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Jerrison Oracion Senior Columnist

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| ockey is a national sport

in Canada, and asa result, there is a story that involves hockey in almost every Canadian city. Last month, the Hometown Hockey Festival took place in Queen’s Park in New Westminster and Abbotsford Exhibition Park

- Hometown Hockey

> Celebrating BC’s hockey history

in Abbotsford. A lot of hockey fans went to the festival to

try some activities and watch Ron MacLean host Hometown

Hockey live from the city.

Hometown Hockey is back for its second season after a successful run last year and it airs on Sportsnet. In the show, Ron Maclean talks about a city that is related to a hockey player or is nearby a city that has an NHL team in it as co-host Tara Slone

The curse continues

> Women’s volleyball upset at Provincials

Davie Wong Sports Editor

L has been nearly a decade since the women’s volleyball team won a set at the Provincial championships. The curse of the sweep has plagued the team for countless years. Nonetheless, like any other curse, all of it isa mental game. Or is it? This year’s team was ready to find out at the Provincial Championships held at Columbia Bible College.

The first challenger that the team ran into was the fifth-seed- ed UFV. The last time the Royals won a set at the tournament was against UF'V, and this time, they wanted to make it a win. The first set of the game was a thriller. The teams traded points, rallying back and forth well past the 20 point mark. In the end, it was UFV that was able to pull ahead and take the first set.

Nowhere near finished, the Royals roared back to life. They went ona tear in the second, planting balls all over UFV’s side of the court. Though the curse was the last thing on their minds, the Royals smashed their set drought with a dominating 25-19 win.

However, UFV would not be denied. They came back swinging, catching the Royals off- guard. Their sudden burst ended the Royals’ momentum and they were able to push through Doug-

las’ blockers, ultimately taking the set.

With their backs against the wall already, things were not looking great for the Royals. They needed to win two straight sets to

gives updates from the festival and does activities in the city that they are in. Scattered throughout the show are interviews with famous hockey players and surprise guests before MacLean lets local hockey players choose the three stars of the game. Unlike last year’s chilly but dry Burnaby affair, it was raining in both New Westminster and Abbotsford. In New Westminster, the show had the Philadelphia

come back. They were able to pull this off last time against UFV but this was on a much bigger stage. As prepared as they were, they still could not find a way to come back into the game. The

Flyers and the New York Rangers game while they showed the Calgary Flames and the Anaheim Ducks game and the Vancouver Canucks and the Colorado Avalanche in Abbotsford.

Kirk Mclean was in both cities, Cliff Ronning was in New Westminster, and Brendan Morrison was in Abbotsford. James Cybulski, Ernie Mclean, and Glenn Anderson were also special guests in New

Photo by Jessica Funk & Drew Harder

fourth set started out poorly for the squad as they went down early. They fought valiantly to stay in it, but their efforts were not enough, as UFV finished the upset, taking the last set 25-21.

Photo By Jerrison Oracion

Westminster, and Caroline Cameron, Jake Virtanen, Mike Blais, and Chad Brownlee were special guests in Abbotsford. Highlights of the two cities included Slone riding a tugboat, flying across the city in a plane, visiting the famous Birchwood Dairy Farm in Abbotsford. The festival did a great job celebrating the history of hockey in BC and may be in Richmond next year.

Darby Dunn won a Player of the Game award to add to her impressive year, but the Royals failed to pick up their first playoff victory in eight seasons. After the game, coach Kyra Iannone spoke about the team’s playoff match . “This weekend we did our best to defend our ranking going into the match. The girls were prepared mentally, tactically, and phys- ically for the match. But like all playoff single knockout rounds, any team can win on any given night. We lost the first set 29-27. It was hard fought and had some errors so we felt pretty in control of what was going to happen next. We won set two easily and we were tied at one set each. The young guns on our team however had not been in that situation before and started to feel the pressure.”

She also provided insight into her thoughts on the overall season. “I think the girls had an unprecedented season. We had many moments that we have not had before: we had an opening weekend win, we had our first sweep at home, we had our first 3-0 win, We went into playoffs ranked higher than we ever have before at fourth and we were ranked between second and fourth the entire season. We also took our first set win in 10 years. I think all in all this season brought a major step forward for this program.”