8 - The Prince George Citizen - Friday, August 28,1998 JIM SWANSON Sports Editor 562-2441 Ext. 400 Sports CITIZEN SPORTS FAX LINE 562-7453 E-Mail pgcnews@prg.southam.ca HOCKEY Bernard lands in Prince Albert Citizen staff Apparently, the assistant coaching position with the Prince Albert Raiders is open to former Cougars coaches only. Larry Bernard was named to help new head coach Kevin McLelland behind the bench in Prince Albert, taking the spot of Doug Hobson. Bernard was Ed Dempsey’s right hand man last year, looking after the defence for the Cougars. He resigned earlier this summer to try to get work in the United States so he could keep his green card status, but was unsuccessful. Bernard is also a former head coach with the BCHL’s Spruce Kings, guiding them during the 1996-97 season. Hobson resigned from the Raiders without having coached a game with the WHL team to take a job as a policeman in the Saskatchewan city. FLAG FOOTBALL Flag league sign-up goes Saturday Citizen staff Saturday’s the day for aspiring gridiron greats to sign up for P.G. Minor Flag Football League. Registration for players aged 8-13 takes place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Spruceland elementary school, 3805 Rainbow Dr. For more information call Bill Reid at 563-8516. GOLF Night golfing at Pine Valley Citizen staff Holy glowing golf balls, Batman! Pine Valley Golf Course is hosting its Twilight Golf Tournament Saturday, Sept. 12 starting at about 8 p.m. There’s enough tee times for 24 teams on the nine-hole course. Cost is $30 per player, which includes dinner. For sign-up information, call Pine Valley at 563-4811. SCOREBOARD BASEBALL American League Toronto 11 Kansas City 1 Tampa Bay 10 Minnesota 3 Oakland 6 Boston 3 Seattle 10 Cleveland 4 N.Y. Yankees 6 Anaheim 5 (11) Chicago White Sox 7 Baltimore 4 National League Los Angeles 10 Montreal 9 San Diego 8 Philadelphia 1 San Francisco 11 N.Y. Mets 3 Cincinnati 12 Florida 3 Atlanta 6 St. Louis 4 Chicago Cubs 11 Colorado 10 Milwaukee 4 Arizona 0 FOOTBALL CFL Hamilton 18 B.C. 8 Toronto 37 Winnipeg 16 Edmonton 35 Saskatchewan 13 TELEVISION GOLF: BMW International sec ond round starts at 6 a.m. on Golf Channel (Cable 40); Liberty Canada Invitational Pro-Am at 11:30 a.m. on TSN (Cable 16); Greater Vancouver Open second round at 1 p.m. on TSN (Cable 16); NEC World Series of Golf (same-day tape) at 9 p.m. on TSN (Cable 16). AUTO RACING: NASCAR New Hampshire 300 qualifying at 1 p.m on Speedvision (Cable 41). BASEBALL: Texas Rangers at Chicago White Sox at 2 p.m. on WGN (Cable 54); Minnesota TVvins at Toronto Blue Jays at 4 p.m. on CBC (Channel 2, Cable 3); Seattle Mariners at New York Yankees at 4:30 p.m. on CBS (Cable 7); At lanta Braves at St. Louis Cardinals at 5:05 p.m. on TBS (Cable 33) Chicago Cubs at Colorado Rockies at 6 p.m. on WGN (Cable 54). FOOTBALL: CFL — Calgary Stampeders at Montreal Alouettes at 4:30 p.m. on TSN (Cable 16) NFL exhibition — San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks at 7 p.m on NBC (Cable 6). McQuik draws shootout win Women’s soccer title match goes the distance by JIM SWANSON Citizen Sports Editor Curious folk, these coaches. The coach who likes shootouts comes out on the wrong end; the one who dislikes them — make that hates them — sees his team win the city title on penalty kicks. Go figure. Count Orlando Mauro as the kind of sideline pacer who shudders at the thought of deciding a good soccer game with kicks from the spot, yet his McQuik Shooters can call themselves city champions after goalkeeper Nikki Maslen stopped nearly every penalty kick that came her way Thursday night at Massey Place Stadium. Mauro and Bob Leverman, his counterpart with Croatia, have divergent views. “I hate them, I’ve been through enough of them myself,” said Mauro, whose team battled P.G. Croatia to a 4-4 tie through regulation time and extra minutes in the P.G. Women’s Soccer League competitive division final, and then outscored Croatia 3-2 in penalties. “It’s like having a game of badminton to settle a soccer game.” The matchup followed the season series, in which the two teams split six games evenly. Connie Roch staked Croatia to a quick lead, but Lori Maki of McQuik equalized with an impressive left-footed free kick which curled into the cage. Teammate Danielle Cypihot added Mc-Quik’s second marker to give them a 2-1 lead at the half. Jen Whitehead answered early in the second with the first of her two goals on the night, but Elizabeth Neuman blasted a shot from 25 yards out to regain Mc- Citizen photo by Dave Milne Victoria Physiotherapy’s Nicole Kerr scored on this shot that eluded the outstretched arm of Myatovic goaltender Sky Loomis during Thursday’s PGWSA Recreational Division final at Massey Place Stadium. Victoria won 4-1. McQuik won the he Competitive Division final 3-2 on penalty kicks over Croatia. Quik’s lead. Croatia forced the overtime when Andrea Binette made good on a penalty kick late in the second half. Whitehead scored again in extra time, converting on a breakaway, but Iliana Young scored a pretty goal near the final whistle to send the contest to penalties. The shootout appeared to be Mc-Quik’s to win when Maslen stopped the first three Croatia shooters and two of Maslen’s teammates beat Croatia keeper Morgan Leverman. But McQuik went cold while Croatia’s shooters temporarily solved Maslen, and the two were tied after five shots each at 2-2. Janice Kozak placed the ball past Leverman and Maslen made one last stop to give McQuik the title. “I thought we had four great goals, four highlight reel goals,” said Mauro. “It’s an ugly way to win, but I’ll take it. Bob Leverman correctly surmised that there wasn’t much to give between the two teams. “I thought it was an even game, and I thought the teams were roughly even in strength and weaknesses,” he said. “I don’t mind losing on shootouts at all, because it means we took them to the distance. It means regulation time and overtime wasn’t enough to decide the game.” ■ In the rec division final, Victoria Physiotherapy scored three in the first half and cruised to a 4-1 win over Myatovic. Nicole Kerr scored a pair of goals for Victoria Physio, with singles from Monica Makar and Joan Robert. Christine Lepine scored the lone goal for Myatovic. Northern Tile took third place in the. rec division with a 3-0 win over Ms. RRSP Wednesday night. ■ There was a collection box at the games taking donations to honor Michelle Swift, a Myatovic player who' died of cancer last week. Swift, 31, played three years for Myatovic, and her memory was honored with a moment of silence before the rec division game. Money raised will go to build a field which would be named in her honor. Familiar foes meet in Rec Cup final by JIM SWANSON Citizen Sports Editor One team wants to stay ahead in the season series. The other wants to even it up. More importantly, both teams want to earn the right to be on the pitch when Prince George hosts provincials next year. P.G. Croatia and Honda-North Citizen are set to battle tonight in the Rec Cup men’s soccer final at Exhibition Park, with the kickoff at 6 p.m. Croatia, the top team in the North Cariboo Senior Soccer League, has beaten second-place Honda North-Citi-zen twice in three head-to-head matchups this season. For that reason, coach Nick Vukovic feels confident heading into the matchup. “It won’t be an easy game, but I’m expecting to win,” said Vukovic, whose team has 2-1 and 4-1 victories and a 2-1 loss to show for previous games against Honda-Citizen. “This is a one-game shot and anybody can have a bad game or an excellent game.” Croatia practiced Tliesday and Thursday night to prepare for the game, but Vukovic says they didn’t work on anything special - they just have to execute what their deep squad does best and play an up-tempo game. “We have had momentum going all season long, and we tested our character when four players were missing while they were in Europe (at the World Cup),” said Vukovic. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t beat them. It’s the end of the season, and we know what it takes to win.” As for missing pieces, Croatia will be without Dennis Rukavina, who is on vacation. Honda-Citizen coach Iain Flannagan says defence is the key for his team. Keep a close eye on Croatia players Tom Brkich and Tien Meuller and they’ll have a chance to be on top after 90 minutes - or more, if needed. “They’ve got some great ball players, but if we play well defensively we can do the job,” said Flannagan. “We’ve been keeping it pretty low-key. There’s history to this game - Honda rode the winning wave year after year, and now it’s time for Croatia to do the same. They were the arch rival then, now we’re the arch rival. “It’s payback time for us, but it should be a good game.” Tavis Bowie, a 20-year-old midfielder, will be in the Honda-Citizen lineup. Earlier, Flannagan thought Bowie would be unavailable because of a tryout for the University of Victoria, but he’s back in the city. “Being in the centre of the midfield, he’s a distributor of the ball and he can push forward and manage to get back before the ball,” said the coach. “He runs miles for us.” The game will also count in the NC-SL standings, since a previously scheduled contest had to be postponed. Justice finally served to T-wolves by JIM SWANSON Citizen Sports Editor The Prince George Timberwolves are co-provincial boys peewee C softball champions, and they have the medals to prove it. The problem is no medal, regardless of color, can replace the memory of them being kicked out of the B.C. championship back in July — includ-ing a police escort out of the Cloverdale complex. Softball B.C. president Jean Martens, of Abbotsford, made a speech and presented medals to the team Thursday night at the Spruce City Minor Boys Softball field at Carrie Jane Gray Park. The Timberwolves were a perfect 5-0 when organizer Len Chin wrongly determined the Prince George team was an all-star squad, and booted them out of the event. Until their expulsion, the closest any team had come to Prince George was an 11-8 score and Martens acknowledged players Sheldon Kreiger and J.R. Ghostkeeper were well on their way to winning the top hitter and top pitcher awards, respectively. The hosts from Cloverdale, who will now share the title with Prince George, went on to win the tournament A crowd of 44 Citizen photo by Dave Milne Softball B.C. president Jean Martens hangs a gold medal on peewee Timberwolves player Kyle Johnson, nearly two months after the T-wolves were unjustly banished from the provincial tournament. people — including all but three of the 13 players — greeted Martens with polite applause and seemed to take the attitude ‘don’t kill the messenger.’ There was a realization Martens was not the reason for the banishment, rather that the she was left to clean up a mistake made primarily by Chin. Chin has since resigned his zone coordinator status, to the delight of Spruce City president Lorry Fabbro. “I’m pleased that the kids got the medals, they deserved, and I’m pleased with what (Martens) had to say,” said Fabbro, who added this episode is “without a doubt the ugliest thing I’ve ever heard of. “I’m ecstatic (that Chin resigned) because he messed up. We had kids cry-.' -ing on a ballfield where they should have been having fun. A police escort * was more than enough.” Martens has met individually with those who were involved in the deci- • sion to boot Prince George out, and has further questions to ask of the group when another meeting takes place. “(The police escort) is something we plan to investigate further,” said " Martens. “I would hope we wouldn’t', ,, have to bring in police to a minor soft- „ ball game. It was overzealousness by ' * people and trying to be so right that a ;r' wrong is created. My heart is always' " with the youngsters.” 'v Oversized teens fight for Cougar spots by JIM SWANSON Citizen Sports Editor Call ‘em the Twin Towers. TWo players who have made strong impressions at the Prince George Cougars camp have the potential to be the backbone of the organization for the next three years. Potential — what an ugly word for those who don’t live up to the expectations. Regardless of how they play, forwards Jonathan Parker and Travis Eagles stand out in a crowd simply because of their size. Parker, the team’s first-round pick in 1997, and Eagles, taken second overall by the Cats in 1996, both have the frame to play in the WHL. Parker stands six-foot-two and tips the scales at 200 pounds; Eagles has more height (six-four), which leaves ample room to add to his 189 pounds. “In both cases, they’re very well put together individuals and as a coach you like to see guys who have size and skill to go with it,” said head coach Ed Dempsey. “They both have legitimate chances to play here.” In fact of all rookie forwards, Parker may have the best shot to crack the roster. At the Manitoba Best Ever evaluation camp, reports are he was easily the best player on the ice, and Parker hasn’t stopped impressing in this week’s practices. “I like everything about Jonathan, he’s going to be a tremendous hockey player for this team,” said Dempsey. “He’s got size, he’s got speed, he’s got COUGARS skill and when you get the complete package like that it’s going to be fun to work with and develop him. He’s only a 16-year-old kid and we have to remember that.” Parker played midget hockey last year as a 15-year-old for the Winnipeg Hawks, and racked up more than a point a game. Instead of living up to his potential, Eagles was a disappointment last year at camp. This time around, especially playing on a line with Parker during the weekend scrimmages, Eagles has turned heads back around by showcasing his size and adding a new twist — intensity. “The biggest thing with Travis is his work ethic,” said assistant coach Dallas Thompson. “As tough as it might have been foi him last year, he learned a lot and yoi can see it in how he’s carrying himsel on the ice. He’s here to make the team and that’s it.” Eagles himself calls this his make-or break year — he either proves he cai fly in the WHL, or ends up as the higl draft pick who went bust. “Being sent back last year wa tough,” said Eagles, 17, who playe< midget hockey in Saskatoon last yea when the Cougars cut him. “There’s a lot of expectations, espe dally because when I was drafted I hai a lot of points and from that aspect have to show up and try and put som points on the board. I try not to thin about it, but it’s in the back of m mind.” i