In part 1 of our look back at the year in sports we scan the headlines from January to June to see who was scoring on the Shore. Snowboarders were in peak form as they prepared themselves for the 2014 Sochi Olympics and North Shore high school kids were busy showing that they are the most talented bunch in the province.
Merry Christmas from the North Shore News sports department. We hope you stuffed yourself with turkey and are ready to loosen the belt a couple of notches while you relive these great moments. Bon appetit!
January
The Vancouver North West Giants often have a chance to score the first entry in these North Shore sports year in review articles with their annual participation in the Mac’s Midget AAA Tournament and 2013 was no different as the North Shore/Burnaby-based squad won the whole shebang for the second time in team history on New Year’s Day.
The Giants claimed the tournament’s massive trophy with a thrilling double overtime 3-2 win over the Carolina Junior Hurricanes in the final played at Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome.
Vancouver trailed 2-1 late in the game but a goal from New Westminster’s Brandon Del Grosso with just 13 seconds left in the third period sent it into overtime. Both goaltenders shut the door in the first overtime — West Vancouver’s Bo Didur stopped 32 of the 34 shots he faced in the game — before West Vancouver’s Jackson Cressey ended it with the championship-winning goal five minutes into the second overtime period.
The annual event is known as the best midget hockey tournament in the world.
In March the Giants continued their dominance of the B.C. Major Midget League by claiming their fifth straight championship with a 2-1 series win over the Okanagan Rockets at Burnaby Winter Club.
The Giants, with 15 of their 20 players hailing from the North Shore, clinched the series with a thrilling 1-0 win in the deciding game. North Vancouver’s Anthony Conti tipped in a power play point shot in the second period for the game’s only goal and Didur shut the door in goal to clinch the championship with a shutout win.
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North Vancouver’s Hannah Miller suited up for Team Canada as they scored a thrilling 2-1 victory over the United States in the gold medal game at the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship held Jan. 5 in Heinola, Finland.
Quebec City’s Catherine Dubois scored with 12.7 seconds left to send the game into overtime and Karly Heffernan of Belleville, Ont. recorded the winner just 40 seconds into the extra frame.
At the world championships Miller was the youngest player on the Canadian team and was used as an offensive specialist, racking up a goal and two assists in five games while earning a lot of power play time.
The championship final was an epic battle with the United States taking command early, outshooting the Canadians 20-1 in the first period while taking a 1-0 lead. As the game wore on the Canadians held the Americans off the score sheet long enough to turn things around and pull off their late-game heroics. At the end of it all came that unforgettable tradition of lining up on the blue line while the national anthem plays.
“It was the most amazing experience of my life,” said Miller. “I don’t think I’ve ever sung it that loud before.”
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West Vancouver native Maëlle Ricker won gold at the Snowboard FIS World Championships Jan. 26 in Stoneham, Que., claiming the one title that had so far eluded her in her illustrious career as a snowboard
cross racer.
Ricker’s trophy case was already stocked with Crystal Globe season-championship awards, numerous World Cup medals and, of course, a shiny hunk of gold won on Cypress Mountain at the 2010 Olympics, but before this year she had never earned gold at the world championships. She placed fourth three times, going all the way back to her first worlds in 1997, and won bronze at the 2005 race in Whistler but never world gold.
That changed when the 34-year-old put in a dominant performance in Quebec, finishing as the fastest qualifier before carrying that speed into the six-woman elimination races and coming out on top in the final. Dominique Maltais of Petite-Riviere-St. Francois, Que., finished second to join her teammate on the podium while Norway’s Helene Olafsen won the bronze.
“It’s extremely satisfying,” Ricker said of finally winning a world championship. “It’s definitely something that was missing, just not performing on the right day. It was a little bit of a thorn in my side and a big goal going into this season.”
February
The Capilano University men’s volleyball team topped off a dramatic turnaround season by winning the PacWest provincial championship tournament and finishing fifth at the CCAA national championships.
The Blues earned the provincial title, the team’s first since 2005, by topping No. 1-ranked Douglas College in a five-set thriller in the semifinals before beating No. 2-ranked Vancouver Island University in the final. Rookie head coach Nathan Bennett was named the PacWest coach of the year while fourth-year power hitter Dan Caverly was named MVP of the provincial championships and earned a spot on the first all-star team at the national championships.
March
Helen Crofts burned up the track for Simon Fraser University at the NCAA Div. 2 indoor track and field national championships in March, winning gold in the women’s 800-metre race. The West Vancouver middle-distance runner left competitors chasing her footprints as she notched a time of 2:05.96 in the final race at the Birmingham, Ala. track meet.
Crofts ended her SFU running career in fine style two months later when she won the 800-m title at the NCAA Div. 2 Outdoor Track and Field Championships held in Pueblo, Colo. Crofts led wire-to-wire, coming home in 2:08.18 to take the win by more than a second.
“I couldn’t be happier,” she said, summing up the triumphant finish to her SFU career. “I’m sad to see it go but I’m very happy I’m going to be able to continue training with the team for the foreseeable future. SFU proved to be a really great experience and I definitely wouldn’t have done things differently.”
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Windsor secondary’s gymnastics team nailed it at the provincial championships held March 7-9 in Powell River, vaulting over the competition to win the boys, girls and combined team titles. At the provincial championships the team was led by a trio of boys who scored all-around podium finishes in their levels. Justin Tan finished first in the boys Level 1 (lowest) all-around competition, Braeden Massullo finished third in Level 2 all-around and Greg Burns placed second in the Level 4 competition.
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North Vancouver native Manuel Osborne-Paradis won the national downhill title at the Sport Chek Alpine Canadian Championships in Whistler March 23, capping off a season that showed that his racing career is back to full speed after a few slow years.
Osborne-Paradis whipped through the brand new Raven/Ptarmigan downhill course in a time of one minute 1.97 seconds, besting second place finisher Jeffrey Frisch by more than half a second with veteran John Kucera placing third.
Manny also showed well in Kvitfjell, Norway on March 2 where he finished fourth in a World Cup downhill, missing the podium by one-hundredth of a second. The results were welcome news for a racer who tore his ACL and broke his fibula in a crash during a World Cup race in January of 2011.
This month, Manny again proved he is among the world’s best racers heading into the 2014 Olympics, finishing fourth again in a World Cup race held in Beaver Creek, Colo.
April
Any NHL debut is special, but circumstances aligned to make West Vancouver’s Max Reinhart’s first game in the big show almost perfect.
The 21 year old suited up for the Calgary Flames April 6, playing a regular shift in Rogers Arena against his hometown Canucks with cameras from the famed Hockey Night In Canada catching all the action.
“It was honestly everything I dreamed of,” Reinhart told the North Shore News. “I still can’t really put a lot of my emotions into words — I think the best way to describe it was it was pretty much a dream come true.”
Friends and family — including his mother Theresa and father Paul, himself a former NHL star — were on hand to see him play.
“Growing up the dream was always to play in that building,” Max said. “Obviously as a kid growing up I always wanted to play for Vancouver but I’m not going to complain that I was playing with Calgary.”
Max went on to score three points in 11 games as he finished out the season in Calgary.
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In April, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame announced their class of 2013 and included on the list was North Shore mountain biking legend Alison Sydor. Sydor was inducted during a ceremony in October alongside other sports superstars such as Joe Sakic and Russ Howard.
“It’s pretty special news, it’s a very special honour,” Sydor told the North Shore News after learning she’d be the first mountain biker to be inducted into the hall.
“In my cycling career I probably ended up being the first of a lot of things . . . back when I started, mountain bikes weren’t even invented,” she said with a laugh.
June
The Argyle Pipers senior girls soccer team got to celebrate on home soil after beating the Oak Bay Breakers in the provincial AAA championship final played June 1 at North Vancouver’s Inter River Park.
Jessie Blanchard scored the game’s only goal on a long blast late in the first half that sailed over the head of the Oak Bay keeper before dropping just under the crossbar in the top
left corner.
“I’m speechless. I’m so excited. It’s crazy,” Blanchard told the North Shore News after the final whistle sounded. “I did not think (that shot) was going in. I was just like, smash it as hard as you can.”
With shutouts in both the semifinal and final as well as only two goals allowed in five total games, goalkeeper Austin Studer was named the tournament MVP.
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It was an all-West Van showdown in the provincial AA rugby championship final played June 1 with the Collingwood Cavaliers coming out on top against their neighbours and longtime rivals from Rockridge. In the final, played in Abbotsford’s Rotary Stadium, Collingwood jumped out to an early 10-0 lead but Rockridge roared back to tie it at 10 early in the second half.
With time winding down, Collingwood captain Marshall Fuller scored his second try of the game to make it 15-10 and the Cavaliers took control the rest of the way, bashing out a 20-10 win.
See Sunday’s North Shore News for the continuation of the 2013 Sport Year in Review series: July to December.
