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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Friday September 1, 2006 - 29 'Tis the season Travel possible factor in CSL's divisional disparity Continued from page 28 SABRINA BYRNES / SPECIAL TO THE OAKVILLE BEAVER HOCKEY'S BACK: Trevor Elliot of the Oakville Blades (left) goes around a Markham Waxers opponent last weekend in Provincial Junior A Hockey League exhibition action at Dominion Twin Rinks. The Blades, West Conference champions last season, are scheduled to play their regular-season opener Sept. 15. Hinchcliffe posts third podium showing on Atlantic series season By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF O'Connor, Kevin Ricketts and Gavin Russell have been sidelined by different ailments, while Sam Hassam and Lovemore Ncube were forced out of the lineup after picking up too many red and yellow cards. The club also lost one of its top snipers, Judah Hernandez, who went to Europe for a tryout with a semipro squad. Jamie Fairweather, another regular, has headed back to university. "Guys have to be always focused, no matter who it is. When you have 20 players, it is everyone who has to be used," Ionadi said. "You don't always go with the same 11 or 12. That's why it's a team." Though the Blue Devils currently have the best record in the National Division, they could still easily finish as low as sixth in the league standings and draw a difficult opponent in the first round of the playoffs. Division winners will be given the top two seeds in the CSL postseason, with the next six-best squads also making the playoffs. International Division clubs Serbian White Eagles and Toronto Croatia are a combined 22-1-5 this year, while Italia sits third with a respectable 6-5-5 mark -- two points behind the Blue Devils. Asked why the balance of power in the CSL seems heavily titled towards the International Division, Ionadi pointed to travel. "(National Division) teams like Windsor and Laval have a lot of traveling and lose a lot of games on the road. London also has a tough time winning games on the road," he said. "The International Division is all local... You can see the traveling is a lot more difficult for some teams and that's where you'll notice a lot of disparity." Denny Dradanic and Russell scored for the Blue Devils in Sunday's loss. Oakville visits North York tonight, then will travel to St. Catharines next Wednesday for a clash with the Wolves. -- Jon Kuiperij Oakville's James Hinchcliffe earned a place on the podium for the third time this season with a third-place finish at the Atlantic Champ Car Grand Prix of Montreal on Monday. Hinchcliffe started on the pole for the first time in the Atlantic series but had the top two drivers in the series standings, Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal, right behind him on the starting grid. Hinchcliffe, looking for his second career win, pulled away from the field off the start but Pagenaud made his move on Lap 6 of the 26-lap race and took the lead. The two would then make contact in the next turn. "Heading into the hairpin, he was braking on the inside line, which is what you sometimes do in the wet," Hinchcliffe explained. "So, I though I would try braking on the left hand side of the track and go around the outside. Simon realized that's what I was doing and pulled back in to make the corner, and I had already committed to a braking zone that was 10 feet longer. I had nowhere to go and we got together." The incident allowed Rahal to slip past both drivers into first place, a lead he didn't surrender for the remainder of the race. While Pagenaud chased Rahal and was eventually edged at the finish by less than a tenth of a second, Hinchcliffe wasn't able to mount a challenge and finished third, 14 seconds back. "We had set up for drier conditions, because we were hoping the track was going to dry more than it did, so I was struggling a little bit," he said. "I kept looking at the sky and hoping the sun would break through but it never did. If the track had dried just a little I think I would have had something for those guys but, hey, we had a good weekend and I was really pumped to get my first pole in front of the Canadian fans." Fastest lap in qualifying Hinchcliffe, a rookie on the Atlantic series, said after the Toronto race in July that he needed to improve in qualifying. He hadn't started any higher than fifth this season. But in Montreal he turned in the fastest lap with less than a minute remaining in Saturday's final qualifying session. Hinchcliffe turned a lap around the 4.35-kilometre Circuit Gilles Villeneuve circuit in one minute, 32.171 seconds, at an average speed of 170 km/h. "It's been my dream since I started in karting to get to perform on a stage like this here in Montreal and to win my first career pole in Canada is still kind of hard to believe," the 19year-old said. "It wasn't that long ago that I was watching the Atlantics on TV and wondering what I could do if I got the chance, and Jerry Forsythe has given me that chance." Hinchcliffe's finish moved him from 10th to eighth in the Atlantic point standings with one race remaining at Road America in Wisconsin. "I've had some success there in the past and want to bring home another win to wrap up the year," he said. -- Herb Garbutt can be reached at sports@oakvillebeaver.com. IS THE game PLAYING you? Choose an insurance company that doesn't play games. As a customer, you should come first. That may sound obvious but some insurance companies care more about their shareholders than their customers. We're different in that we concentrate on the things that matter to you: competitive rates and 24 hour claims assistance. You know you can trust CAA for safer roads and driver programs, why not trust us for your auto & property insurance too? It's your move. Get a no-obligation quote today. 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