:J
pff
fy
EPP- ALKP:Z
q

It was a rather hectic
weekend at the Rossland
fun hockey tournament.
With 12 teams involved and
games an hour long, they
followed one another with
clock-life precision. Our
crew of Chuck Harkness,
John Bruce, Herb Castle,
Dan and Michael Feeney
alternated in teams of two,
worked real smoothly.

never any hint of real
trouble. Some games saw a
number of penalties while a
lot of them went well.

The on-ice officials were
also up for the job, led by
Jim Schuck and Arnie
Sherwood. Teams of two
were always ready for duty
on time: Bob Sherwood,
James May, Patrick
Corrado, Rob Martin,
David Espenhain, Dan
Ferguson and Tommy
Feeney. Hope I didn't miss
any, ifl have, I'm sorry.

Each team had a copy of
the rules and from what I
saw, they played it pretty
close to the line all the way.
The format was a little
complicated, with penalty
minutes being involved in
event of ties. However, it
seemed to work out to most
people's satisfaction and
we didn't hear many gripes
about the final outcome,
which saw the Rossland
Labatts take first in the
"A" event over the Beaver
Valley Blades. Campbell
River edged the Rex Hotel
in the "B" event and the
Rossland-Trail Marauders
won the "C" event.

Masterminding the
whole show was Tommy
Bruce. Besides playing on
the Maroons team Tommy
saw to it that things were
kept under control, and
that ample supplies of food
were available and always
on hand when thorny
problems had to be sorted
out. Brother Albert saw to
it that a good supply of hot
refreshments were on hand
for the time and scorekeeping crews throughout.
The 12 teams involved
made all commitments on
time and this made for a
smoothly-operated tournament. Tempers flared on
occasion but there was

Yes, you could safely say
we saw a lot of good hockey
over this weekend. There
were some outstanding
performances.
The
goaltending was terrific. In
an offence-oriented
tourney like this, the last
line of defence comes in for
a lot of work and over the
years I've been attending,
it has never failed to amaze
me how these guys can
come up with the kind of
saves they do. Dave Bisaro
in the Labatts' net was
really something.
There were several
outstanding scoring performances. A couple that
come to mind were Blaine

/ Jlc,,,, .2

McCuaig's hat trick in
Labatts' 9-1 romp over the
Rossland Moguls and
Sandy Fisher's three in the
Skidders' ~ win over the
same team. Three goals
was the limit that one
player could score in a
game. Another player who
made scoring look easy
was Russ LaFreniere,
playing on the Labatt
defence with Gerry Godfrey. His rushes were
really something to behold.
Gerry, who is definitely the
elder statesman of the
tourney at 48, bewildered
the opposition time and
again with his patented
time-consuming passing
acts in his own end of the
rink.
A guy who also performed well was No. 5 on
the Kaslo Burners, Frank
Curiston. Speed and puck
handling made this little
guy a real pleasure to
watch while Mike Evans, a
Rossland native on the
Campbell River team,
assured his team of the
"B" trophy with a patented
shot to win the shootout
against Castlegar.
They tell me that these
tournaments have been
going on for eight years. I
can hardly believe it, but it
is true and I've been at
every one and they just
seem to get better and
better all the time. The
Campbell River team
came here the first time

with a young chap in goal,
his name escapes me now,
but on his performance,
which led his team to
victory at that time, was
the best I ever say in any
hockey games I've ever
watched, including TV
games.
Last Wednesday the
Retirees Curling Club
visited Grand Forks and
four five-man rinks played
eight different Forks rinks,
four in the morning and
four more after lunch. All
we managed was a tie in
one game by Arnie Vaness'
rink. The rest saw the
'Forks boys do quite a job
of curling to take all the
seven by quite comfortable
margins.
During the remainder of
our season we will be
visited by the 'Forks
curlers and also a group
from the Nelson club,
coupled with the remaining
games of our third competition. This will wind
down another excellent
season of curling which has
provided very good
competition and a lot of fun
for all concerned.
The Legion one-day on
March 25 appears to be
headed for one of the best
ever with rinks from Trail,
Beaver Valley, Salmo and
Castlegar promising to
attend. We should have
quite a day!
Till next time, then!