Trail Times-Frid&V;November 13, 1981 -

i='EPP-]ALK
After a very re.warding
weekend in the East
Kootenay the Warriors
returned home to face the
Beaver Valley Nite Hawks. I
don't know if they went into
the game feeling it was going
to be an easy one after
taking the other two
"Valley" clubs, but this
Valley bunch turned out to
be something different.
The Tom Gawryltezcoached club has a lot of fast
skaters, a job at which the
' Warriors are not too bad
themselves. Still, let us say it
was not their skating but a
certain tenacity of purpose
which gave the kids from
Fruitvale their win, they just
would not give up.
And they have some pretty
deadly sharpshooters, Mark
Verigin and Scott Makway
accounted for four of the six
goals the Beaver Valley
team got and amassed some
10 points between then. I
think the way they hung on to
their checks was what in the
end made the victory
possible for them.
On the positive side for the
Warriors was the play of
Marty Lizotte, who scored a
goal and set up a couple of
others. The loss of Robbie
Martin was quite a blow to
the club. Hewas sidelined by
a dislocated shoulder on the
East Kootenay trip and will
be gone for a week or two.
The Elk Valley team is in
town and it will be interesting to see what they

have in the way of a team.
They took the Warriors into
overtime only to lose on
Sunday as Rossland completed its first sweep of a
double header in the East
Kootenay in some time.
The teams in the West
Division seem to be a pretty
well matched bunch this
season, only Grand Forks
Border Bruins has a poor
record and they still have
some pretty good players on
that squad.
The race for top spot could
be a tight one before
season's end, or at least the
battle for the playoff spots.
I see Rossland's so-ealled
"Green Machine" has
moved up to the Bantam
category. This is a rather
exceptional hockey club,
they have been together for
quite a while now and it will
be interesting to see if they
can carry their success on up
the ladder. It will be quite a
day when these boys move
on into the junior category, if
they should all make the
Warriors en masse,
Rossland could have some
hockey team.
This Sunday is the date for
the Old-Timers game. Trail
meets Nelson in that one and
you'll see a lot of your old
favorites out there. You
know, these guys you'll be
watching on Sunday aren't
that old either, its just that
they haven't kept honing
their skills regularly. But
you'll see a lot of good
hockey so be sure to go down
there and have a ball, you'll
be doing yourself and a lot of
underprivileged kids a real

witll
lla'ry

Pepper

favor.
The fortunes of the Senior
Smokies have taken a turn
for the better on the ice, now
if they could start· to attract
a bunch more fans to the rink
they would be laughing. A
combination of too much
hockey on TV and years of
struggling with poor quality
teams have resulted in the
loss of a lot of former faris.
This can be understood, but
what is hard to understand is
why top quality junior
hockey in the area fails to
bring out the crowds. This
year, in the KIJHL, we have
some of the best young
hockey teams seen around
here for years and still the
fans fail to accept the lure.
In Rossland we rarely see
more than 250-300 fans and
the situation in Trail and out
in the Valley is almost
exactly the same.
Junior hockey, and in fact,
any type of hockey around
this area is fighting a losing
battle. It was thought by
some, that the team in the
Valley would take away the
fan potential from the other
local teams, this has not
proved to be true, the team
attracts its own fans, few
they may be, but they do not
travel from Trail and
Rossland unless their teams
are playing out there.
Many and varied are the
gimmicks which have been
tried to attract more people
to our rinks but in the end it
is the production on the ice
which will lure the fans. So
far, this has failed in most
arenas around this part of
the country, Castlegar and

Grand Forks probably being
the exceptions.
Trail has an exceptional
team again this year.
Rossland is gaining
momentum with almost
every game and Beaver
Valley is a pleasant surprise,
so why don't the fans line up
at the wicket?
Find the answer to that
one and you will solve a longstanding enigma for the
hockey brass in the
Kootenays.
B.C.'s professional teams
fortunes seem to have taken
a turn for the better, the
Lions go to the Western final
against the awesome
Eskimos in Edmonton
Sunday and if they play as
well as they did against
Winnipeg they will stand a
chance of going on to their
first Grey Cup in a long time.
Meanwhile, the Canucks
seem to be on the road to
recovery, their win over the
Quebec Nordiques last
Wednesday night was a big
one. Quebec is one of the
bright spots in a something
less than brilliant roster of
so-ealled hockey teams in
the NHL; scores like 15-2 and
9-0 are not supposed to
happen in the toi,rated
league in the world.
Well, Remembrance Day
has come and gone and now
all we have to do is wait for
Xmas. We had quite a
celebration at the Legion in
Rossland, the place was
jam-packed all day as people
from all around came to
renew old acquaitances, it's
always a great day for the
vets and seems to get better
as the years go by.