Canadians love talking hockey. Always have, always will. And few topics inspire a livelier debate than a discussion about the place of body checking in minor hockey. While many agree body checking is an integral part of the game, the debate evolves around what age it should be introduced? While most provincial hockey associations introduce checking at the peewee level (11 and 12 years old), Quebec bucks the trend by waiting till kids reach the...
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It’s crunch time for kids - especially those who play multiple sports.It’s the time of year when back-to-school routines run alongside hockey and ringette tryouts, swim finals, baseball and soccer playoffs, and the kickoff to another fall football season....
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Vincent Lecavalier put Île Bizard on the hockey map and now the island is returning the favour. On Thursday, the arena at Sport Complexe Saint-Raphaël will be renamed after the island’s most famous native son. There is already a Pavillon Vincent Lecavalier in Île Bizard. The community centre is located next to the soccer and football fields and outdoor hockey rink where Vinny, now 30, played as a youth....
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So what do you think of Louis Leblanc’s somewhat controversial decision to leave Harvard to play junior hockey in Montreal? Goodbye Ivy League, hello Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Some will wonder why anyone would walk away from a Harvard education. Others will argue Leblanc’s true calling is pro hockey, so why not hit the ice and not the books. Is there a right answer for a blue-chip francophone prospect in a hockey-mad city like Montreal? ...
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The annual 3-vs-3 Pierrefonds soccer tournament is one of my favourite local sports events. The action-packed games are wildly exciting and kids as young as 7 are allowed to come up with their own team names, like Teletubbies or The Simpsons, and design their own T-shirt jerseys. It’s a hoot for the kids, but over the past few years, some ugly incidents involving parents and/or coaches threaten to mar what is otherwise a gem of a tournament. ...
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Must be something in the water of Lake St. Louis. For the second year in a row, the top Quebecer selected at the NHL draft was a West Islander. You may recall that last summer Montreal hockey fans nearly lifted the roof off the Bell Centre when the Canadiens selected homegrown Louis Leblanc, the Kirkland Kid, with the 18th overall pick. This year it was Pointe Claire’s Danny Biega, a Hockey West Island product who was scooped up by the Carolina...
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I took in some local soccer action on the weekend at Greendale Park in Pierrefonds, my old stomping grounds. The brown-bricked primary school, which first opened its doors in 1967, is starting to show its age, but the gently sloped playing fields outside looked in better shape than I remember them as a child. In the 1970s and 80s, baseball, not soccer, was king of summer sports in Montreal. One of the original Expos, catcher Ron Brand, lived a few doors away from me on...
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They held a birthday party for the Lake St. Louis Lakers last week, but to be honest, it felt more like a wake. For the past 25 years, the Lakers were Canada’s most successful amateur soccer outfit, winning more medals at provincial and national club championships than any other club in the country.Of 329 Canadian amateur clubs, the Lakers are ranked No. 1.Quite a feat, all things considered, but the Lakers, as most of you already know, are on borrowed time....
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It is hard to think of anything as fake as synthetic grass being a Godsend, but the folks at John Abbott College are tickled pink at the thought of having a green carpet in their backyard. Last week, local politicians and school officials announced a $3-millon dollar project that will see the installation of an artificial playing surface, new lights and bleacher seating for 800 at the CEGEP’s main field in Ste.Anne’s. ...
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College or major-junior? If your son was the top midget hockey prospect in Quebec (and much of Eastern Canada for that matter) which option would you choose? It’s a decision the Matheson family of Pointe Claire has been deliberating over recently because their 16-year-old son is the top-rated skater heading into this Saturday’s QMJHL draft in Drummondville. After weighing all of the options, Michael Matheson, a blue-chip defenceman, won’t be going to the...
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