In the final instalment of our North Shore sports year in review we look back at the five biggest stories of the year as chosen by the North Shore News' sports editorial board.
No beating around the bush here - let's start with No. 1. The winner is... 1. The unbeatable Mr. Jones So here's the problem. I write these Year in Review stories well in advance because we have crazy early deadlines during the Christmas season. (Also because I'll be driving my family to Alberta and back over the holidays, hoping to not crash into a snow plow - strange choice, I know). Usually the early deadlines are no big deal with these top stories because they are all nicely wrapped up in the spring or summer, or whatever. But this is a story that just won't stop.
North Vancouver's Martin Jones, as of the time of this writing, has collected six wins, including three shutouts, in his first six career games in the NHL. If the undrafted 23-yearold keeps up this pace, he could end his NHL career with a record of 1,400 wins and zero losses with 700 shutouts. Approximately.
The streak began Dec. 3 when Jones finally got a start with the L.A. Kings. Up to that point he had been riding pine for three straight weeks following a call-up from the minors due to an injury to Jonathan Quick. Jones announced his presence in grand style, shutting down all nine shooters he faced in an overtime shootout to pick up a 3-2 win. Jones followed that up with backto-back shutouts over the New York Islanders and Montreal Canadiens before earning a sweep of Ontario with wins against the Leafs and Senators. Not done yet, Jones posted another shutout Dec. 17 against the Edmonton Oilers.
He was named the NHL's second star for the week ending Dec. 15. In his first six games he posted a 0.82 goals-against average and .972 save percentage with three shutouts. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he is the first goaltender in NHL history to allow an average of less than one goal per game while winning each of his first five career appearances, and he is only the third goalie in history to earn shutouts in three of his first six games.
When is it going to end? I'm writing this Dec. 18 and the story won't run in the paper for two weeks. By then Jones will likely have lost a game. But who knows? Maybe, as you're reading this, he'll be 12-0 with six shutouts, well on his way to becoming the greatest goaltender the world has ever seen. Probably not, but what is clear is that he belongs in the NHL and a lot of people missed that fact despite a track record that includes nothing but success at the minor league level with the Manchester Monarchs, in junior where he was named the WHL goaltender of the year while leading the Calgary Hitmen to a league title, and even all the way back to the North Shore Winter Club where he was the backbone of a group that won the Quebec International Peewee Tournament and the Western Canadian bantam championships. In one five-year stretch with Jones as the No. 1 goalie, the Winterhawks won every single game they played on home ice and compiled a 98-2 record in regular season play in the Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey Association.
Yeah, Jones is pretty good.
Has been for a while. Just don't expect to hear him say that. He's already developed a reputation for sticking to straightforward, teamfirst messages in all of his interviews.
"It's been a good start," he told reporters following the win over Edmonton. "We've played pretty well the last little stretch here."
OK Martin, if you won't say just how awesome you are, we'll have to do it for you by giving you the honour of top North Shore News Sport story of 2013. Congratulations - you'll no doubt celebrate by having a nice glass of milk and getting to bed early.
[Editor's note: Jones won two more games to tie the NHL record of eight straight victories to start a career, giving up only eight goals during the streak. He finally lost Dec. 23 against the Dallas Stars. In the eight wins he notched a goal-against average of 0.98, a save percentage of .966 and moved into a tie for the league lead in shutouts with three. Following win No. 8 Jones was, of course, full of me-first braggadocio. "It's been fun," he said. "But I want to make sure I stay focused and prepared for the next game, and you can't do that by thinking about the last game."] 2. North Shore soccer sweep The North Shore scored a sweep of the AA and AAA boys soccer titles this fall as the Sutherland Sabres and St. Thomas Aquinas Fighting Saints both won improbable championships.
The win for STA was the most shocking of all as the team barely even qualified for the North Shore AA playoffs, finishing in a three-way tie for fourth in the league. But then they started winning, and kept on winning (and tying), going undefeated in their final eight games - including three shootout victories - to charge all the way to the top of the provincial podium despite being an underdog in every single matchup. All of this came AFTER team captain Isaac Ferguson broke his foot and was sidelined for the season.
"(Winning provincials) wasn't even in the conversation," co-head coach Loui Salituro said about his team's mindset as they headed into the playoffs following Ferguson's injury.
The team teetered on the brink of elimination several times but each time prevailed in large part because of stellar goaltending from Sam Macdonald. Star Grade 11 midfielder Dan Morello also supplied a number of season-saving goals as the Saints employed a grinding defensive style to win a number of very close games.
In the final against Okanagan Mission, the defending champs, STA again played their defencefirst style and the game went to a shootout tied 0-0. Macdonald came up big again and when Ricardo Dutouy slotted in the winner to polish off the win, hundreds of STA students, given the afternoon off from school, hopped the fence and stormed the field. "It's a special group of boys - they're a very tight-knit group... ." said Salituro. "It's just unbelievable.. .. It's one of those storybook seasons that really couldn't have been scripted any better."
The Sutherland Sabres, meanwhile scored an equally thrilling victory in their championships win, defeating Burnaby Central 2-1 with a goal from Dzenan Bezdrob with less than a minute left in the final overtime period. Not many people expected the Sabres to make provincials, let alone win it all, because they had only three Grade 12 players on their team. Not only that, but Sutherland made a big gamble before the season when they chose to jump from the smaller-school AA level to play with the big boys at AAA. The gamble paid off, and the Sabres won the province's ultimate prize.
"I knew we had a bunch of awesome Grade 11s," said captain Cole Keffer, one of the Grade 12s on the team. "I knew we'd do well - I never thought we'd win provincials.. .. This was the soccer game that meant the most to me out of any soccer game I've ever played. There are no words to describe it."
Honourable mention goes to the Argyle senior girls soccer team that thrilled the hometown fans by winning the AAA title in North Vancouver at Inter River Park last spring, scoring a 1-0 victory over Oak Bay in an entertaining final.
3. North Shore Maple Leafs For No. 3 we go back to the rink where two more North Shore stars were earning praise in the hockey hotbed of Toronto. West Vancouver's Morgan Rielly accomplished a rare feat for a defenceman this year, cracking the roster of an NHL team as a teenager. Meanwhile North Vancouver's Trevor Smith took a much more twisty path to the team but ultimately played just as big a role in 2013.
The year actually began with disappointment for Rielly as he was a member of the Canadian junior national team that failed to win a medal at the World Junior Hockey Championships for the first time since 1998. From there, however, things improved dramatically.
Rielly, drafted fifth overall by the Maple Leafs in 2012 despite suffering a serious knee injury earlier that season, showed well in training camp before the 2013-14 season and earned a spot on the opening day roster. His first ever NHL regular season game came in the team's third contest of the season, the home opener on a Saturday night in early October.
Rielly's family made it to Toronto just in time for puck drop to see him play more than 18 minutes in a 5-4 shootout win over Ottawa. Rielly cleared one more major hurdle when he played his 10th game of the season, which caused his rookie contract to kick in, making it much less likely that the Leafs would send him back to his WHL team.
Throughout the year he has had some ups and downs but has seemingly earned the trust of his coaches and teammates, scoring 11 points in his first 30 games. His first NHL goal came Dec. 16 with Rielly finishing off a smooth rush up the ice by ripping a wrist shot past Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury.
The year ended with a little closure for Rielly as the Maple Leafs opted to keep him in the NHL rather than release him to play in this year's World Junior Championships going on now in Sweden.
While Rielly appears to be on the fast track to NHL stardom, North Van's Smith took a much more circuitous path. With a history of six points in 24 NHL games played with three different teams from the 2008-09 season to 2012-13, not much was expected of Smith when he was called up from the AHL's Toronto Marlies in early October after the Maple Leafs were hit by injuries and suspensions to a number of their forwards. But then he started to score. And then score some more.
In his second game as a Leaf the undrafted 28-yearold played less than six minutes but made the most of his ice time, taking a pass from Rielly and popping in what turned out to be the game-winning goal in a 4-1 win over Minnesota. About a month later Smith was still in the NHL, now playing a lot more minutes per game, and put on a show against the New York Islanders, the team that first gave him a shot as a pro. He scored just 22 seconds into the game and added two assists while seeing more than 16 minutes of ice time. Smith's popularity peaked on Dec. 5 when he scored the gamewinning goal in overtime against the Dallas Stars.
"That's one I'll never forget for sure," he told the North Shore News. "After I scored I kind of skated out to the crowd, it was rockin'. Great feeling."
The fun ended Dec. 18 when Smith was put on injured reserve with a broken hand but by racking up nine points in 25 games this season the long-time minor leaguer finally got the chance to show the NHL that he has what it takes to play, and stay, in the big leagues.
4. Blues volleyball bounce back I'm sure the folks in the Capilano University athletics department are getting sick of me writing the same thing every time I cover the men's volleyball team but it's a story that I just can't resist. The volleyball Blues were one of the sole weak spots in the university's varsity lineup during a five-year stretch that saw them start every single season with a new head coach (one coach had two separate stints but they were not back-to-back). Not surprisingly, the Blues struggled during the period, seldom making the playoffs or getting bounced early if they did happen to squeak into the championship tournament.
No miraculous change appeared imminent when the Blues once again started the 2012-13 season with a new coach, one who'd never been a head coach of anything before in his life. But Nathan Bennett turned out to be no normal rookie. The former British national team member (he's an Albertan with dual citizenship) had his playing career cut short by a nasty knee injury just months before he was scheduled to play in the London Olympics. He didn't pout about his bad luck, however, instead choosing to come to Capilano and start a coaching career. And what a start. With Bennett at the helm the Blues put together an excellent regular season before shocking the PacWest league by winning the provincial title, defeating No. 1-ranked Douglas College and No. 2-ranked VIU to claim the banner for the first time since back-to-back B.C. championships in 2004 and 2005.
The Blues followed up the big upset with a fifth-place showing at the national championships, with PacWest playoff MVP Dan Caverly earning a place on the tournament's all-star team.
So what's the really good news? Bennett came back this season, finally stopping the spinning carousel of coaches. Following the appearance at nationals Bennett said he's intent on bringing the men's volleyball team up to speed with other Capilano sports programs that have experienced success throughout the years.
OK Capilano, now that you've made the top-5 list I promise I'll stop writing the same story about the coach who finally got the volleyball team to stop singing the blues and start representing the Blues. Well, probably. If you win again this year though... .
5. Handsworth's field hockey three-peat There was a time not so long ago when Handsworth senior girls field hockey coach Paul Winstanley was about ready to call it quits.
He became the team's head coach in 2003 and over the next eight season his Royals made the provincial championships every year but never earned a medal, finishing no worse than eighth but never better than fourth. Winstanley got so discouraged by the medal drought that he talked to a pair of coaches from a rival school following another heartbreaking loss.
"I said to them, 'I just don't know. Maybe I should just quit and let someone else give it a try,'" recalled Winstanley. "And they both looked at me and said 'Paul, you're going to win a championship. Don't quit.'" Those rival coaches helped convince Winstanley to stick it out but they were wrong in their prediction that he'd win a championship. Instead, he won three.
Handsworth's third provincial title in a row came this November when the Royals topped South Delta 2-0 in a horrid rainstorm in the provincial AAA final at Burnaby Lake Sports Complex West. Winstanley knew his girls were ready to play as they warmed up for the final because the topic of the weather never came up.
"It was torrential rain, windy, very cold," said Winstanley. "But they didn't mention the weather, they just completely ignored it. They were caught up in the moment and went out and did what they needed to do."
The friendly coach announced he was retiring following his third provincial title, content in the knowledge that he helped the program grow from disappointment into a dynasty. Of course, he took little credit for the breakthrough.
"Finally players came along that were too good - I couldn't mess it up," he said with a laugh.
So there you have it, our top five sports stories of 2013. If you have quibbles - and I'm sure many of you do - find us on Twitter or Facebook and let us have it. We'll even publish some replies if you make a strong enough case.
To finish off the year, here are a few honourable mentions that just missed making the top five: Gymnast Scott Morgan makes the floor final at the world championships; 16-year-old swimmer Emily Overholt wins bronze at the world junior championships; four players with North Shore ties help Canada earn a berth in the 2015 Rugby World Cup; middle distance runner Helen Crofts wins two NCAA Div. 2 national titles; and Carson Graham's football team finishes an outstanding season with a heartbreaking, last-second loss in the provincial AA final.
