TT A banner year for Douglas College men’s soccer Royals dominate BCCAA championships, win it all on Sunday By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor he year 2009 has been so-so for Douglas College’s women’s soccer team, but on the men’s side of things, it’s tough to get much better. First they produce one of their best ever campaigns in a season where they get to host the BCCAA Provincial Championships, then they go right out and dominate to win the Provincials. This past weekend the Royals brought the provincial title home in excellent fashion, downing Capilano University 3-0 with a brilliant game coming from Douglas’ Owen Sinclair. He scored in the first half before Vishal Chand put one in and Mark McQuade added one in the second half. Despite what can best be described as shoddy refereeing, Douglas was clearly the better team. Sinclair was all over the field while Chand displayed brilliant speed. Douglas did have to conteud with frequent runs taken at keeper Gyrish Kaniah, but overall it was a superb defensive effort for the Royals, who never looked in danger of surrendering their advantage. While Douglas was one of the best teams in the country this year, winning against Capilano in such a dominant fashion has to be considered a surprise. The two teams ran neck and neck all season long in the national standings, and Douglas had just two more wins over the course of the season. Despite basically blowing out Capilano, Royals’ head coach Joe Ormerod didn’t let up until the final whistle. He could be seen verbally pressing his players for a larger lead despite their strong showing which had staked Douglas to a commanding 2-0 lead by that point. The Royals’ Dylan Myers was presented with the game MVP award. Capilano went on to defeat Langara College 3-0 in Sunday’s bronze medal game. Meanwhile, the Douglas juggernaut, which heading into the tournament was ranked second nationally and produced a powerful 9-2-1 record in regular season play, advanced to meet Vancouver Island University (VIU), who had qualified for the finals by downing Langara 4-3 in extra time and finished first in Pool B during the regular season, in the gold medal game on “Sunday afternoon. Once again, Douglas was near-perfect. They won convincingly by a 2-0 score to seal the tournament win and cement their sparkling season. The whole way through, it was crystal clear that Douglas was far and away the best team. Defensively, they were perfect, never gave up a goal, which led Kaniah to be named to the tournament all-star team and win the best goalkeeper award. Lucas Domijan took home the top defender trophy. Offensively, they were just as good. Reynold Stewart, fresh off winning the prestigious BCCAA MVP award for his play over the season and also being named BCCAA male athlete of the week two weeks beforehand, was named tournament MVP and Douglas swept the post-tournament awards while at the same time placing five players on the all-star team. On the women’s side, Langara came first. The women’s Royals failed to qualify. Talk about a perfect way to cap a perfect year for the Royals; winning the provincial championship at home. At the annual BCCAA awards banquet, which took place just before the Provincials began; Stewart, whose four goals and five assists over the year were good enough to win him the MVP trophy, Sinclair and Donald Kambere were all named to the first all-star team while Chand and Ivan Estrada made the second squad. -& Sats. Fleury is the only choice for Team Canada - © By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor r months now, the debate has He on about whether Roberto Luongo or Martin Brodeur should be starting in goal for Team Canada during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The third-string goalie position has always appeared to be up in the air between Carolina’s Cam Ward and last year’s rookie sensation, Steve Mason of Columbus. One guy whose play to begin this season should be shifting all of the talk towards 22 a Noun. Mh ace nce once again, when Colorado and Phoenix inevitably tail off, he’ll be ranked higher. In wins, no one can touch Fleury. While Luongo hasn’t been able to steal a single game for the Canucks this year, Fleury is tied for first in the league with an 8-1 record. Despite these sterling early season numbers, it won’t be easy for Yzerman to go with Fleury as his starter for Team Canada. After all, this is Yzerman’s first- ever Olympics from the management side of things and he won’t want to make too many out-of-left-field moves. Plus, Fleury is still just 24 him is years old and Marc- — “Despite these sterling early season numbers, 5 limited Andre —_jt won’t be easy for Yzerman to go with Fleury '™t™ational aeuy as his starter for Team Canada.” oor the while Brodeur backstop was the 2002 for the Olympic hero, Stanley Cup-winning Pittsburgh Penguins _ who incidentally played with Yzerman on last year. the squad that led the team to gold for the Team Canada’s esteemed executive director, Steve Yzerman, has long talked about performance being the number one determining factor in deciding who will play in 2010, not reputation. With the way things are going right now though, that resolution will be sorely tested in the weeks to come when the team’s selection process begins to heat up. After all, Luongo has been sub-par, Brodeur’s play has been average at best and Fleury has been quite arguably the best goaltender in the NHL. As of this writing, Fleury had played nine games with a .917 save percentage, which is good enough to rank him seventh in the league among starters, although he is likely to move up once Phoenix cools down and Ilya Brzgalov’s numbers return to earthly levels. Meanwhile, Luongo is currently slotted at 27" in the NHL with a cringe- worthy .905 in eleven games while Brodeur isn’t much better at 15" overall and a 915. Among starters in GAA, Fleury places fourth with a 2.19 average, but first time in 50 years while Luongo has long been hailed as one of the top three goalies in the world. There are a lot of things to like about Fleury though. He was absolute money for the Penguins in the playoffs last year, and in the deciding Game 7, with Sidney Crosby injured on the bench, he stole the series in a gutsy 2-1 win, highlighted by his dramatic final second stop on Nick Lidstrom. Plus, people forget, but he also led Pittsburgh to the Cup final the year before, where they lost to the Red Wings. So this is a guy who faces a ton of rubber for a very offensively minded club with a Cup ring on his finger and more playoff experience in the last two years than anyone else. While he’s young, he’s played in the NHL since he was 18, and this is already his sixth NHL season. Again, itll be much easier for Yzerman to make the safe play and go with Luongo and Brodeur as his guys in net. But if he sticks to his promises and chooses the team solely on play, there is no way Fleury should be left off this team. 15