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Wednesday, June 7, 2000 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER D1 LIVE ENTERTAINMENT Every Friday & Saturday! Ladies' Night Every Friday YOU WOULDN'T TRUST JUST ANYONE TO DRIVE YOUR CAR, $0 WHT TtUST JUST ANY COMPANY TO INSURE i n JU N E 9 & 10 ASCENSION at 10pm T o m Centre > S at., J u n e 10 nerval a qew H O LYR ELD 844-8703 ___ vs. R U E An O akville Beaver Feature Editor: NORM NELSON Phone:845-3824, ext 255 Fax:337-5567 E-mail:nnelson@haltonsearch.com id Wayne McGill 2345W ^ a d tR d .* 21. 0 ikv»c ^ 847-5671 Photo Special to the Beaver SYDNEY BOUND: Oakville's Andrew Hurd did well to earn a spot at the prestigious Pan Pacific Games in Sydney last summer where this photo was taken. Now, he has emphatically earned his way back to Sydney this summer for the biggest competition of them all -- the Olympic Games. H urd qualifies for Olympics The first from O akville to earn a berth B y Norm Nelson BEAVER SPORTS EDITOR Oakville has qualified its first athlete to this year's Sydney Olympics, and he's just finishing off his Grade 12 year at Oakville Trafalgar High School. Going into Canada's Olympic swimming trials, which were held all last week in Montreal, 17-year-old Andrew Hurd had won his specialty event -- the 1500 metres -- at the last two senior nationals. But he had yet to meet the Olympic qualifying standard. Well, on Sunday night, in the closing event o f the Olympic trials, he not only won, but his winning time (of 15 minutes and 12.70 seconds) didn't just surpass the Olympic qualifying time, but it dam near set a new Canadian record, missing by just seven-hundreths of a sec ond, which is just the tiniest o f margins over that marathon distance. As it was, he certainly destroyed the Canadian agegroup record by more than 12 seconds. It erased his own previous best by more than 17 seconds and was 40 seconds better than his best times last year. Hey, getting up before 5 a.m. to do a little swimming before hitting the books at OTHS has obviously paid off. "H e's going to go to heaven," said M ark Temple, his coach at the M ississauga Aquatic Club. "I'm probably going to go to hell for putting him through it all. H e's a good boy and I 'm sure that someone will make him a saint somewhere sometime and I'll take the blame." Hurd, however, certainly wasn't complaining. "I've always loved swimming. I used to swim when I was four in my back yard." Hurd was second in the preliminaries in a time of 15:44.45. Before shifting over to the M ississauga Aquatic Club and coach M ark Temple, Hjird had started out in the Oakville Aquatic Club's Olympic Way program. The two clubs are close and sometimes compete togeth er at big local meets under the guise of the Toronto AllStars. And members occasionally shift between clubs, for instance, Christina Kubacki who was at the trials recently (See 'Oakville swimmers' page D3) L ' ^ Photos by Barrie Erskine LOOK YOU, I CAN DO IT, TOO: inspired by the visit on Saturday of the Serie A (premier) division Italian club Reggina, Mike Jasinski from Oakville's under-16 rep team showed a few tricks in his bag. Reggina stopped by on their way to an exhibition match against Rochester. THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT: the Oakville Soccer Club scored quite a coup in getting the Italian premier division club Reggina to stop by on Saturday to mingle with its players. Here, Francesco Cozza shows some pizazz. Top Italian club drops by Oakville Soccer Club players got a rare chance to rub shoulders with a club from Italy's top divi sion on Saturday. Oakville Soccer Club head coach Rick Morandini managed to get Reggina, who survived their first campaign in Italy's top division this season with a 9-1213 record (good enough for 12th in the 18-team league) to drop by Bronte Park for an hour of auto graphs and meeting with the kids. They were on their way to Rochester to continue their threegame exhibition series with ALeague clubs. Maybe they picked up a thing or two from the Oakville Soccer Club as they went on to a 1-0 win over the Rochester Raging Rhinos before close to 9,000 fans. They tied their first game 0-0 with Montreal Impact before close to 5,000 fans last Wednesday. The tour was set to come to an end last night at Varsity Stadium in Toronto against the Toronto Lynx with organizers hoping for a near 9,000 sellout. Reggina is based in Reggio di Calabria in the south of Italy, located in the very tip of Italy's boot, facing Sicily. The tour is organized and budgeted by the newly formed, Toronto-based Reggina Calcio Association of Canada. Major Junior A Coyotes sweep weekend home stand Mike Tarantino, last year's leading scorer for the Oakville Blades provin cial junior A hockey team (and 5th in the west division), hasn't lost a step with the wheels replacing the blades. His four goals and three assists led the Oakville Coyotes to an 8-7 win over the visiting Buffalo Wings in Major Junior A roller hockey action Sunday afternoon. Not only did Tarantino have a great afternoon, he did it in dramatic fash ion by scoring with twenty seven sec onds left in the game to give the Coyotes a much needed win. With the game deadlocked at 7-7 with under a minute to go, Tarantino picked up a loose puck in his own end and barreled down the floor. The Wings gave pursuit but to no avail as Tarantino was determined to put this game in the books. He pulled back and fired a blistering slap shot past the beleaguered Buffalo netminder. "Mike had a great game today" stated Ron Piercey who coaches the team along with Ed Kirsten. "It was only fitting he scored the winner." Coyote's goaltender Ryan Miehm also had a great game, turning away countless Buffalo chances. "Ryan m akes those H asek-like saves just when you need one -- he gets us fired up," commented team captain Jeff Elia. Other notable contributions to the (See 'Coyotes' page D3) Oakville goalie Ryan Miehm turned away countless Buffalo chances in his team's close 8-7 win over Buffalo Sunday afternoon at Oakville Arena. Photo by Barrie Erskine Connecting you to your community.