Page 12A The Gastlegar Sun Wednesday, April 19, 1995

The Castlegar Sun WEDNESDAY, April 1

PROFILE |

Figure skaters end

whirlwind season ki

JEFF GABERT
Sun Sports

It has been a long and interesting
21 members of the Castlegar, Figure
but in the end it was all worth it

That was the message as the club held its annual
banquet last Monday night at the Fireside Banquet
Room. About 75 people turned out for the ¢
which saw all the skaters praised for an exciting ye
that culminated in a stunningly entertaining skating
carnival just over a month ago

The award presentations got underway with a pre
sentation to all the junior coaches. The junior coach
es are those accomplished skaters who spe
their time helping to coach beginner s!

CanSkate Program.

The first major award on the evening was for the
Most Improved Beginner, which is awarded to the
skater who has shown improvement in allaspects of
skating and who has attended sessions regul ly and
has displayed a positive attitude. This year’s award
balloting ended in a tie as Candice Gutwald and
Leanne Stoochnoff shared the award

The Congeniality Award was next and it went to
Nicole Hackett. Hackett won the award for being
consistently pleasant, friendly and supportive to both
skaters and the coaching staff. She also displayed
leadership and professionalism

The Artistic Award is given annually to the
skater who best interprets music and, in general,
shows the all-around artistry that makes figure
skating a special sport. That skater for the club this
season was Dawn Hadiken

The Most Dedicated Skater is an award given
to the skater who attends all the practices plus
consistently works hard. Jennifer Postnikoff won

kating Club

the honor

The Junior and Senior Most Improved Skater

awards went to Heather Young and Vanessa Kas
trukoff, respectively. The most improved skaters are
the ones Who have shown, through test results in fig-
ures and freeskate, the greatest improvement

Jordi Jmieff was honored for her outstanding
effort at the Rocky Mountain Freeskate with a
Courage Badge. The badge is not awarded every

, but young Jmieff's inspiring performance
despite injury earned her the recognition.

The last award on the evening was the Hon
orary Membership which a
continue skating with the Castlegar Figure Skat-
ing Club on any scheduled club ice at no charge
The winner of the membership is Chelsea Van
Vliet who started her career in the CanSkate pro-
gram and continued on through high school to
graduation. The award recognizes her long dedi-
cation and commitment to the sport

“The awards were tough to decide because they
all deserve to get something,” said coach Jennifer
Zandvliet. “But the ones that got them deserved
them just that little bit more.

Both Zandvliet and fellow coach Jennifer Chant
felt the season went extremely well and are looking
to next year.

“This season went very successfully,” said Chant
“Overall I thought there was a lot of talent within the
club and I'm looking forward to next year. A lot of
skaters made a lot of progress and I project that to
increase next year.”

Both Chant and Zandvliet have promised to return
to the club next season. Chant will be taking a short
sabbatical on the coast while Zandvliet will stay in

and teach summer school in Nelson,

CASTLEGAR JR. REBELS HOCKEY CLUB
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Thursday, May 4, 1995 ¢ 7:00 p.m.
Castlegar Community Complex

Everyone Welcome

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The Castlegar Figure Skating Club he

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Id their annual banquet on Monday and nine

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(right).1t was the culmination of another great season for the club which saw some
great skating as well as an extremely successful Skating Carnival.

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SUN SPORTS PHOTO / Jeff Gabert

Hunting with
lead shot
blown away

SUN SPORTS STAFF

The regulations involved in
hunt are increasingly becom-
ing more complex and stringent
However, the Ministry of Envi-
ronment, Lands and Parks is hop-
ing to change some of that by
simplifying regulations on hunt-
ing season da

art of this program aims to
standardize openings by date
rather than by day of the week

The poposed dates for the
1995/96 hunting season were
announced at the end of March

the Wildlife Branch and
ould be prepared for a
few changes.

In the Kootenay region, tine
point restrictions for the bull clk
seasons have not yet been estab-
lished, but in the Thompson
Nicola and Okanagan regions,
the opening date for bighorn
sheep for 1995 and subsequent
years has been standardized at
Sept. 10. The whitetailed deer
season for bucks in the Okanagan
region, which starts on Sept. 10,
is no longer a split season, and
will not be closed for si
the beginning of November.

All other dates are similar to
last year but may change after
more information is gathered on
the status of game populations
The complete synopsis of

We weld anything...
Anytime « Anywhere

ICE
METAL WORKS
65-811

1995/96 hunting regulations, cov-
ering all game species, will be
available in July

Starting next year, hunting reg-
ulations will likely be established
one year in advance of the time
regulations come into effect
Effective immediately, any sub-
sequent regulation changes after
the July synopsis will be made by
emergency order and will be
immediately published.

In other hunting news, the
Minister of Environment, Lands
and Parks annouced last week
that the use of lead shot in hunt-
ing water fowl will be banned
starting this fall after federal
studies have shown some alarm-
ing results.

Those studies have shown that
more than 10 per cent of ducks
studied in parts of the Koote-
nays, south and central Interior
and south Coast had high levels
of lead contamination. Some
wintering swans have also been
discovered with lead poisoning
and first evidence of secondary
poisoning has been found in

The lead shot ban was first
proposed in 1993 by both federal
and provincial officials and bans
are already in effect in many
areas of B.C. and Canada already.
The province-wide ban will apply
to hunting waterfowl, coot and
snipe, but should not affect target
shooting or gamebird hunting in
upland areas.

It applies to shot containing
more than one per cent lead with
non-toxic alternatives such as
bismuth shot being permitted,
although steel shot is expected to
be most commonly used.

Anyone found using lead shot
after the start of the 1995 hunting

son will be subject to permit
suspension and a maximum
$5,000 fine or up to six months in
prison for a first offence.

Castlegar Aquanauts
* License No. 791690
(= 9 Re, Pete)
Saturday, April 22nd

Castlegar Arena Complex

Early Bird 6 p.m., Regu jar Bingo 7 p.m.

In paintball, safety comes first. Travis Ready (above)
always takes the time to explain all the rules to new
players and make sure’all BCPA regulations are strictly
followed. The key to paintball is shooting acurately
without being shot yourself. Doug Miller is a member of
the Nelson-based Roadkill paintball team and he knows
the importance of taking a few shots at the practise-field
before getting into a game. The Roadkill-team..and
Castlegar's own Impending Dooin team willbe
competing in tournament play this summer: "

Paintball is a combination of mind and body working
towards a final objective. Using the barricades to their
fullest potential is an integral part of the game as shown
above by a rookie player and below by Josh Smienk, a
long-time paintball enthusiast. Smienk shows off good
form in the prone position which is much, different than
the stance he takes in the boardroomas chairman of
the Columbia Basin Trust.

here's something special

about being a kid. The

freedom, the innocence

and the total bliss of
knowing you're living income tax-
free with your parents picking up
the tab. If you could only recapture
a little bit of the joy of youth

Well, you can forget about the
income tax but it just so happens
that a group of born-again kids
gathers every weekend at a remote
field near Genelle to revisit their
childhood by playing kids’ games
with childhood enthusiasm.

The sport is paintball and the
childhood is free with the price of
admission. It can be as competitive
as you like, but the fun never stops.

The newest addition to the
B,C. paintball landscape is Splat'rz
Paintball, owned and operated by
three Castlegar men. Travis Ready.
Curtis Ready and Jason Verhaeghe
all got hooked on the sport while
playing in the Okanagan and they
realized the potential of the sport
here in the Kootenays.

Paintball is aot new to the area
since it has been played in a semi-
organized fashiog at a 1Q-acre
location near Genelle, overlooking
the Courtesy Autosgraveyard.
However, the Ready $rothers and
Verhaeghe were the firs to tim the
sport into a business and offer
everyone in the area an
opportunity to try it.

Basically ‘the sport is the
same kind of games most kids
played growing up byt with
more expensive artillery. The
most popular game ptayed is
“capture the flag” which is a
game that has been:played by
Boy Scouts for geierations.

The guns afe powered, by
carbon-dioxide ‘canmistérs and
shoot 68 calibre balls - aboy$the
size of a big marble. The range
is approximately 50 metres and
the hoppers used by $plat'rz
carry 150 rounds.

Splat’rz uses ‘relatively
inexpensive gums that are semi-
automatic and range in price from
$300-500, but some guns can cost
$3,000. The guns weigh about 2.5
kilograms fully loaded, which
doesn’t seem like much to start,
but they tend to get heavier and
heavier as the day progresses.

Masks and camouflage suits are
supplied but the regular players
usually bring their own. The masks
cover the entire facial area for full
protection from paint splatters. The
paint contained in the balls is
vegetable oil-based and easily
washed or even wiped off.

And when you put it all
together on a field full of trees and
strategically placed barricade you
have a thoroughly addicting sport
called paintball.

“| played for three years when
I lived in Kelowna and every time
I played it I found myself getting
more and more addicted,” said
Splat'rz co-owner Travis Ready.
“It’s a lot of fun and it’s good

physical exercise.”

Paintball is one of the fastest
growing sports in North America
right now and it will continue to
grow thanks to exposure on
sports networks like ESPN-2.
According to the B.C. Paintball
Associ n, the sport is now
played in 33 countries with
membership in the millions.

“It’s a high-adrenaline sport
but it’s safer than flying and
skydiving,” said Phil Mackie, a
10-year paintball veteran and the
BCPA Kootenay rep . “It’s almost
totally harmless. I get injured more
waterskiing.”

The rush is certainly catching
on in the Kootenays. Along with
the Castlegar field, there are
currently paintball locations in
Nakusp and Salmo with another
two fields in Nelson and Grand
Forks expected to open shortly.
NelSon will also be hosting an
officially-sanctioned BCPA
tournament in August featuring
20-24 five-person teams from
across the province.

But the BCPA does much
fore than just hold events. The
as$gciation wants the sport of
painftigdl to grow and, therefore, it
has bgen in the forefront when it
comes to safety igrthe sport.

According to the strictly-
enfosged rules il paintball players

goggles to protect themselves
during a g or while in a “hot”
area. Sflat’rz doesnot allow
masks t® be removed at all when
outside the safe area and any
player caught with their mask up
twice, whether during game play
or not, will be removed from
active play.

In @ receiif.study by the
National Safety Gotigcil, paintball
was actually found.to be safer than
even bdwling. Paifgball had 0.24
injuries per 1,000 ‘participants
while bowling had 0.47 and
traditional sports like baseball and
football topped the charts at 28.42
and 30.17 respectively.

But there is always the
number one concern to deal with -
those darn things hurt don’t they?

* Well, not really.

The guns are calibrated
regularly to shoot below 100
metres per second, but that. still
means that getting shot at close
range will make a bruise. But the
key to the game is not to get shot
and only a small number of “tags”
are actually made at short range.

usually just leaves a little hicke:
thai goes away in a few days.”

What a coincidence, that's just
enough time to get back out to the
field and feel that adrenaline rush
one more time.

But isn’t that just like a group
of kids. It doesn’t matter how
much fun they have, they’re
always looking for more.

Story & Photos by Jeff Gabert