(c^"V69* CURRENT POWER MACHNERY MC. Lawnmower Service DO IT NOW! 1661 Lakeshore Rd. W. Mississauga ;8224211 Editor: Norm Nelson Phone: 905-845-3824 (ext. 255) Fax: 905-337-5567 email: nnelson@haltonsearch.com W l- I ) . \ i: s i) . \ v . I 'K B I t l A U Y 2 (K> 5 · r a g e I > 1 Aquinas wins 1st Halton title By Norm Nelson BEAVER SPORTS EDITOR The St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders senior girls volleyball team ended Georgetown's eight year reign as Halton champions on Monday at Sheridan College. But it's Georgetown that has the opportuni ty to go on to the province's top quad-A provincial playdowns. To do that, they have to beat Hamilton Roman Catholic champion Brebeuf in the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference (GH AC ) championship game today (Wednesday). Aquinas, meanwhile, has already defeated both G-HAC contestants -- Georgetown in Monday's Halton final, and Brebeuf twice before in tournament play. But Aquinas -- who have put together just an awesome season with a 46-1 match record (93-6 set record) -- will be going to the tripleA O FSA A playdowns, which are being hosted by Chatham-Kent Secondary School next Wednesday/Thursday (March 5/6). It was a decision that coach Peter Szpakowski had to make well before the play offs. It wasn't an easy decision to make at the time, and yes, it is one that he has second guessed himself over, he concedes. "The girls deserved the chance to go to O FSA A this year, whether it's A A A or A A A A , and we wanted to make sure they got that experience. " Some say we made a mistake, but we felt we had better be safe than sorry. " If we had lost to Georgetown, we'd be breathing a sigh o f relief. You never know. "They're all thrilled to be going and w e'll do the best we can." The new quad-A level was introduced last year on the provincial high school level, just for' basketball and volleyball. And Halton sports convener Peter Moore said it's here to stay, at least for the short term. What it does is try to account for unequal school sizes. Basically, schools with more than 1250 students have to go quad-A, but schools below that can, if they wish, compete at triple-A. (Aquinas is about l.(K)0). The catch, is that under the current set-up, teams have to declare well before the playoffs. In a sense you have to show your cards. So when coach Szpakowski was making his decision earlier on in the season he was thinking that the quad-A path would have to go through eight-time defending Halton champion Georgetown, which is a quad-A school. And then after that, you have to take on the Hamilton Roman Catholic champ -- and all Hamilton Catholic schools are quad-A. The other important factor, said toach Szpakowski is that the triple-A pool is ultra competitive. It's definitely nothing like the 'B ' pool in world hockey. And he actually took issue with the Oakville Beaver labeling it `tier two' in a pre vious story. He maintains there are a couple of schools in triple-A whom he thinks would be favoured to win quad-A. "Anyone who has seen Chatham-Kent, St. Theresa's (M idland), Richview (Toronto), Waterdown, Barton and Holy Names from Windsor w ill tell you they could all be playing at the A A A A this year, but since they are all smaller schools, they have opted to go AA A. " Aquinas w ill no doubt have their hands full at A A A . Many of these teams have won tournaments that have included teams that will be playing at A A A A next w'eek. including Aquinas," he said. In fact, the Aquinas stellar 46-1 record, includes four tournament gold medals and the all-Catholic bronze medal. Such is the strength of the tournament, he (See Aquinas' page D2) M arina Spudic (#6) in action as teammate Cheryl Silva (#7) watches intently. Tyler Anderson · Oakville Beaver The night the lights went out in Georgetown By Herb Garbutt SPECIAL T O TH E BEAVER Play it again. Sam. That's exactly what the Georgetown Raiders and O akville Blades will be doing after Saturday's Provincial Jr. A Hockey League game left fans in the dark. The teams w'ere heading into the second overtime peri od tied 3-3 when repeated power fail ures plunged the arena into darkness. After the lights went out for a fourth time, the teams returned to the ice and lined up tor Ihe fuceoff. But somewhere between the puck leaving the referee's hand and hitting the ice. it disappeared into the darkness. As players milled about the rink -- lit only by emergency lights -- the decision was made to call the game. Bv that time it had been an hour since the first overtime period had ended and almost two hours since the Raiders' Brent Hughes scored to tie game. It w ill be replayed next Monday at 7:30 p.m., if it's still necessary, as game five in the best of seven series. Originally, the teams planned to complete the game before Wednesday's game in Georgetown. But while the rule book says a sus pended game can be completed before a subsequent game in the regular sea son. a tied playoff game must be Photos Special to the Beaver/Herb Garbutt The Oakville Blades' Chris Koras checkin" Georgetown's Ryan M cCarthy into Blades goaltender Dan Giffin. replayed in its entirety. Ontario Hockey Association presi dent Brent Ladds said he offered to have the teams complete the suspend ed game before the game back in Georgetown today (Wednesday) but both teams declined. He said he couldn't recall a recent case in which a playoff game had to be suspended. "In the regular season you know how long you're going to play. In this particular case they could play anoth er three periods before another game and neither team wanted that." Ladds said. Oakville forged ahead 3-1 on goals by Mike Swinton. W illy Barlow and Rob Tarantino. Shane Remenda scored in the sec ond period and Hughes evened things up for Georgetown in the third period. The teams played a scoreless 10minute overtime before returning to the dressing room. But before they came back out, the lights went out. The lights returned briefly a couple of limes but the decision was finally made at 11 p.m. to call the game. If the series were to go the distance, it would result in seven games in nine days. Coach Carnevale: a bad schedule just got worse By Norm Nelson BEAVER SPORTS EDITOR Oakville Blades coach Frank Carnevale didn't like the Oakville Blades second round playoff sched ule to begin wilh. in particular this week's grueling stretch of four games in five nights. And he's liking it even less, now that Saturday night's marathon open er against the host Georgetown Raiders w ill be replayed in its entire tyIt w ill actually become game five. Monday night if necessary. The two teams, of course, kicked off their series Saturday night in Georgetown. In fact, they were just heading into their fifth period of hockey -- the second overtime peri od -- when the lights went out in Georgetown, to slightly re-word that 70's song. " This is going to be a long series and I don't know if anybody's going to be left by the end of it," said coach Carnevale. "Because here we are stuck play ing four games in five nights already due to our bad schedule. So now' it's going to be even more games in a small amount of time." About the only good thing about it conceded, coach Carnevale, is that "it's bad for both of us." D ATE 25-Feb 26-Feb 28-Feb 1-Mar 3-Mar 4-Mar 5-Mar V IS IT O R Tuesday Wednesday Friday Saturday Monday Tuesday Wednesday B E S T O F 7 S E R IE S SC O RE G EO R G ET O W N @ O A K V IL L E @ G EO R G ET O W N @ O A K V IL L E @ * O A K V IL L E * G EO R G ET O W N * O A K V IL L E HOME T IM E 7:45 O A K V IL L E 8:00 G EO R G ET O W N O A K V IL L E 7:45 G EO R G ET O W N 7:30 G EO R G ET O W N 7:30 O A K V IL L E 7:45 8:00 G EO R G ET O W N "Here we are, a junior team. We've got to win a championship, and we're preparing to play four games in five nights. That's ridiculous. That's some of the things that I don't agree with as far as being a new coach here in town is that we have to prepare better for these kinds of things. We just can't let this happen. Especially when you have a young team like we do." Ironically going into last night's opening game, Milton had already forged ahead to a 3-0 lead over Buffalo in the other western confer ence semifinal. Oakville's goals were scored by W ill Barlow. Mike Swinton and Rob Tarantino. "W ell I thought they (Georgetown) didn't play as good as they probably can and we played a pretty good game. "I thought there are some players that I know can play better, but they got their feet wet and I think we'll be playing better as time goes on. "We haven't had success against that team. "And to come out and get a real taste of playoff hockey, I thought it was totally at a different level than we've been playing before." Coach Carnevale doesn't think (See 'Carnevale' page 02)