a 10 FastLANE My ac Win or lose, it’s in The News. Jonathan Green 365-7266 GREEN SCENE Castlegar’s Travis Green is still with the New York Islanders. Since being called up from the club's AHL afiliate in Troy, N.Y., Dec. 11, the 22-year-old has appeared in nine games, scoring once and adding two assists. As of Wednesday, his NHL totals show him with two goals, two assists and eight penalty minutes in 14 games. BOWL ME OVER B.C. bowlers will take to the lanes for more than just a good time Jan.9 - 23. During those two weeks, fundraising for the Variety Club's B.C. Bowls For Kids takes place at alleys all across the province, with money raised going to B.C.’s mentally and physically challenged children. Last year, local bowlers raised just under $1,600.In addition to raising money, bowlers could win one of three trips. For more info, contact Castle Bowl at 365-5723. Saturday, January 2, 1993 @ LoclSPORTS Belczyk getting use Jonathan Green SPORTS REPORTER Felix Belczyk has left the world of international skiing but the world of international skiing hasn’t necessarily left Felix Belezyk. The Castlegar native is learning what life is like away from the Canadian Ski Team, something he resigned himself to when he called it quits after last season. Reached in Whistler Tues- day, the 31-year-old Belczyk said letting go has been tough. “Yeah, definitely”, he said. “It was a big part of my life. “Everytime an important date goes by, you get really anxious.” But the 10-year ski team veteran hasn't called it quits completely. ee eet ae d to the retrens life Combining his practical background with coaching ex- perience he picked up at clin- ics, Belezyk has started three ski schools in the province. Known as Belezyk Race Camps, the schools have been established at Whistler’s Black- comb, West Vancouver’s Cypress Bowl and Kamloops’ Tod Mountain with one thing in mind. “TI teach people, basically, how to race,” Bel- ezyk said. While with the Canadian team, Belczyk had little else to worry about apart from being the best he could be. Now, as a businessman, he has that to do and a lot more. Belczyk admitted that life was hectic at times skiing for Canada, but that it was noth- ing compared to what he’s doing now. He said that all the behind-the scenes man- agement on top of his duties as instructor Rebels ready and NEWS STAFF The Castlegar Rebels received a nasty Christmas present from the Rossland Warriors on Dec. 19 and will be looking to exchange it when the Spokane Braves pay a visit tonight. Hosting the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League's worst team, the Rebels were embarrassed in their final first-half game when the Warriors left town with a 9-5. —awin. scoreboard. mas,” he said. “It was really tough to watch.” ing the game and have since been suspended. involved with the sport throug Castlegar’s Felix Belczyk as he looked at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Now retired from the Canadian Ski Team, the 31-year-old Belczyk is still i h three ski schools and charity work. Tonight, the locals will line up at the exchange counter in the hopes of trading that loss in for something they would much rather have had Coach Garry Sauer said the Rebels were too busy getting ready for the holidays when the Warriors rolled into town and it showed on the “A lot of the guys had already packed their gear to go home for Christ- Adding insult to injury, five of the hosts dropped the gloves follow- keeps him hopping. “’m definitely busier than I’ve ever been be- fore,” he said. “I can’t believe how much orga- nization goes into these things.” In the midst of his new career, Belezyk is also a newlywed. Married since early August, he’s hoping to make wife Bonnie a part of his business life as well. He said she is currently in her fourth and fi- nal year in Phys Ed at UBC. Once done, he said they could go into busi- ness together with him being the body and her being the brains behind the operation. “Fssentially, that’s the way it would be,” he said. “I think we would make a pretty good team.” In addition to marriage and the clinics, Bel- czyk has reunited himself with some former teammates in the name of charity. Starting in February, he will join Lucie Laroche, Todd Brooker and Karen Percy as hosts for Ronald McDonald Children’s Chari- ties events in four provinces. By doing so, he said it helps him give some- thing back to his former sponsor and get his thoughts off his former career. “As long as I’m busy doing the things I’m doing, it helps me take my mind off it.” With both skiing and B.C. still a big part of his life, Belezyk said he’s hoping things can stay that way. And whether it’s in Castlegar, Cranbrook, Creston or wherever, he said he and new bride will-go wherever the skiing road takes them. “J think we'll stay in B.C. in one way or an- other,” he said. “It all depends on what oppor- tunities come along.” raring to roll in KIJHL’s second halt he said. start winning Sauer said the loss of the five coupled with the uncertainty of Mike Hunter’s status means a skeleton crew will be suiting up for the Rebels. “All I’ve got is three lines and that’s hoping (Hunter) is in the lineup,” Because of that, Sauer said he’d look at putting the team’s affilia- tion with the local Midget Reps to use by promoting a few players. With most of the suspended expected to return for Tuesday’s game in Grand Forks against the league-leading Border Bruins, Sauer said tonight’s game is a tough start to an tougher month. He said with 10 games in January and seven of them on the road, the Rebels have got their work cut out for them and the sooner they ing the better. _ “We're hoping to get back into the swing of things (tonight),” he said, adding that it isn’t going to be easy. a “It’s going to be a tough one with all the guys out but anything is bet- ter than the last game.” Game time is 8 p.m. at the Complex. @ Saturday, January 2, 1993 The ogres of the National Hockey League, who claim they are attempt- ing to escape 1930s mentalities (dis- playing this clearly by awarding ex- pansion franchises to longtime winter havens and hockey hotbeds California and Florida) have ignored the outdat- ing of their statistics like they have ne- glected Hamilton’s 20,000-seat, al- ways-full Copps Coliseum. The NHL keeps statistics about as well as the Castlegar Men’s Fastball League (a fine institution, though, we might add). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s wrong. Find a five- year-old kid playing minor hockey and he can tell you. Ask him, “Does a 10-minute, two- man advantage offer the same oppor- tunity to score a goal as a one-second one-man advantage?” If he answers, “No”, then he’s one step ahead of the NHL; but if he an- swers, “Yes”, then he meets all the re- quirements to become the NHL's head statistician (not a glowing comment). The league’s bizarre math counts both the one-second and 10-minute power plays as equal “chances”. Then, ‘it divides the number of power play goals a team scores hy the number of total “chances” and comes up witha figure called power-play percentage, a measure of extra-man efficiency. Simple, huh? Sure, but also dead wrong. Special teams can be repaired by anyone using regularly published game summaries and a calculator. All | that has to be done is to express spe- cial teams efficiency-as the average amount of power play time needed to score a goal, and average opposition power play time required before giv- ing up one. While all stats.should be taken with a grain of salt, there are many in hock- ey that can be easily fixed. A partial list of the scores of other common sense things the NHL has lazily bypassed: 1) They don’t keep track of many vi- tal parts of the game. How can you judge defencemen solely on their scor- ing ability? — For starters, there’s no record of face-offs. A quick draw may be all that stops the puck from getting back to the point and then hurtling toward the net. — Bodychecks should be tabulated, since taking a forward out of the play essentially gives a team a man ad- vantage. — Despite its relative difficulty, minutes played for each skater would be a great stat. A player can’t score if he isn’t on the ice, and it’s crazy to credit a guy with a game played when he gets one shift in 60 minutes. Shifts themselves (and therefore average minutes per shift) also would be included in the perfect summary. A list of other stuff that should be recorded includes icings and offsides, steals, breakaways, blocked shots, giveaways, rebounds, shoot-ins and recoveries, and many more that could be documented with a little work. CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada has already taken to tracking most of on the Spot JonathanG REEN these stats but, unfortunately, only for the games it broadcasts. 2) Shots on goal is a misleading stat. The NHL doesn’t bother to dis- cern blasts at point blank range from 160-foot clearing passes. In the very least, the zone from which each shot is taken should be noted. 3) Game winning goals, for some reason, can be both “clutch” and “stand-up.” That means a player will get credit for a GWG if he tallies with the score tied to give his team an even- tual win, or if he scores the 50th mark- er in agame his team wins 50-49, but the opponent scores the final 49 goals unanswered. Clearly, his goal is no more important than the 13th or 27th. 4) The NHL’s prize unique stat, +/- suffers from the dreaded disease of meaningless when expressed in stan- dard form. A players who is plus one and minus one will have a +/- of zero, as will someone who is plus 100 and minus 100. Making the meaningless meaningful It would be far more interesting to see each individual’s raw pluses and minuses, something that is kept track of but never published. 5) The NHL would have us believe that goals and assists are equal, be- cause goals + assists = points, right? Then why does it insist on listing on- ly power play, shorthanded, game- winning and game-tying goals as offi- cial stats with no regard to their re- spective helpers? 6) Looking at penalty minutes, it would appear that Bob Probert and Theoren Fleury are similar players, yet viewing them on the rink would prove this to be a meek comparison. Probert gets his 150-plus minutes purely from fisticuffs, while Fleury has mastered the art of slashing, high sticking and roughing minors. It would be great to find out who leads the league in yapping, fighting and stickwork, which can easily be done by listing the distribution of penalty types for each player. Anyone concerned with why changes are needed should look at baseball, where sabrmetricians like Bill James have taken frivolous stats to the unbelievable level of science. Otherwise, the 1930s are alive and well thanks to the NHL, save the ob- vious fact that Hamilton had a team back then. The preceding was a column from the minds of Greg Nesteroff and Rob Andrew, winners of a contest I spon- sored last month. All the best in ’93, J.0.T.S. Rockers win in Wash. There's something for everyone! 365-7266 Need a Christmas loan? We'll make it happen. Jonathan Green SPORTS REPORTER The Stanley Humphries senior boys basketball team went down to North- port, Wash. this week and brought home something better than all the cheap milk they could carry. Getting 16 points from Ryan Vatkin and 12 from Marcel Dusseault, the Rockers brought home the Northport Invitational title with a 58-55 come- from-behind win over Curlew, Wash. Wednesday. Coach John Ritchie said his squad overcame a typical sluggish start that saw them trailing by five at halftime. “Once again we had a bad half. We weren’t at- tacking very well” he said. “In the second half, they attacked a bit better and came out on top.” The Rockers reached the final after knocking off another Washington school Tuesday, thanks to Dusseault and Vatkin. Dusseault picked up 22 points while Vatkin chipped in with 15 as they dumped Will Pinet, 71-48. Ritchie said things are starting to look good. He said the veterans are leading while the rookies are falling into place. Ritchie said-the shoot- ing problems that have plagued the Rockers this year are disappearing, adding that things will im- prove even more when the new gym floor is installed at the local high school. “It’s getting better,” he said. “It’s been so long since we’ve been in our own gym.” : Looking at the game with Curlew, Ritchie said the teams were pretty evenly matched. He said that with play- ers like Ben Koorbatoff coming in as reserves, the Rockers were able to tri- umph with their depth. “Him coming off the bench really helps,” he said. On the road in Grand Forks next Tuesday, Ritchie hopes the Rockers don’t rest on their laurels because they’ve got work to do. “J think we can still play better.” Castlegar Regional Transit System Service Changes January 4 Major service changes will begin on January 4th. Pick up a new Rider's Guide from your bus driver and discover your transit system. ¢ Direct Selkirk College service « Major schedule changes on all routes ¢ Introduction of monthly passes © 365-3100