Windspeaker Sports Briefs - October

Another provincial tournament
Aboriginal youth teams are being sought for a provincial basketball tournament in British Columbia.

The inaugural BC Aboriginal Provincial Basketball Championships are scheduled for Oct. 21 to Oct. 23 in Prince Rupert. This event will feature both girls’ and boys’ divisions in the under-14, under-16 and under-19 age groupings.

The tournament will be hosted by the Friendship House Association of Prince Rupert. This event though does not replace the long-running BC Junior All-Native Basketball Tournament that is traditionally staged each March. This new tournament is sanctioned by Basketball BC, and it is also part of various provincial championships that will be run by the Aboriginal Sport, Recreation and Physical Activity Partners Council.

These provincial championships and various development camps will help determine which athletes represent BC at the 2014 North American Indigenous Games in Regina. The tournament registration fee is $150 per team. More information is available by sending an email to aboriginalbasketball@gmail.com or by calling (250) 627-1717.

German vacation
Members of a Vancouver-based Aboriginal youth martial arts group spent 12 days of their summer on a sports/cultural exchange in Germany. Members of the Shudokan Karate and Education Canada Society took part in the exchange with youth from Artern, Germany.
The British Columbia-based group is in its ninth year of operations. It is a non-profit society which assists Aboriginal and inner-city youth by engaging them in martial arts. During their trip, members of the Canadian contingent visited many attractions in the country, including the German national parliament in Berlin.

Injuries hurt Weglarz
Injuries continue to hinder the professional baseball career of Nick Weglarz. The 23-year-old outfielder, who is from Stevensville, Ont., was limited to just 41 games in 2011 with the Ohio-based Akron Aeros, members of the Eastern League. The Aeros are the AA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.

Despite his age, Weglarz, whose grandfather was Sarsee, has already played seven seasons of minor pro baseball. Weglarz started and finished the 2011 season somewhere he didn’t want to be, on the disabled list.
For starters, he tore the meniscus in his left knee in March during spring training. As a result, he didn’t suit up for the Aeros until early June.Then, tendonitis with his knee forced him out of the lineup on several occasions. He also missed other contests this year because of an eye injury and an elbow injury.

Weglarz has been considered one of the Indians’ top prospects since 2005 when the Cleveland organization drafted him right out of Stevensville’s Lakeshore Catholic High School. But injuries have plagued him throughout his career. A broken hand limited him to just one game in 2006. And in ’09, his first season in Akron, a shin injury cut short his year.

Then in 2010 Weglarz again struggled to stay in the lineup; he had a thumb injury as well as tendonitis from an off-season leg surgery.

Last season, though, was also a significant one for Weglarz. It marked the first time he was called up to the AAA ranks, one step below the major leagues. He played 50 games for the Columbus Clippers, an Ohio-based club that competes in the International League. Another career highlight for Weglarz was representing Canada at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Weglarz and his teammates placed sixth in that competition.

New lacrosse league
Ohsweken is one of the teams that is listed to compete in the inaugural season of Canada’s newest professional lacrosse league.

Officials with the Canadian Lacrosse League, also known as CLAX, were hoping to have divisions in both western and eastern Canada for its first season, but now it appears the fledgling circuit will only have teams in Ontario and Quebec for its first year. And that’s if the loop does indeed get off the ground. CLAX officials were hoping to start their first season this fall. But now its start has been pushed back to January.

The league’s Web site, www.clax.ca, states that five teams are set to participate in the first year of the loop. Four of those teams are in Ontario: Ohsweken, Oshawa, Brampton and Kitchener. A club from Montreal is also slated to take part.

Some cynics do not believe the CLAX will be successful as it will be operating at the same time as the National Lacrosse League, which has established franchises in both Canada and the United States and traditionally features many of the sport’s top players.

CLAX officials are hoping to attract those players who do not crack the rosters of NLL teams. And they are purposely placing franchises in smaller markets.