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ary Annivers 1985-2010
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Sports
Limits to lacrosse anger association
CULTURE ❚ CELEBRATING DIVERSITY
Team for girls left victim to a shortage of field time. by Maria Rantanen mrantanen@mrtimes.com
The local minor lacrosse association feels it’s not getting its fair share of field time. Ridge Meadows Burrards Minor Lacrosse Association’s president Lance Andre said he was told at a July meeting with Parks and Leisure staff that the association shouldn’t register more players because there aren’t enough fields available. Field time is allocated according to the number players registered in the previous year. “If we’re told to cap our numbers, how can we ever grow and get more field time?” Andre said. Lacrosse has up to 11 teams on a field at the same time, which means kids as young as seven are on the field at the same time as 18-year-olds. This year, the association was planning to have a girls’ field lacrosse team after the girls’ box lacrosse players expressed interest in a girls’ field lacrosse team. When the association said they wanted to start a new girls’ program, they were told they would have to integrate the practices and games into their current allotted time, Andre said. However, girls’ field lacrosse is played without helmets and isn’t a contact sport like boys’ field lacrosse and therefore the two can’t co-exist
on the same field. Girls’ field lacrosse is growing rapidly, Andre said, but because the association got no increase in field time, they couldn’t form the team. Girls from Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows who want to play field lacrosse currently go to Langley or Port Coquitlam to play. The lacrosse association has 150 registered players while the two soccer associations have 1,800. Andre said he knows they are smaller but they aren’t asking for an “outrageous” amount of time. But if they can’t increase their numbers, they won’t ever get more field time as time is allocated according to registered players. “There have be some concessions made...to be able to grow into the field time we need,” Andre said. The association would like to have two practice times per week — so that the younger players and older players can be practicing at different times for safety reasons — and six hours for games on Sundays. With a brand new turf field at Pitt Meadows Secondary, the minor lacrosse association thought there would be an increase in practice time, but the association didn’t get any increase this year. ❚ Parks and leisure staff didn’t return repeated calls by press time.
Census changes upset council
The elimination of the long-form census may force the district of Maple Ridge to make decisions in an information vacuum, Councillor Linda King warned during a council workshop yesterday. King is one of several Maple Ridge councillors planning to appeal to the federal government to continue using the long-form census. The federal government announced the decision to switch to a shorter census last July. The government has announced plans to replace the long-form census with a voluntary survey. Completing the census is still mandatory. Councillor Cheryl Ashlie cautioned that focusing solely on the long-form census was a distraction from other surveys the government has eliminated. She said the federal government has eliminated a household spending survey, a workplace survey and a survey of financial security. King remained focused on the long-form census. “I would rather do something immediately about the long-form census as it’s something of an emergency,” she said. King said the ramifications of eliminating the census now could last 10 years. She said the lack of information could hinder council’s ability to make informed decisions regarding housing and land-use. Mayor Ernie Daykin agreed, questioning doing away with the long form. Ashlie expressed concern about who would fill the information void left by the elimination of the long-form census. She suggested private companies might provide statistics for a price. “You can’t have that,” she said. Councillor Craig Speirs blasted the federal government for doing away with the long-form census. “We need this information and this government is really out of touch with municipalities,” he said. Speirs said the long-form census had been effective for the last 40 years. ❚ Council is planning to vote next Monday on a letter that could be sent to the federal government asking for reinstatement of the long-form census.
(Above) Members of the Bhangra Beat Academy dance a traditional Indian dance at the 2010 Diversity Health Fair in the Ridge Meadows Seniors Activity Centre on Saturday. The group was just one of several multicultural performances throughout the day. (Right) Melissa Peckham, 4, concentrates intently on her makeshift drums during the closing performance for the fair. Peckham was part of the World Rhythms Drumming led by musician Peter Tam. The group, made up of a number of children from ages 4 to 10, learned basic rhythms first, then performed what they had learned for the assembled people. Mitch Thompson/TIMES
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