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D2 - The Oakville Beaver, Tuesday December 21, 2004 Two Oakville snipers in top six as OHL breaks for X-mas The Ontario Hockey League has shut down for its Christmas Break , with two Oakville snipers in the top six in scoring. In fourth place is Rob Hisey of the Barrie Colts w ith 47 points (15g, 32a) in 33 games and in sixth place is Evan McGrath of the Kitchener Rangers w ith 45 points (15g. 30a) in 31 games. Both had losing weekends, howev Rob Hisey: 4th. er. Hisey had a goal and two assists and was named third star but it was n't enough as Barrie was edged 6-5 by the Ottawa 67's on Saturday. It was Hisey's first loss in six games with Barrie after being acquired from the Erie Otters. McGrath had two assists Saturday and one assist on Friday, but unfortu nately for him his Kitchener team dropped both ends of a weekend Evan McGrath: 6th. series w ith Owen Sound Attack, 4-3 and 5-2, respectively. In other OHL highlights for Oakville, Josh Disher won his lone start on the weekend, turning aside 21 of 23 shots on Friday night as his Erie Otters defeated the visit ing Oshawa Generals 3-2. Tyler and Justin Donati are in a dispute with Oshawa and currently not with the team. The OHL revs back up next week starting on Tuesday, December 28. PETER C. McCUSKER / OAKVILLE BEAVER ON A ROLL: The puck didn't roll the Oakville Ice's way in this 4-2 loss to the Ottawa Raiders on Sunday. In this photo, Ice goalie Katie Germain and a cou ple of defenders, including Safiya Muharuma, keep a close eye on the puck. Ice settle for weekend split at home .. I The Oakville Ice played their last game before the Holiday Break last night (Monday) in Toronto against the perennially powerful Toronto Aeros (it went beyond our press dead lines). The Ice, in third place with a 9-9-3-1 record in the central division of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), were in danger of falling below the .500 mark in the match-up against the high flying Aeros who are in second place with a 16-2-1 record. The Ice closed out their home schedule for the year with an unsatisfying weekend split. On Friday night, against TELUS Lightning, which sports the worst record in the league at 1-19-2, the Ice were thoroughly dominant in an 8-1 win. But on Sunday, against the Ottawa Raiders, who sport a less than intimidating 7-14-2-1 record, the Ice lost 4-2 despite holding the edge in shots 36-24. Darlene Stephenson led the attack Friday night, scoring three o f the first four goals. Single markers were added by Kimberley Insalaco, Val Hall, Kristin King, Tasha Noble and Kathy McCormack. Assists were scooped by Carly Haggard (2). McCormack (2), 2002 Jr. Ice host Burlington The Oakville Jr. Ice play their last game before C hristm as break, hosting the Burlington Barracudas tonight (Tuesday), 7:15 p.m. at Ice Sports Oakville. The two teams are neck and neck in the Provincial Women's Hockey League stand ings with Burlington at 16 points (7-9-2) and Oakville at 14 points (4-8-6). Oakville fought to a 3-3 draw on Saturday against the Aurora Jr. Panthers who have 12 points (4-10-4). Olympic gold medalist Therese Brisson (2), Insalaco, Hall. Kim M cCullough, King, Jennifer McRae. Jennifer Goulet and recent addition Becky Kellar, also an Olympic gold medalist, Oakville, which held period leads o f 1-0 and 6-1, outshot TELUS 38-16 with Tania Pinelli earning the win. On Sunday, the Ottawa Raiders scored goals 17 seconds apart with less than two min utes remaining in the first period and never looked back. The Ice managed to score the lone goal of the second period (Kristin King, assisted by Carly Haggard and Kimberley Insalaco) but the Raiders then added another pair in the third period to seal the win. The Ice closed out the scoring on a goal by Lindsay Vine, assisted by Kim McCullough and Kathy McCormack. Katie Germain was tagged for the loss. Dragon boat world's held in Shanghai Continued from page 01 MEN'S ELITE TEAM: The Oakville Gymnastics Club elite men's team with their coach, Eric Kafka (far right). The team, from left to right, is comprised of Matthew Wilson, Jeremie Quek, Alex Danahy, Robert Wilson, Adam Kassam and Brad Schnurr. See story. Gymnastics club busy at elite meets The Oakville Gymnastics Club elite athletes have been very busy, of late, on both the national and provincial level. NATIONAL Cory Paterson and Chase Norman competed at Elite Canada in Calgary, Dec. 9-12. Paterson, 9, and Norman, Oakville Gym Club provincial qualifier results W O M EN 'S ARTISTIC F loor Vault Bars Beam Novice 1 ... 12 years: Staci Carvalho Tyro 3 ... 11 yrs. Nikki Paterson Novice 2 12 yrs. Lianne G irard Argo 2 ... 9 yrs. Rebecca Carrique TVro 2 ... 11 yrs. Kelsey Brasil Allison Lind Argo 1 ... 9 yrs. Lauren Ashby Open 1 ... 14+ Erinn Mistak Jaclyn Charlton Sarah Jansen 10th 7th 8th 2nd 5th 6th 4th 3rd 4th 2nd 2nd 4th 7th · 3rd 8th 8th __ 3rd 8th 5th 2nd 8th 1st 8th __ 3rd 6th 4th · 8th 5th 3rd 9th A/A 6th 7th TRA M PO L IN E P ro v in c ia l... M en 's U-14 Nathan M cLeod Taylor Blixt Provincial M en 's 14+ Kenny Robertson Alex G ray Kyle Campbell 3rd 11 th 13th 6th 8th Alex Coutin ... great job Brandon W oodward ...great job 9th __ 1st 3rd 7th 7th __ 2nd 4th 5th TR A M PO L IN E SY N C H R O Provincial C Nathan M cLeod and Taylor Blixt (5th) Kenny Robertson and Alex Coutin (6th) Provincial B Kyle Cam pbell and Alex G ray (7th) MEN 'S A RTISTIC Floor Level 1 ... U-10 Jack M cGarr Level 1 ... 10-12 Christopher Rome Eric Mariglia Christopher Hazineh Level 2 ... 10-12 Jordan Bollinger Camden Palkovic Level 3 . . . 10-12 Jerem ie Quek Robert Wilson Level 3 ... 13+ Alex Danahy Matthew Wilson Adam Kassam Bfad Schnurr -- 6th 1st P.H. -- 3rd 3rd 5th 3rd 6th 2nd __ 4th 6th 8th Rings 10th 1st 4th 4th 10th 7th __ 7th 9th -- 2nd 3rd Vault 10th 8th 6th P.B. -- 1st 2nd 8th 2nd 6th 5th __ 1st 6th -- H.B 10th 4th 5th 9th 4th 3rd 10th 7th 3rd 9th 10th A/A -- 4th 5th 7th 4th 6th 6th __ 2nd 7th -- POW ER TUM BLING Provincial 1 ... M en's N icholas Stevenson Provincial 2 ... M en's Luke M acKinnon Ricardo Sm ith Rachele Benjamin 7th 11 th 2nd 12th 15th 15 th 13 th 2nd 3rd Provincial 1 ... W om en's H eather Lawton Caroline Marful Dana Khan Sarah Khan M arco C apobianco > 2nd 5th 6th 9th 6th 4th 8th 7th, Provincial 2 ... Jr. W om en's _ __ 8th Provincial 2 ... Sr. W om en's M en's N ovice National 5th 10, competed in the Argo High Performance in the 9-12 year old category. Elite Canada has national level athletes in both the men's and women's artistic programs compete against each other from all over the country. In order to qualify for this compe titio n the athletes must complete a physical testing. Elite Canada is also used to quali fy older athletes to the national teams. Coach Greg Jackson accompanied the young men to the competition along w ith their families. Paterson came home w ith a silver medal on parallel bars and finished seventh overall. Norman finished eighth on floor and 11th on vault. It was a memorable experience for both young athletes. PROVINCIAL The Oakville Gymnastics Club was very well represented in the first round of provincial qualifiers w ith all of its men's and women's teams in both artistic and trampoline and power tumbling. The qualifiers were held over the weekends of Nov. 27/28 and Dec. 4/5. These young athletes can train anywhere from 6-9 hours per week for trampoline and power tum bling and up to 16-20 hours for the artistic program. Full results are included. "The boat we actually raced in China was about 15 feet longer than we were used to, and probably close to 1,000 pounds heavier," said Reid, noting the challenge of having all 22 people in the dragon boat working together. "We met a few (teammates) at the airport on the way there, which was challenging. But every time we got in the boat, we got better and better because of the types of ath letes we have." Cain, who won gold and silver in canoe at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, became involved in dragon boat eight years ago. Despite his past success at the Olympic level, the Oakville native now living in Burlington could still appreciate Canada's triumph in the Nations Cup. "What we accomplished isn't the same as what Adam (van Koeverden) did in Athens," said Cain, referring to van Koeverden's gold and bronze medal-winning per formance in kayak at this year's Olympics in Greece. " But it's a lot of fun. You're doing it w ith your friends and sharing it with other people, instead of coming off the water and then sharing it with your family and friends." For Reid, dragon boat is an opportunity to represent Canada on the international scene. The 29-year-old canoed for years with Burloak but never had a chance to compete in world championships, since women do not contest the sport at that level. Kuyper has long been campaigning to have women's canoe adopted into Olympic competition, although it appears unlikely that it w ill happen any time soon. " Quite often we're told the Olympics are getting too big," said Reid. "There has to be a certain number of countries competing in a sport to have world champi onships, and there needs to be so many world champi onships to be an Olympic sport." Financial support remains a concern for the national dragon boat team. Although the premier squads were sponsored this year by The Greater Toronto Dragon Boat Club, Simon River Sports, Regatta Sport and Tour East Holidays, members of the team still had to do extensive fundraising and even contribute some of their own money to fund the trip to Shanghai. With next year's world championships to be contested in Germany, Reid and the rest of the Canadians are actively seeking sponsorship for 2005. "Anything helps, really. Anything from sports equip ment to training clothes," Reid said. " For a company try ing to get into the international scene, it's a great oppor tunity for them. We do have sponsors on our team shirts, our uniforms and our paddles, so it's quite visible." Canada also won the dragon boat world champi onships last year in Poland and two years ago in Philadelphia. Blades off for X-mas break Continued from page D1 ways Friday against the West Conference-leading Georgetown Raiders. Although Oakville tied the game 3-3 with five minutes remaining in regulation, the Raiders scored two late goals for a 5-3 victory, Georgetown's first regulation-time, regular-season win over Oakville in the teams' last eight meetings. The Blades bounced back the following night with a decisive win over Milton, which has dropped seven of its past nine games. Steve Pinizzotto sparked Oakville with two goals and an assist, w ith Matt Beca, Paul Dawson, Ryan Ellis and Rico Arnaldo also tallying. David Scamurra earned the victory in net. Oakville w ill now enjoy a two-week break before returning to action Jan. 3 against Hamilton. Carnevale said the team w ill rest for the first week of the break before running a m ini-training camp and doing some bonding activities the second week. Oakville is also expected to pick up an experienced goaltender later this month to complement Chris Hyk. "We don't mind where we are," said Carnevale. "We've had a great start and we've excited the town. We are the west division champs and (everyone's) going to have to go through us to win." . f