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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, April 17, 2014 | 32 HALTON TRANSMISSION 559 SPEERS RD., #UNIT 3 905-842-0725 www.haltontransmission.com Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports "Connected to your Community" mental aspect, his ability to read plays. He just thinks the game better than the average player." Did not start last season in junior Prapavessis has come a long way in a short time to become the league's best defenceman -- he also, no surprise, took home the OJHL's most gentlemanly player award. At Christmas last season, the Oakville Trafalgar High School student had yet to earn a full-time job in junior hockey. He tried out for the Patriots but a veteran team coming off a trip to the conference championship couldn't commit to a 16-yearold defenceman. "It was disappointing, but they told me to just keep playing the way I was and I would probably be with them before the end of the season," Prapavessis says. He returned to the Mississauga Rebels midgets and the Patriots called on him as an affiliate player for nine games before Christmas. By early January Prapavessis was a regular on the Lakeshore blueline and finished the season with eight points in his final 10 games. It was a sign of things to come. Returning for his first full season in September, Prapavessis racked up 16 points in the Patriots' first 10 games. He would go on to lead all blueliners in scoring with 55 points and finish second in the league with 50 assists. "Coming into this year with that experience helped," he says. "I was used to the longer games and playing against 20-year-olds. I knew what the league was like. I was comfortable from the start. They showed confidence in me and things took off." Prapavessis was named to the Canada East team for the World Junior A Challenge in December -- "definitely a cool experience to wear your country's logo," he said -- and it was around that time he first started hearing the whispers. see Blueliner on p.33 Prapavessis OJHL's top defenceman -- and its most gentlemanly player by Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver Staff Mr. Clean The number is just so unbelievable. Two penalty minutes in 47 regular-season games. That might be possible if you're a scoring winger who floats on the periphery and plays as though you've got eggs in your pockets. But a defenceman who spends half the game on the ice, plays all the key minutes and is tasked with shutting down opponents? No way. The numbers don't lie, though. Michael Prapavessis, the No. 1 defenceman on a team just two victories from winning the Ontario Junior Hockey League championship, took just one minor penalty this year. And don't think he doesn't remember it -- even if it was seven months ago. "It was against Cobourg," Prapavessis says, instantly recalling circumstances of the Sept. 16 hooking penalty. "I thought the guy kind of dived. It was at the end of the game and it went into overtime so I was pretty nervous. It was nerve-wracking but the guys Michael Prapavessis tees up a slapshot Monday during an Ontario Junior Hockey League championship series contest against the Aurora Tigers. The Toronto Lakeshore Patriots defenceman was recently named both the OJHL's top defenceman and most gentlemanly player. | photo by Jay Johnston --OJHL Images killed it off." A little over three minutes after being set free from the penalty box, Prapavessis set up Marcus Rose's game-winning goal with nine seconds remaining in overtime to give the Toronto Lakeshore Patriots a 5-4 win. But his brush with the law must have inflicted some deep mental scars on the Oakville native. How else can you explain that it was another 191 days -- 52 games -- before he returned to the penalty box nine games into Lakeshore's playoff run, which sees it now leading Aurora 2-1 in the best- of-seven final. Patriots general manager Mike Tarantino offers up another explanation. Like the players Prapavessis admired growing up -- Nicklas Lidstrom and Scott Niedermayer -- he simply doesn't put himself in position where he has to take a penalty. "His intelligence on the ice is top end. It's what separates him from everyone else," says Tarantino, who coached the 6-foot-1, 180-pound blueliner last season. "His physical abilities are good, but it's his poise, the Another provincial basketball title for Venom girls For the fourth time in the last six years, an Oakville Basketball Club girls' rep team is an Ontario Division 1 champion. The major bantam Venom claimed the Ontario Cup under-14 girls' title last weekend in Brampton, winning all five of its games by double-digit margins. Oakville defeated St. Catharines CYO Rebels #1 6525, Brampton Warriors 50-28, Kitchener-Waterloo Lightning #1 58-35 and Brantford CYO 51-37 to reach the final, then downed Scarborough Blues (Breedy) 37-26 to win its second consecutive provincial Division 1 gold. "It's the program. Pat Traynor (the OBC's junior girls' elite head coach) sets up a great program that stresses fundamentals. That's where it all starts from," said major bantam coach Mike Hughes. "Then we have a facility that not many places have, where the kids can work out anytime. They can do basketball training as well as the physical side of it, like weight training and workouts." This year's Venom squad was without its dominant post player from last season but made up for a lack of size with its ball-handling abilities and three-point shooting. "We played five-out, with no preset positions. Two girls would generally bring the ball up but anyone would (run) in transition. We would just get the ball and push it," said Hughes, whose team is 34-3 this season. Members of the Venom are Aryn Sidhu, Arianne Soriano, Payton Hughes, Aleyxa Gates-Julien, Freya Morrison, Monica Dubria, Tori Cramm, Madison Trpcic, Lauren Boers and Claudia Cuicani. Glen Julien see Vytis on p.33 The Oakville Venom major bantam girls claimed an Ontario Cup basketball title last weekend, winning all five of their games by double-digit margins.