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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, August 1, 2013 | 22 Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Jr. national ball hockey finals in town Joshua's Creek Arenas and River Oaks Recreation Centre are the host venues for the Canadian junior national ball hockey championships this week in Oakville. Oakville Rangers teams are competing in the under-15 and U19 divisions at the event, while an Ontario Selects squad is playing in the U17 division. The U15 Rangers will face Team Saskatchewan in their opening game today (Thursday, 4:20 p.m., Joshua's Creek). Oakville will take on Dek Espoire St-Jerome tomorrow (Friday, 4:20 p.m., River Oaks) and the Caledon Bulldogs Saturday (11:20 a.m., Joshua's Creek) to conclude round-robin play. Oakville residents on the U15 Rangers include Alexander Ishmael, Zach Ribau, Chris Tremblay, Jake Tomkowiak, Myles Vita-Finzi and Zach Foweather. The Ontario Selects' schedule features games against the B.C. Thunder (7 p.m. today, River Oaks), Team Manitoba (1:40 p.m. tomorrow, Joshua's Creek) and Dek Espoir St-Jerome (7 p.m. tomorrow, Joshua's Creek). The U19 Rangers will play the Newfoundland Marshalls (8:20 p.m. today, Joshua's Creek), Alberta Red Wings (3 p.m. tomorrow, River Oaks) and West Coast Express (7 p.m. tomorrow, River Oaks). Local members of the U19 Rangers are Anthony Salis, Alex Festerini, Matthew Luff and Anthony Giro. Playoffs in all divisions will begin Saturday afternoon. U15 semifinals will be contested Sunday morning, followed by medal games in all divisions. Championship games will be played at Joshua's Creek (U17 at 11 a.m., U19 at 12:30 p.m., U15 at 2 p.m.). The tournament will be preceded by a skills competition today at Joshua's Creek, beginning at 1 p.m. That will be followed by opening ceremonies at 3 p.m. The tournament banquet is slated for Saturday evening at Lakeshore Convention Centre. In addition to being a national championship, the tournament will also help determine Canadian rosters for next year's world championships. Friends, family and the general public can purchase day or weekly passes for the event at the host arenas. The tournament can be followed online at bit.ly/17iLDqX, where archived games, updated scores and highlights will be posted. Sports W O R L D M A S T E "Connected to your Community" R S G A M E S Oakville resident Anna-Marie Purvis, who was deprived of an opportunity to compete in the South African Games 27 years ago, will compete in the World Masters Games beginning this weekend in Italy. | photo by Inger MacKenzie -- Oakville Beaver --@Halton_Photog Swimmer finally making international debut by Jon Kuiperij Beaver Sports Editor Anna-Marie Purvis says she is often ribbed by her children for her determination to always finish anything she starts. In this case, it just took a little longer than she would have liked to complete the job. Nearly three decades after political unrest in her native South Africa forced her to miss a major international meet, Purvis will finally get her taste of a worldclass competition next week. The 55-year-old will participate in the World Masters Games in Turin, Italy, where she will compete against athletes 35 and older in both swimming and tennis. "I actually always wanted to (race internationally)," says PurAnna-Marie Purvis World Masters Games athlete vis. "It was on my bucket list, in the back of my mind... Now, it's the time for me." Purvis, born to Norwegian missionary parents in 1958, was the second-ranked biathlete (swimming and running) in South Africa in 1986. She was expecting to race in the South African Games, a multi-sport international event that was her country's substitute for the Olympics. South Africa was banned from the Olympics during It was on my bucket list, in the back of my mind. Now, it's the time for me. the country's apartheid era, when racial segregation was enforced through legislation by the reigning National Party governments. Then Purvis, who had already received her official South African uniform, was suddenly informed that she and her teammates would not be competing in the Games after all. "At that point, there was a lot of sensitivity (about segregation). The world was saying `Why should someone participate if not everyone is allowed to?' That was the premise," Purvis recalls. "When I think back on it, every single swimmer on our team was Caucasian. It wasn't fair." That doesn't mean Purvis saw it coming. She was so wrapped up in training that she had lost touch with the political climate. "You get so focused on what you're doing. Only when we were told we weren't allowed did I think about it," she says. "I was absolutely shocked. I was so sad. From my background and my husband's (Trevor's), we were totally multi-racial from Day 1. But there were whites only on the benches and on the buses. It was horrific, it really was. That was the government." The news about the Games came in February, eight months before the event was scheduled to take place. Purvis and her teammates quit training. Then, six weeks before the Games, competitors were informed that they were eligible to participate after all. "No one was trained anymore," Purvis says. "You know that takes months and months of preparation." Not only did Purvis not attend the Games that year, she also hung up her swimsuit and running shoes. Twenty-nine years of age at the time, she turned her attention to her children and her career. The Purvis family immigrated to Canada a decade later, landing in Oakville. see Oakville on p.25