For Release: March 31st, 2000

Two O.F.S.A.A.'s down, two to go ...

The O.F.S.A.A. Hockey 2000 event is now officially in the history books and to this point has received glowing reviews from many of the participating teams, a few have even taken the time to email the committee thanking them for their efforts.

Two emails in particular come to mind. One was from the coach of one of the Western Ontario Secondary School representatives, the Clarke Road Trojans, characterizing this year's events as follows: "we were treated like champions by champions". The second came from the Vice President of CTV, Robert Dilworth, who emailed: "My son had the finest tournament of his life, and the memories will be with him (and me) forever." Sure is nice to hear.

Not too hard to pick out a highlight in this event. It has to be the seven period semi final marathon between the eventual champions, Brother Andre Cardinals, and the eventual Bronze Medallist Upper Canada College Blues. Not like other overtime games I've seen, there were several chances for both teams to end the game in the first, second and third overtime periods, but it took a broken play from behind the net close to the end of the seventh period to seal the deal. If this wasn't the best hockey game I've ever seen in my life, it has to be in the top three; and I've seen a lot of hockey games folks.

On the Friday night of the Championship, web page designers Chris Heywood and Adam Turcotte of Lively District Secondary reported 5000 hits on the O.F.S.A.A. Hockey site, including over 200 emails received to pass along to various players participating in the event. Chris and Adam actually slept overnight at the Sudbury Arena Thursday, as updates to the page for games that day weren't completed until 3am Friday morning. Congratulations to you both for an outstanding job on the site guys - we're receiving a ton of compliments about it! (you can see for yourself at http://ofsaa2000.isys.ca until the end of April). Our thanks to ISYS Technologies as well for making this possible.

As with just about any other provincial championship I've been involved with, just a tremendous effort was put forth by all the volunteers and I didn't have to deal with one single complaint about the service visitors to the city received. Many sincere thanks to all those who gave countless hours of their time to ensure this event's success. Hope you had some fun in the process!

O.F.S.A.A. BADMINTON MAY 4-6 ...

Next on the O.F.S.A.A. Championship calendar is O.F.S.A.A. COED Badminton, to be hosted May 4th to 6th at Lasalle and St. Charles College. This Championship will be convened by Clyde and Gundi Sheppard of Lasalle Secondary School and of course we'll have updates on efforts to organize this event as they become known.

SPRING SPORT SEASON UNDERWAY ...

We're now officially in the Spring Sport Season (thank goodness) with the S.D.S.S.A.A. Spring Sport Meetings for Soccer and Track and Field hosted tonight at Lasalle Secondary School.

S.D.S.S.A.A. Girls' Open and Boys' Senior Soccer is shooting for an April 24th season start (snow last night didn't help with this prediction), while the Track season will kick off officially with the first tri-school meet in late April as well. More on these sports as their start dates draw nearer.

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