,” they said in a terse news release.
But they promised to take “immediate steps” to fight the injunction.
Northlands is the non-profit organization which operates the Coliseum where the Oilers play.
The injunction was granted on the basis Pocklington has been openly negotiating with officials in Minneapolis to move the Oilers to that city. A move would break a lease contract he has with Northlands through 1999, the organization argued.
Monday’s ruling prevents the Oilers from playing home games away from the Coliseum until the lease expires or until the dispute is settled in court.
The injunction is part of a larger lawsuit
Northlands has brought against the Oilers for breaking the lease contract.
Northlands general manager Colin Forbes said in an affidavit the city and Northlands would suffer irreparable damage if the Oilers left town.
He also said such a move would violate the rights of advertisers and sponsors.
Oilers games are televised across North America. That exposure enhances the status of Northlands as a trade show and entertainment facility, Forbes said.
Let’s give this track meet a chance
Wouldn’t it be nice if, for a change, our sporting and cultural groups look to the future when they make up their schedules for next year?
Wouldn’t it be keen if as many groups, leagues and organizations as possible left Saturday, Aug. 13 blank on their schedules?
See, next Aug. 13 there’s going to be a big track meet at Massey Place Stadium. Most everyone has heard by now about this meet and the potential it has for drawing some of the best track and field athletes in the world to little, out-of-the-way Prince George for a one-day pre-Common-wealth Games blowout.
And most everyone knows that doesn’t happen very often — almost never, in fact — that people of that calibre come here to compete in any sport.
So maybe, just once, we can all exercise a little forethought and try to co-operate in allowing this event to happen with as little conflict as possible.
Prince George doesn’t exactly have a grand tradition of different groups working together. That’s not to say one group goes out of its way to eyeball another competing group’s schedule and change theirs to cross up their rivals — although that was rumored to have happened once or twice in the past.
What it does mean is that we get pretty
POINT AFTER
by Don Schaffer
focused on our own agendas and don’t think of how working with another group in town could not only avoid outright conflict but actually benefit us.
One question that festers in the back of the mind is why, just for example, the two auto racing groups in town — PGARA, the oval-trackers, and NCR, the dragsters — don’t get together and try to split the weekends of the spring and summer months so there aren’t so many conflicts? Sure, there are stock-car and modified fans and there are funny-car fans, but that doesn’t mean with a little cross-promotion those people who might be inclined to take in both events can, without having to choose between one or the other.
It’s often impossible to work around someone clse’s schedule. If you’re putting on a provincial softball championship, for instance, the provincial body tells you when it’s happening. Often it’s the case the Southern-based sports bureaucracy
doesn’t care a tinker’s cuss about other people’s problems, and you’re faced with a conflict.
But there should be enough advance notice for this particular event that there might be some consideration shown — if not for Tom Masich, the coach of the Prince George Track and Field Club, and all the people who have gone through that fine organization over the past two decades and more, but for the truly world-class athletes who will, apparently, be here on that date.
Ken Elmer, the high-performance director of B.C. Athletics, was in Europe late last month pitching a three-race prc-Games series of one-day meets in B.C. to the international bodies who set the race calendars for the coming season. He said late last week both the IAAF and Commonwealth bodies expressed approval for the concept.
“The Games start Aug. 22, so Prince George would be the last chance they would get to compete before they begin,” Elmer said from his Vancouver office. “There would be a meet in Abbotsford Aug. 6, one in Kamloops al the Canada
Games track on the Wednesday after that and then Prince George.
“Every team that’s competing in Victoria will be in B.C. that early, so there’s an excellent chance the top athletes will be there to compete. Tom plans to try to fly them up Saturday morning and back Saturday night, and there would be a bus for all the sub-Games level athletes to come up the day before.”
Masich said he hopes to drum up enough sponsorship to allow the top athletes to fly here. In the past, the club has successfully gathered enough money to stage races for a cash purse, so he hopes to be able to repeat that feat.
Elmer cautioned there’s no guarantee on which athletes will come. The Lindford Christies and Mark McCoys of the world often have their own agendas, and for sure Michael Smith won’t put his decathlon in jeopardy, especially considering his injury problems over the past few meets.
But consider this: Elmer said he had agreement from a number of the Commonwealth countries — Australia, New Zealand, the British Islands countries and others — that the three-race series would be a terrific idea.
Wouldn’t it be terrific if we could all try not to submarine our leg of it? Wouldn’t it? Just once?
SMOKE EATERS MAKE CHANGES
Farrell bitter after getting axe in Trail
by ED MILLS Citizen Staff
The struggling Trail Smoke Eaters smoked head coach Scott Farrell Monday.
With their team sitting in last place in the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League’s Kootenay Division the Smokies fired Farrell in a move designed to shake up the club.
“It’s very sad and disappointing. Unfortunately we thought we just needed a change and that was the bottom line,” said Smokies vice-president Joe Ruggerio.
“You can’t totally blame Scott about the whole situation, it was a very tough situation.
He was a great kid and he did lot of work for our hockey team, but unfortunately we thought we had to do something and the change was made.”
Farrell, 23, who’s been under league suspension for more games then he’s coached this season, said he’s bitter about being let go.
“I don’t feel very happy about it. I think I’ve kind of been dealt the short end of the stick,” said Farrell, who was hired at the beginning of the season. “To be honest with you, I haven’t really been treated that well since I walked in the door here.”
And the team hasn’t played well. The Smo-
kies are 6-10-1 this season and are three points behind the Creston Valley Thunder for the final playoff spot in the Kootenay Division. Their big problem is defence, having allowed the second-most goals against in the league with 110.
One player said Farrell got a raw deal.
“I guess someone had to take the blame and it’s easier to fire him than fire 20 guys,” said forward Chad Alderson. “We haven’t come out every game to play our hardest.”
Alderson doesn’t think the shake up is over. “A few guys are getting a little scared around here, their jobs are on the line. We
See Farrell, page 19
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Ranford adds to Wings’ woes
DETROIT (AP) — It should have been an automatic two points for Detroit But nothing is automatic for the Red Wings these days, except maybe mounting frustration.
The Red Wings, picked to contend for the Stanley Cup, find themselves struggling to get out of last place in the Central Division. The Oilers are struggling even more in the Pacific Division.
It didn’t matter.
The Oilers, overcoming a 2-0 first-period deficit, ended an 11-game losing streak and 14-gamc winless stretch — both club records — with a 4-2 victory Tuesday night.
“It’s not time to panic, yet,” Detroit defenceman Steve Chiasson said. “But it’s certainly not getting closer every time we lose one like this.
“Sooner or later, we’re going to run out of time.”
The Red Wings outshot the Oilers 48-20 but goalie Bill Ranford, now 2-9-2 against Detroit, made big stops, especially in the first period when Detroit outshot the Oilers 18-4.
“Ranford was the difference,” Oilers coach Ted Green said. “That’s the way he’s been playing for us all year.”
The Oilers, winless since opening the season with two victories, tied it with second-period goals by Steve Rice and Craig MacTavish, then won it with third-period goals by Ilva Byakin and Igor Kravchik.
“We’ve got to learn to win games like this,” Detroit forward Sheldon Kennedy said.
“I hope it’s a lesson learned from this. We’re uying to get out of last place here.
“But the standings aren’t the most important thing right now. We’ve got to get back on track.”
Goals by Ray Sheppard and Shawn Burr gave Detroit a 2-0 lead 8:40 into the game and it looked like the Red Wings could name the final score. They outshot the Oilers 18-4 in the first period.
But Ranford kept coming up big.
“I know I’m going to have to play a big
CP photo
Bill Ranford (left) makes one of his 46 saves off Dino Ciccareili, who takes a shot in the back from Oiler Mark Laforge.
More NHL, page 22
game for us to win these days,” Ranford said.
“But that’s my job, to stop the puck. I just have to go out there and do what it takes for us to win hockey games.”
And make no mistake about it. This was a game the Oilers needed. They were the
pride of the NHL just a few years ago, remember.
“This was a big game and a big win, no doubt about il,” Green said. “(Assistant coach) Kevin Primeau said to me, ‘That wasn’t a monkey on our backs. That was a huge gorilla.’
“And he was right.”
MacTavish, one of die few remaining players from the Oilers’ glory days, said
Edmonton fans have been surprisingly understanding about the rebuilding process.
“One of the things that I noticed during the streak, was that nobody really got down on us,” MacTavish said.
“A few years ago, if we had lost even three or four games in a row, you wouldn’t have been able to go out in the street without somebody asking you what’s wrong.”
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