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Wednesday, December 8, 1999 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER D1 Fam ily New Year's Eve K id s C ° O n f4 ° u m Special Parent & Kid's Menu '.sssr.- iTO 0P*'An Oakville Beaver Feature Editor: NORM NELSON 845-3824 (Extension 255) Fax:337-5567 Town Centre I I 844-8703 Photo by Peter C. McCusker The Oakville Sports Hall of Fame opened last F'riday in its temporary quarters at the River Oaks Rec Centre. Its permanent location is included in the future expansion plans of the Glen Abbey Rec Centre. Mayor Ann Mulvale (left) was on hand at a special ceremony last Thursday night along with some of the orig inal inductees (l-r) Sandra Post, M aria Jeiinek and Vic Hadfield. Otto Jelinek and Donovan Bailey could not be present Original inductees take their place in Oakville Sports Hall o f Fam e By Kathy Yanchus SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Photo by Barrie Erskine It was another step towards honoring the elite athletes who have not just made Oakville proud, but the entire nation. Former New York Rangers star left winger Vic Hadfield, legendary golfer Sandra Post and former World Champion pairs skater Maria Jelinek, all of whom Oakville can call its own, were on hand Thursday night to officially open the site of the new Sports Hall o f Fame within the River Oaks Community Centre. (Missing among the original inductees were Olympic gold medalist Donovan Bailey and M aria's brother and skating partner, Otto Jelinek.) As flashbulbs popped, the athletes unveiled the huge panel backdrop, reveal ing capsuliz$d career biographies and wonderful photographs of each of them in action. The unforgettable picture o f Bailey as he crossed the finish line to win gold at the `96 Olympics and a shot of Maria and Otto preparing for their first competition are among the many there for posterity. Visitors will treasure them and young people will be inspired. "We are the past," commented Post. "With all the young people coming through here, hopefully this will offer them inspiration for our future." Post said she hasn't yet decided what items she will donate to the museum, which has already been promised one of M aria's skating dresses. `T h is is very exciting," said Maria. "It really brings back memories." All artifacts donated by the individual athletes, will be secured inside cus tomized museum containers, specially designed by the architectural firm, Stafford, haensli architects, Inc., responsible for the entire Hall of Fame concept. "It's functional, portable," explained Stafford, haensli president, Lubomir Dzamba, himself a Czechoslovakian pairs champion in `74, one reason why his firm, "couldn't pass this up." "It looks good and is easily assembled. One tool, one key and you're done," he said. It was designed so that the items could be moved, for example into school for a special event, and eventually to its permanent home inside the Glen Abbey Recreation Centre, when renovations are complete. "It's (the River Oaks site) just not big enough," commented councillor Jody Sanderson. As well as recognizing sponsors for the Hall o f Fame, the names of the Year 2000 inductees were also announced: Paddler and Olympic gold medalist Larry Cain; Bud Corbett; boxer Jack Duggan; former Toronto Argonaut Dan Ferrone, and Oakville Soccer coach Phil Iafrati. Coach Bryan Camani with the Q.E. Park Moroccan-bound cross country team. Clockwise (from the coach), Kyle Jones, Paul Reynard, Cam Shepherd, Rich Carton, James Kozak, Bob McDonald and Filip Prostran. Q.E. Park cross country team is going across the world for high school games By Norm Nelson BEAVER SPORTS EDITOR Normally, the OFSAA provincial cross country champi onships marks the end of the season. But for the Q.E. Park junior cross country team, it's just the beginning. They've got a date in Morocco next March for the world high school championships, and their intense training regimen has just begun. -- -- You'll catch the half dozen or so athletes most afternoons after school in training along with coach Bryan Camani. "They're putting in a couple hours a day," said coach Camani. "We try to take one day off (a week)." That totals about 12 to 14 hours a week, which they intend to do from now until next March. "And that's not counting travel time, such as when we go up to Kelso." They'll also compete in just about every race in the area, both indoors but also at the few outdoor, cold weather meets still on tap. Q.E. Park is no stranger to the world high school champi onships. Q.E. Park provided a couple of swimmers to the Ontario provincial team that competed in China in 1998. And back in 1988, when Canada first started competing in the world high school games, Camani took a girls cross coun try team from Q.E. Park to Morocco. To get the six-member team, plus coach Camani to Morocco, will ring in at an estimated $11,000, and coach Camani, besides coaching the athletes, also gets the fundrais ing job that goes with it. He's canvassing local service clubs, businesses and indus try to see if they would like to sponsor and to have their name attached to half a dozen committed athletes who have promised to work their backs off to represent school, town, province and country on a world stage. Coach Camani can be contacted at the school at 827-4101. The organization putting on the games is called the International Schoolsport Federation and it holds the games every two years. The purpose, as coach Camani states in his letter, is to "encourage international contacts between the school going population of the different countries in order to promote a bet ter mutual understanding." Not all countries are represented, so it's not as inclusive as (See Q.E. PariC page D3) NFLers kicking up a storm W hite Oaks grad Mike Vanderjagt was prominent all over the Sunday hilight reels with his 53yard, game winning field goal with time expired. It was his longest o f the year. It gave his suddenly stellar Indianapolis Colts (10-2) a 37-34 win over the Miami Dolphins (8-4). It doesn't get much better than that for the Oakville product who once went to Canada's national soc cer championships with one o f Phil lafrati's clubs. Iafrati, appropriately, is also in the news, having been named into the second wave of inductions into the Oakville Sports Hall of Fame. No doubt Vanderjagt will follow. Vanderjagt has hit 26 of 30 field goals this season (86.7 percent), and is one-for-one inside the 20, six-forsix from 20-29, 10-for-12 from 3039, eight-for nine from 40-49 and one-for-two at fifty-plus. His T.D. convert ratio is 36/36 for a grand total o f 114 points. STEVE CHRISTIE While we're still with the NFL, we may as well check out the stats of Oakville product Steve Christie of the Buffalo Bills (8-4). Christie is the Bills' all time leader in career points and holds the single season scoring record which he set last year with 140 points, eclipsing the previ ous mark of 138 set by O.J. Simpson in 1975. He is also one of only 15 players in NFL history to score at least 140 points in the season. This year, Christie has hit 20 of 27 field goals (74.1 per cent), and is one-for-one inside the 20, nine-fornine from 20-29, five-for-seven from 30-39, three for eight from 4049 and two-for-two from fifty-plus. His T.D. convert ratio is 22/22 for a grand total of 82 points. R etired N H L re f calls it as he sees it in his n e w book When Paul Henderson scored the most fam ous goal in Canadian hockey his tory, it might not have been such a good thing. That's the attention grabbing first para graph of a new book put out by Oakville resident Bruce Hood, the legendary ex-NHL ref. Oh, there's no doubt that Hood, at the lime, shared in the jubilation o f Paul Henderson's third successive winning goal in that eighth game. In fact, he remembers right where he was, watching the game with his then 15-yearold son, Kevin, at home. Bruce Hood His point, though, is that we may have won the battle in 1972 but lost the war. Good old fashioned Canadian grit, heart and (See Hood' page D3) The Bills' Steve Christie and the Colts' Mike Vanderjagt -- two Oakville products -- shake hands after a game last year in Buffalo. File Photo by Peter J. Thompson N e xt te<. 10 · 7:30pm SSSm "Glenleventojors < oU 'teSU\ors For all the scores and any team player information visit our website, O A K V ILLE at Oakville ( B ftrts C e n t r e ^ w w w .a a k v ille b la d e s .c o m