All posts by admin

Sports

Raiders junior boys basketball team win Sun West district championship

The Davidson Raiders junior boys basketball team are the 2013 Sun West district champions after dominating a two-game round-robin tournament against the Biggar Blazers and Kindersley Kobras March 2 at Biggar.

Raiders head coach Kim Rettger said their first game of the tournament came against the Blazers and his team didn’t have any trouble against them beating Biggar by over 30 points. He said the whole bench played a lot in that game giving his starters a bit of a break before the much-tougher game against the Kobras coming up later in the day.

“We got off to a slow start against Kindersley, but we had an eight- or nine-point lead at the half,” said Rettger, noting he had to sit his starting point guard Huck Rettger for most of the first half after getting into foul trouble. “Then there was this really cool play at halftime.

“With about eight seconds left on the clock Kindersley had the ball, so we went ahead with this no-foul no-point defence where you find your man and stay in his face as close as you can and make sure he doesn’t get any points. Somehow this kid gets away from his defender and went for a layup and (Raiders centre Ben Nykiforuk) came from behind and stuffed the basketball against the backboard.”

The second half saw Huck get back into the game and take a hard foul right off the tip making him “mad” and he took the game over.

“Within about four minutes we had a 30-point lead,” said Rettger. “Huck scored about 12 to 14 points in a row, but was responsible for some really nice assists too doing some fast breaks. We had the press on then and they turned the ball over a lot and we capitalized a lot and he and Ben made quite a few points, but the real key in the game was our defence.”

James Morrison, Killian McDonnell and Huck took the Kobras’ guards out of the play by pressuring them the whole game and forcing them to take weak outside shots or turn the ball over. At the end of the game the Raiders would have a 40-point win to secure the district championship.

To read more please see the March 11 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Cyclones knocked out of LLHL playoffs

The Davidson Cyclones senior men’s hockey team are out of the Long Lake Hockey League (LLHL) playoffs, but still have a chance to advance to the provincial final.

The Cyclones lost their third straight game in a best-of-five LLHL semi-final series 6-4 to the LeRoy Braves last Tuesday at the LeRoy Rink nullifying their opportunity to repeat as league champions this year. The Cyclones still are the defending LLHL champions, for another few weeks at least, until the new crown is handed to either LeRoy, Watrous or Lanigan later this month.

“We got off to a bad start and got down early (to the Braves),” said Cyclones head coach Jason Shaw. “Then we worked our way back and had a lot of chances to score, but just couldn’t.”

The Braves stepped up the pressure early on the Cyclones jumping up to a 4-0 lead by the 14-minute mark of the first period, but Davidson clawed back. At the end of the first, the score was 5-1. At the end of the second, it was 5-3, but once again this season a short bench for Davidson sealed their doom in the third.

“We only had 12 guys, eight forwards and four defence,” said Shaw. “For what we had, we played well. They had a full lineup. That’s pretty tough in playoffs. You can get away with a short bench in league games the odd time, but in playoffs it’s a lot tougher.”

The lack of a full lineup was not the case in the Cyclones first game of their provincial “C” south final against the Radville Nationals March 2 at the Davidson Rink. Davidson matched the swift-skating Nats throughout the match-up coming out on top with a 4-3 win.

Shaw said the Nats caught them off guard scoring in the first minute of the opening period, but the Cyclones stood up and “worked hard” to gut out the win.

“It was a tough game,” he said. “They’re a good team. When you get down to the last four teams in provincials, they are all going to be decent.”

Davidson had to win another this past weekend either March 8 in Radville or March 10 at Davidson to take the best-of-three provincial series and move on to the provincial finals to be played later this month against Hudson Bay.

Results of Friday and Sunday night’s games against the Nats were unavailable at press time.

featured

Moose captured and collared along Hwy. 11

Moose numbers have increased dramatically in the past 30 years in Southern Saskatchewan farmland areas and a new research project spearheaded by the University of Saskatchewan is trying to find out what these animals are up to.

Ryan Brook, moose project director and assistant professor in the U of S College of Agriculture and Bioresources, said his group was capturing and collaring moose in the area along Highway 11 between Dundurn and Chamberlain during the month of February in an effort to understand their movements, diet, home range, what kinds of habitats they use and when and where they cross roads and highways.

He said the capture of the moose lasts a maximum of 30 minutes and the collars have a built in GPS unit enabling the researchers to know the movements of the moose every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“We have a short chase time,” said Brook. “We shoot a net out of a helicopter and the net immobilizes the moose. We hobble the legs together, put a blindfold over their eyes, so it calms the animal down, and then we put a collar around the neck.

“We then draw a blood sample for assessing health of the animal, take a poop sample to look for parasites and disease, and take just a pinch of hair from around the tail, so we can look for genetics and diet of the animal.

“As soon as that’s done, we take off the hobbles, remove the blindfold and just let her go.”

Brook said the collar would stay on the moose for two full years and then fall off on its own meaning the group never has to bother the animal again. He said they managed to capture and collar 17 adult female moose over the span of a day and a half last month, with one animal dying from a broken neck suffered during the fall after being netted.

“That’s unfortunately just a challenge of capturing large animals,” he said, noting the capture adheres with guidelines laid out by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. “There is a risk during capture because they go down in a net. That would be with any capture (of any large animal).”

The project will focus on adult males next February and has an end goal of capturing and collaring 50 moose in total if they can find more funding support.

To read more please see the March 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Golf Club and R.M. settle taxing issue

The Davidson Golf Course board of executives and the RM of Willner council have agreed to a settlement for the municipal property taxes paid by the course to the RM.

Kirk Johnson, board member with the Davidson Golf Course, said the two sides reached an agreement a few weeks ago that will see the course pay $3,000 in annual municipal taxes until 2016 in addition to the annual school tax of approximately $6,600. He said the course settled the 2012 taxes two weeks ago and the deal with the RM will cover the next four years on top of that.

The course was facing an annual municipal tax bill from the RM for over $10,000 on top of the school tax portion bringing the course’s annual tax bill to $17,458, which Johnson said would have killed the course.

“I don’t think we could afford to operate and pay $17,000,” said Johnson. “That would probably have finished us. It wouldn’t have done us much good. The deal we worked out between the RM and us I think is a pretty good deal. It’s something that we both could live with.”

Len Palmer, Reeve of the RM of Willner, said the settlement is a “fair deal for everyone” involved and he is glad that they have come to an agreement. He said it is unfortunate that it took so long to get this done, but he is still happy that everyone was able to come to an agreement in the end.

The municipal tax issue arose in 2011 when the RM informed the golf course board they had decided to stop abating the money owed by the course to the RM starting with the 2012 annual taxes. In lieu of the tax abatement, the RM said they would provide the course with a $4,000 recreation grant instead.

Palmer said the RM wanted to stop abating taxes and go to a straight grant system because it is a “better and safer” way to operate. He said this decision was made due to the way taxes have been increasing over the last few years.

The course has been previously receiving abatement on municipal taxes owed to the RM from approximately 2006 to 2011.

Johnson said the taxes are so high due to the provincial government zoning golf courses in RMs as commercial property, which are taxed at 100 per cent of their value.

“Ours is not a commercial (course),” he said. “Ours is kind a non-profit organization that provides a service and recreation. We’re trying to keep the doors open and anything we do get or make we invest back into the course. It’s not like it’s a business.”

Johnson said the course used to receive abatement on municipal taxes from the RM because the course was forced to pay a school tax, which came to $6,753 for 2012, after the Davidson School Division amalgamated with the Sun West School Division. Before the amalgamation, the course also received abatement on education taxes as well.

“We’re a little course just trying to provide a service to the community,” he said, noting the purpose here was just to pay reasonable taxes. “We just want to try and make a go of it and get along with everybody and come up with some kind of agreement and we did.”

Davidson, Sports

Cyclones head to south final with win over Elks

Playoff hockey is not for the weak.

It is physical, demanding, gutsy and flawed.

Last week, the Davidson Cyclones senior men’s hockey team put on display all four of those characteristics in an outstanding 7-0 provincial “C” quarter-final win over the Kyle Elks Feb. 23 and a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to the LeRoy Braves last Wednesday in semi-final Long Lake Hockey League (LLHL) playoff competition.

Both games featured hard-hitting end-to-end action where all players involved gave their best, but in the end it was a goalpost that stopped the Cyclones from completing a perfect playoff week.

“We played well enough to win, but we never got the bounces our own way,” said Cyclones forward Brett Siroski on the Braves game.

One of those bounces was a shot by Davidson defenceman Zack Sim that rang off the post with 25 seconds left in the third and would have tied the game at fives. That post stopped a comeback tie for the Cyclones, which would have forced the game into extra frames and given Davidson a chance at tying the series at one game apiece.

With the loss, the Cyclones fall to 0-2 in the best of five LLHL series.

Leading up to that post, the Cyclones were dominating the Braves continually pushing the play into the LeRoy defensive zone and peppering Braves goaltender Blair Miskolczi with shots.

“He made a lot of good saves,” said Siroski, adding Miskolcki also did the same thing to them in game one, a 9-1 Braves victory Feb. 22 at the LeRoy Rink.

Carter Smith, scoring his second of the night at the 11-minute mark of the third and Cyclones captain Derek Allan potting one with 1:38 left to go in the game made it close, but Miskolczi and his post made sure that would be all.

“It was a good game,” said Cyclones head coach Jason Shaw. “We had lots of chances to score, but we just hit posts and crossbars. LeRoy is a good team and I thought we were right there to the end.”

To read more please see the March 4 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raider boys step up play in advance of conferences

March madness is here for the Davidson Raiders senior boys basketball team as they head to conferences in Outlook this weekend in their bid to make a run at a provincial championship.

The Raiders have been playing better of late and sit at “about .500” as their regular season wrapped up last week with a back and forth 61-55 loss to the Watrous Wildcats Feb. 26 at the Davidson Gym.

“We played really well (despite the loss),” said Raiders head coach Jeremy Murphy. “We played a little bit more consistently, but it happens. It was a good game, really close and very intense.”

Davidson started off slowly against the Wildcats going down 17-14 by the end of the first quarter and 32-26 by the half, but stayed in the game throughout with strong defensive play resulting in numerous Watrous turnovers. On offence, Raiders forward Kurri Reich led the charge continually pushing the Wildcats defence by setting up drives to the basket instead of settling for outside shots.

After the half, Davidson came out strong and thanks to a couple choice threes by Raiders forward Matthias McCreary and a strong inside game by guard Patrick Nordmarken, who continually found himself at the free-throw line, the team moved ahead 45-41 heading into the fourth. In the last frame, Watrous forward Colby McGregor led a press against the Raiders pushing his team to a strong finish and a resulting 61-55 win.

“We turned the ball over a lot, but it was the first game after the break for us and I knew we would be rusty,” said Wildcats head coach Doug Thomas. “The boys continue to impress me as the season goes on. They continue to play together and encourage each other and not worry about the officials. We were missing a few players, so I’m proud they came out and played well.”

Murphy said the boys have showed a lot of progress as the season wore on and the players have developed more of a team game over time. He said as they head into conferences this weekend he feels good that the team can win the necessary two games in Outlook to advance to regionals.

“We’re going to play hard and try to win some games.”