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Page REALITIES Friday May 11 Raiders looking to improve Georgetown Chrysler Raiders Jr B hockey organization is hop ing a more aggressive scouting approach and a series of early will improve on its sixth place regular season finish and first round playoff elimination in the schedule Raider coach Charlie named as Gary McFadyen s replacement at the beginning of April said the idea of the early tryouts from April 1421 at Arena was to try and get paten tial players to identify with the Raider name and take of the recent completion of tht season This way most of the guys haven t been off the ice for very long and are still in reasonable condition said close to players were looked at and ap proximately have been chosen to return for further camps in August He added that those players have been given a condi honing program to work on over the summer that is designed to improve muscle strength and in crease size something he believes will help tht team down the road an eight week program that assistant coach Mike Mar has put together for the boys to work on individually Generally I believe increased size es a player more con on the ice Brampton which swept Raiders in the playoffs was generally bigger and more physical than Georgetown which I think gave them an adv antage over us said another change which should bring about positive results was getting about 10 Raider players from last years team to help referee the senm mages and run the benches I wanted to start a team con cept right away Rob Doucette a veteran fourth year among several others have shown an in terest in helping out This should help develop leadership among them as well The coach said the team has in creased its efforts to reach more prospects from around the pro vince this year placing in many local newspapers about the I think we ve gotten a very good response We ve gotten peo ple from all different areas from several C teams up north to the Brampton triple and double A teams and the Toronto leagues as well said the team is aim ing to play 500 hockey this year and advancing at least past the first round of the playoffs The coach said the team is capable of being competitive with any of its in the Central Ontario League with Oakville this year top team seen as its toughest test t cominfl season Acton Minor Hockey According to Andy Williams president of the Acton Minor Hockey Association his group had a fairly successful season We did very well with three of our teams winning Hub league championships and four of them finishing first in their local leagues The boys all had a good year Williams said there were a few less players signed up this year resulting in two fewer teams but is optimistic the would get the same number back next It seems to go up and down everv so often One thing that was at capacity was our executive membership so our organization of things ran fairly smoothly We 11 be working on forming our budget over the course of the summer Williams said one of the ex ecutive s mam projects is getting Hills Town to pro vide the funds needed to build a new arena in Acton since the old one is in danger of being shut down due to its advanced age One area of concern that t turn out to be too serious was the possibility of losino too many players to the newly formed AAA Acton minor sof tball full to the brim Acton Minor Softball Assoda tion increased its numbers this year from to 240 forcing the organization to turn people away because of the limited number of playing fields Cornelia Turpm president of the association for the last two years said the organization might have to reorganize its scheduling in the future because the teams can t take on more players than they already have It s not fair to the kids if there are too many since they wouldn get that much playing time The only other way around it is to buy our own field which is something we II have to look at down the road Turpin said other people who have asked to join have been given the numbers of other in the area such as Limehouse and Glen Williams in order to find a place to play The growth in numbers has led the association to bring a second peewee boys team into the fold and the first peewee girls team that Acton has had for a few years also added another atom boys team making a total of three this year The younger groups have grown more as well with T Ball doing very well The only one we lost was the Halton Hills Bantam girls rep team which is operating out of Georgetown now said Turpin The president said the main goal of the local sports group is to try and get a batting cage in the near future which would be located at Prospect Park and us ed by all the baseball organiza tions It would be a great help to everyone being able to improve on their bitting especially the kids The cost is about with the most expensive thing be ing the fencing Turpin said aside from always looking for coaches to help out with the teams everything has been running well so far and believes this year could be one of the association sbest league resulting in fewer learns being put on the ice Only about five players went to the triple A league and a few more will probably go next year but it won really affect us We had quite a few capable of going but they t want to leave said Williams Williams said the two tour the association ran this year were also successful draw ing a lot of the public in to watch the games The Atom and Novice tour are something we started up last year and we re happy with the way they have gone We had a lot of people help to organize them with no com plaints about how it went Still Williams said the AMHA can never have enough volunteers for such events in eluding With the cost of ice rentals going up along with other necessities like new equip ment and sweaters people are needed to help sell raffle tickets and cheese or other items during fundraising drives Serving the HALTON HILLS AREA FOR OVER YEARS Manufacturers Since 1963 Fast Efficient Delivery ACTON PRECAST CONCRETE LIMITED Septic Holding Tanks PVC Sewer Pipe Well Tiles Culverts Transformer Bases Steps Porches Yard Patio Products Interlocking Paving Stones IF ITS PRECAST ITS BUILT TO LAST 15198531529 ingenuity leads to increase in registration The Georgetown Minor Hockey Association used a little ingenuity to help increase its registration this year said president Hal Pells raising its numbers for the second year in a row We had registered this past year and are hoping to in crease marginally next year as well What we did to reach new people was compare the baseball and soccer registration lists with ours Any that were missing from our list were sent a letter of in traduction to encourage them to join us Pells said the greater numbers enabled the GMHA to increase the MidgetJuvenile hockey house league from four up to six teams while still maintaining a high level of competiveness It was a big surprise how well matched these guys were There was only a five point spread bet ween the first last placed teams at the end of the regular season As a result of the increase in that age division Pells said some of their games had to be moved outside of their traditional Sun day evening slot but the move din t cause many problems One big success we had this year was the Day of Champions We packed more people in there than the Raiders Georgetown Jr B team could ever hope to It was a lot of fun for everyone in volved and something we re real looking forward to next year Pells said part of the reason for that enthusiasm is that people from the Tun Horton s store chain were impressed with the way the event was organized and how many members of the public came out As a result the store may be sponsoring the event the future a for the GMHA s budget While on the topic of expenses Pells said the organization will continue to pressure Halton Hills Town Council to give the group a reduced rental rate for the Arena facilities dunng the two tournament they run It a special event as far as the town is concerned but by holding the tournaments we re bnnging in a lot of business to the area Also the town makes a small fortune from the snack bar they run in the arena while the events are on Another major area of concern is the effect the newly formed Hurricanes AAA organization in the area has had on the GMHA s other minor hockey teams From an overall standpoint we suffered to some point We had to reclassify some teams from double A to double B because they weren as com as they were before We lost about 35 kids and I don see it improving in the near future Pells said the association will be discussing the A tion at their June meetings as they try and decide on a course of action one of which includes try to get rid of the Hurricanes Vanan is a science based electronics company that des gns manufactures and markets high technology systems components and support services for communications defence medical environmental industrial and scientific applications Some 1 0 000 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