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26 stouffville suntribune thursday dec 8 2005 stouffville suntribune sports staff photosjoerd witteveen giving chase to hot commodity aurora tigers michael divencenzo left attempts to maintain possession of the puck despite being harassed by stouffville clippers mitchell price during tues days york simcoe hockey league contest at the stouffville arena paced by a hat trick from price the clippers prevailed 63 jeff leuschner vanessa spataro and mitch browne also scored for stouffville spirit hopes to maintain power surge tonight stouffville sports best power play in provincial jr a league the stouffville spirit returns the most potent power play in the provin cial jr a hockey league back to action tonight against couchiching at the stouffville arena the spirit has scored with the extra man on 2266 per cent of its power plays best in the 36team southern ontario loop early on we figured out 30 to 40 per cent of the game is played on special teams spirit rookie head coach dan west said we take pride in it and the kids take pride in it theres nothing fancy to it its just taking the puck to the net on the other side of the special teams coin the spirit is seventh best at penalty killing in the league the stat that counts the most is the teams 15553 record good for third place in the north conference the spirit is two points behind newmarket and has a game in hand the teams meet saturday night at the stouffville arenasee standings on page 27 the spirit beat the wexford raiders 42 sunday in scarborough mark kubicz earned the win for the spirit which was outshot 3324 randy johnston shawn frank donivan munro and mark sullivan scored rob groom had two assists the spirit fought back from 31 and 42 deficits to tie the pickering panthers 55 friday in pickering the rookie frank 16 notched the gametying goal ryan oliver acquired last week from wellington scored a highlight reel goal on the backhand team leading scorer johnston will acton and jake van allen got the other goals dan mcwhinney was in the net for the spirit who were outshot 5145 spirited notes simon gysbers the spirits nhl draft prospect played in the national jr a prospects game last night in yorkton saskto make room for oliver and munro the spirit released rookie forward darcy graythe spirit hosts couchiching tonight visits huntsville friday and is home to newmarket saturdayall spirit games are broadcast at whistleradiocom for live scoring go to pointslreakcom s out a winner on co gormley resident helps golden hawks win vanier cup by mike hayakawa staff writer when erik salo completes his schooling next spring at wil frid laurier university he is expected to leave with degrees in psychology and biology what the 23yearold gorm ley resident and markham dis trict high school graduate will definitely depart with from the waterloobased school is a vanier cup title a starting offensive guard for the wilfrid laurier university golden hawks football team for the last two seasons salo played an integral role in help ing his club stage a dramatic fourthquarter rally to defeat the topseeded university of saskatchewan huskies 2423 in last saturdays vanier cup final in hamilton to end a career on a win ning note is like a dream come true said salo it is so seldom that a career ends on a winning note i feel extremely fortunate to be one of the few blessed with that feeling after the game was over i was in awe i think that moment will be much more emotional than when i receive my degree in the spring the reason i say that is football is the ultimate erik salo fifthyear guard said vanier cup victory is the biggest highlight of his football career team game one hundred or so people all work to the same common goal and it is a group of people who after the game will never be together in whole again the graduating players all share a special bond and the last time playing with that great group of men is very emotion al he said while not wishing to boast but salo thought the difference in the game stemmed from the performance of his teams offensive line entering the game the huskies defensive line suppos edly had a physical advantage over the golden hawks offen sive line salo said they convert ed those negative vibes into a positive incentive their defensive line was supposedly too big and strong for us to handle we would not be able to run an dour quarter back was going to be under constant pressure we used those negative comments as fuel and wanted to prove to the country that our offensive line is something special even on the field we could sense they were surprised by us after the first couple of series they had this look like who are these guys- where are the guys we should be dominating i think our success against their front four was a huge key to the game he said having won football cham pionships at markham district high school in 2000 and with the toronto thunder in 2001 salo said his recent feat was by far the most special taking into account that just three years ago the golden hawks had won just one of eight games and entering the vanier cup final they were underdogs salo said it felt good to silence any critics that were out there when we took the lead with 19 seconds remaining i was overcome with emotion salo recalled my eyes welled with tears and i knew that we had achieved our goal it was an incredible feeling that i will never forget hockey spartans hope depth will overcome shortage of experience sdss senior team off to modest start by mike hayakawa staff writer in describing this seasons version of the stouffville district secondary school spartans senior boys hockey team head coach jamie hewitt says its one that is short on experience but it does contain plenty of depth and potential its this latter factor that has hewitt and assistant coach rob edmondson optimistic with the prospects of this years team which has won one game lost one and tied one so far this season in addition to that they cap tured their own tournament title last month that was capped off with a 42 win over the brother andre catholic high school cardinals in the final returning just nine players from last years team the spar tans are relatively going with younger players on the forward units among them is one entire forward line that played junior last year in brendan wise den nis oshaughnessy and steve moller on another line hewitt is employing scott van allen a grade 9 student along with jake carrick a grade 10 stu dent and miller two other grade 9 students jamie wise and tyler azan will be used on another line where the spartans have experience is on defence and in goal landon wideman scott moody and steve brown all grade 12 students are anchor ing the clubs defence jake balsdon a grade 12 stu dent will split time in goal with brad whittngstall a grade 11 student who played with the junior team last year because of the talent that we have were using four for ward lines and six defencemen this season we havent been this deep in a while said hewitt weve been skating since the end of september its coming together well see what happens with 18 teams comprising the tier one senior loop the spartans are placed in a highly competitive east division that includes the cardinals markham district high school unionville secondary school st augustine catholic high school and thornhill sec ondary school each team will play a 10game schedule