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For the first time in years, hockey fans in Sarnia have to make a choice. Wanting to see winning hockey locally is no longer a cut and dry answer, and on any given Saturday night, such as was the case on November 26th, it was the fans that had to make the tough call on who they want to cheer for.

So who did you go and see? If you watched the Sarnia Sting, you didn’t see Nail Yakupov who missed his first game of the season while Niagara scored three in the first period on route to a 4-2 win. If you went to Brock Street and watched the Legionnaires, you saw Jesse Drydak’s game winning goal with 26 seconds remaining to defeat the Leamington Flyers 4-3. And if you went out to Mooretown, you saw the Flags score three of their four goals on the power play, and defeat the Wheatley Sharks 4-3.

In other words, you would have saw enter-taining hockey from three teams who are all in the top portion of their conferences and all this season have winning records.

Rewind to last year, hockey fans were met with heavy disappointment from all ranks, as no junior team compiled a record better then .500. The Sting missed the playoffs for the sec-ond straight year, the Legionnaires were elimi-nated in four straight in the first round of the playoffs after having a .500 season, and the Flags made it to round two of the playoffs, but were eliminated in five games by Belle River.

But now, winning has become the expecta-

Winning has become the new tradition in Sarnia and it has come from the top and filter down through the juniors. By Andrew Brethauer

Continued on page 9.....

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December 1, 2011 | Vol. 1 | Iss. 1 gamemoment

tSrT h e S p o r t s R e p o r t

Andrew BrethauerEditor in Chief

Pat BrethauerPublisher

The Sports Report is a division of Sarniasports.com and may not be reproduced without written consent.

For advertising opportunities or to request a copy, please email info@sarniasports.com.

Copyright © 2011website: www.sarniasports.com

November 24th, 2011 - Jesse Drydak scores shorthanded against London Nationals goalie Taylor Edwards for his second of three goals on the night. Drydak is now the all time leader in goals in Sarnia Legionnaires history with 99 goals and counting.

3 The Road Travelled to Play Hockey Connor Gleason has made the trip around Lambton County looking for a place to play hockey

4 From Our Contributors Local sports news brought to you by our local news writers

8 A New Chapter in Women’s Hockey On the right track; Sarnia’s newest women’s hockey team

9 Top to Bottom From the Cover: Working together to create a new hockey culture in Sarnia

10 Health and Wellness Get to the CORE of your strength and health

On the Cover: Nail Yakupov, Shawn Waldie and Dan Lumley

Inside this Issue183

Dominik Rozman collected 183 points as a Legionnaire and held

the record for the most career goals with Sarnia at 91 between

2000-2004.

120Don Gordon is actually the all-

time Legionnaire career scoring leader, with more than 120 goals

to his credit. But close to 50 of those were racked up during the 1969 season, when the Legion-naires were playing Tier II Jr. ‘A’

hockey

Did You Know?

3

Fifteen year old Connor Gleason prob-ably won’t make the NHL, but he got a small taste of what a free agent must feel like, as he bounced around from team to team just looking for a place

to play hockey this past November. Connor, a goalie from Petrolia who last

played for the Petrolia Oilers Major Bantam team, found himself with no where to play hockey after he was cut from the Oilers Minor Midget team. Petrolia is the home to five goal-

ies including Connor, and with only two teams, down from three last year, Connor being the youngest of the five was the odd man out.

After being cut from Petrolia, Connor tried out for the Sarnia Jr. Sting Minor Midget MD team who only had one goalie and was given a spot on the team. But as unfortunate as it is for Connor, who has lived in Petrolia all his life, the twenty minute drive to Sarnia would not be the end to his free agency.

Despite the short distance between the two

From Travel to House League and All the Stops in BetweenBecause of politics, a 15-year-old travel goalie is playing House League hockey this season, despite a travel team wanting his skills in net.

cities, Sarnia and Petrolia are controlled by dif-ferent hockey organizations. Alliance Hockey controls the Sarnia hockey system, while the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) controls Petrolia.

And while the Alliance would accept Con-nor onto the Sarnia team to fill in the void at the goalie position the Sting Minor Midgets had, OMHA was determined to find Connor a spot inside their own organization.

And they would find Connor a team, 40-minutes away in Lambton Shores, but Con-nor would have to play on a house league team with the chance of being called up by the Minor Midget AE team. Connor, who has been invited to practices with the Jr. Sting, will now have to start all over again with a new set of team-mates.

“He was getting a little attached to Sarnia,” said Kim Gleason, Connor’s mother who has been trying to find her son a team to play on. “We’re trying to stay positive and hope some miracle will happen along the way to improve this situation.”

Connor has played goalie since he was six-years-old, and the Gleason’s have paid fully for their sons training in net, buying him new pads and putting him in goalie clinics that can run $700 a week. Even when given the option to play out of goal, Connor has selected to stay between the pipes.

And despite the politics that have kept him out of in-game situations, Connor is deter-mined to push to the next level in his hockey career, which includes trying out for local ju-nior hockey teams.

“Now that he has experience with cuts, he’s not devastated anymore,” said Kim. “He knows that this not going to stop him from going to the next set of try-outs. He’ll just keep going because it is more skates and he loves it.”

But it still begs the question of why there was an issue with Connor playing in Sarnia to begin with, considering the team needed a goalie. Kim Gleason says it is such a common sense issue, and that their needs to be clearer rules between the Alliance and OMHA.

“There should be some clauses that bridge this gap,” said Gleason. “You didn’t feel like people were really on your side or trying to help out. And the urgency didn’t seem to be there.”

Because the goalie position is not highly populated with players, goaltenders are able to move around to fill spots in other cities when there is a need for one. OMHA rules do give permission for transfers, but the OMHA

would prefer their players to stay within their own organization first before moving to an Al-liance team. And with no other OMHA travel team available, house league was the only op-tion remaining.

And now with a new team 40 minutes away, the drive has now been doubled from what they were making to Sarnia, bringing in extra costs. And unlike most parents who can drop their kids off at practice and leave, the Gleason’s have to stay and wait before driving back home again.

“We will never have a home game,” said Kim Gleason. “You want to be grateful for a place to play. It’s going to be a change for sure.”

But all the struggles have been worth it, as long as Connor gets to play the game.

“He is just really anxious to play. He wants to be playing the game he loves. He doesn’t go to clinics just to put in time. He wants to con-stantly get better. He’s trying to improve his skills all the time.”

4

FrOm Our COnTrIBuTOrS

Twenty-nine members of the Sarnia Y Rapids Swim Team competed in the SEAL (St. Clair Erie Aquatic League) swim meet at the new YMCA in Cha-

tham on November 20. Four individual swim-mers, and a relay team, earned 1st-place rib-bons.

Samantha Bedard and Kaiden Rawson, both 9, each came 1st in two of their individual events – Samantha in the 25M butterfly and 50M freestyle, and Kaiden in the 25M breast-stroke and 50M freestyle. Kaiden added 2nd-place finishes in the 100M Individual Medley (IM) and 25M butterfly, and 5th in the 25M backstroke. Samantha came 2nd in the 100M IM and 3rd in the 25m breaststroke, and was also part of the relay team that placed 1st in its age group, along with Ciara Brown and Erin Lacey, 9, and Hayden Scott, 8. Ciara also earned a 4th-place finish in the 25m backstroke, 5th in the 25M butterfly and 6th in the 100M IM and 25M breaststroke.

Hunter Small and Luke Young, both 12, each earned 1st place in individual events. Hunter finished 1st in the 100M breaststroke and Luke in the 100M backstroke. Hunter also came 3rd in the 100M IM and 4th in the 50M butterfly, while Luke placed 2nd in the 100M IM, 50M butterfly and 100M breaststroke, and 4th in the 200M freestyle.

In the 7-and-under age group, Mckenna Brown, 7, finished 3rd in the 25M backstroke and 5th in the 25M freestyle. Taylor Marut, also 7, came 3rd in the 25M freestyle, 4th in the 25M butterfly and 5th in the 25M breaststroke. Allie Rawson and Simone Roland, both 6, im-proved over their last meet, with Allie finishing in the Top 10 in three of her events.

Among the-8-and-9-year-old swimmers, Jack Biggar, 9, placed 2nd in the 25m breast-stroke, 3rd in the 100M IM and 25M back-stroke, and 6th in the 25m butterfly. Mckenna Jackson, also 9, came 5th in the 25M breast-stroke. Ayrianna Batson, 8, improved her time by more than 10 seconds in the 25M breast-stroke, and Evelyn Chambers and Ella Roland, both 9, cracked the Top 10 in that event.

In the group of 10-and-11-year-olds, Han-nah Lacey, 11, earned a 3rd-place finish in the 100M IM and a 5th in the 50m backstroke, while Nadine Osmon, 10, came 4th in the 100M

freestyle. Connor Phipps, 11, finished 6th in the 50M breaststroke. Abby Allerdyce, 10, took more than 10 seconds off her previous best time in the 100M IM, while Ally Core, also 10, took more than 15 seconds off her personal best in that event. Nes Tulang, 10, improved her times in each of her events, particularly the 50M breaststroke, in which she took almost 25 seconds off her previous best. Rachel Dalton, 11, Rylynn Haney, 10, and Myléna Vallée, 11, also participated.

Magaidh Crossland, 13, and Zoe Little and Aynsley Persad, both 12, all earned ribbons. Aynsley came 4th in the 100M IM and 6th in the 50M butterfly. Zoe finished 6th in the 100M freestyle, and Magaidh placed 6th in the 100M IM. Samantha Lefebvre, 12, improved her times in multiple events.

The Rapids are hosting a meet on Sunday, December 4 at the YMCA of Sarnia-Lambton on Finch Drive, and spectators are welcome.

Making a SplashSarnia Y Rapids Swimmers make a big splash in Chatham pool.

Local Hockey Supports remote Community

Sarnia Minor Hockey Association found a use for their old sweaters after switch-ing to the new Sarnia Sabres logo. The jerseys, along with goalie equipment,

sticks and other sporting equipment were sent to Pikangikum, Ontario, where Brandy Dobbin, a former resident of Petrolia teaches grade 4.

Dobbin and her boyfriend Derek Grainger teach on the reserve in Pikangikum, which is 22 hours from Sarnia, or seven hours from Thunder Bay.

There in the small community, Dobbin and Grainger have yet to teach a full week of school since starting in late August, due to PA days, holidays, and due to suicides, and other deaths on the reserve that shuts down the school.

Both Dobbin and Grainger are heavily in-volved in extracurricular activities to help give the young people of the community a reason to attend school. Recent the school had a girls grade 6-8 hockey team, and today the same group still plays together as a 7-9 team. This left the grade 5-6 players without a team and equipment.

So Dobbin stepped in to coach the team, and with support from groups such as Sarnia

Minor Hockey, she has been able to get equip-ment for the team to use. Grainger also coaches the boys team.

Pictured to the right is the first shipment of equipment donated by Sarnia Minor Hockey.

Sarnia Hockey Association sends shipment of jerseys, goalie pads and sticks to needing community.

2,443The population of Pikangikum, ON.

Pikangikum is a remote Ojibway community with acccess by air, road and winter roads. “Pikangikum” is from the Ojibway word – Biikanjikamiing – that refers to how the Berens River flows into Pikangikum Lake on the east, how the lake spreads out from the river on ei-ther side, and how the River leaves the lake in the west across from where it comes in.

5

The Sarnia Braves are proud to recog-nize Jake Marks’s signing of a National Letter of Intent to attend the Univer-sity of Maine and play baseball for the

Black Bears in 2013. Marks had signed during the NCAA’s early signing period of Novenber 9 - 15. At 17 years old, the 6’ 1” right handed pitcher, Marks has played for the Braves since he started with the Mosquito Braves at 10 years of age.

When announcing Maine Baseball’s 2012 Recruiting Class, Head Coach Steve Trimper said “ Our goal, as always, is to find the right fit, both academically and on the baseball field to continue the successes we have accomplished as a team. Jake is among this years group of student - athletes that will certainly aid in our goal of future America East Championships and successful runs in the NCAA tournament. He is expected to be a key component to the 2013 pitching staff, and will challenge for a starting spot in the rotation. Both Coach Spaulding and Cather worked tirelessly this past year to iden-tify and recruit an outstanding class.

“By signing early,” Marks said “I know what I have to do to get ready for college baseball - get bigger and stronger, and I don’t have to worry about going to all of the different col-

lege prospect camps over the winter to find a school in the spring or summer. Maine’s schol-arship offer was very good and they let me know that they wanted me. They wanted to get all of their recruiting done in the fall. Hockey is king at Maine, but baseball is definitely the number two sport there, with no competition in the spring for men’s sports. I was told that it’s not unusual to have 500 people go on the road to attend games. Now that the recruiting stuff is over I can relax, and prepare for school next fall. I’ll be going to Centrefield Sports in London with Adam Stern two or three times a week over the winter and then play my final season here for the Midget Braves, and hope-fully get a shot at Canada’s Junior National Team this spring / summer “.

Marks is leaning toward a degree in sec-ondary education. When he visited the Uni-versity of Maine campus in September he liked the layout because it combined the feeling of a major Division 1 school, yet had a small town atmosphere. Jake and his parents were also impressed with the amount of resources and support available to the student - athletes to make the task of juggling academics and ath-letics as smooth as possible.

In terms of the baseball program, Marks

really liked what he saw of the facilities from the playing field (and winter dome) to the clubhouse to the weight room - one of, if not, the best in the Eastern U.S.. UMaine plays in the America East conference. Coach Trimper’s upbeat style and support helped form his deci-sion that the University of Maine was a good fit for him.

“They really look after the athletes,” said Marks.

The fact that he already knew another re-cruit (Alex Gagne of Team Ontario - from Ot-tawa), and that there were 4 - 5 Canadians on the roster was also influential. Jeff Gibbs of the Black Bears (from Toronto) is widely expected to be the top Canadian selected in next springs MLB draft (97 - 98 mph fastball).

“I talked to him in September on my visit to UMaine, and he said he loved it there, but he’s a Junior, and it’s his draft year, and I’m guessing he’ll probably be gone after the draft.”

Marks had been contacted by several other colleges in Michigan, Ohio, New York, Colo-rado, Illinois, Massachussets and West Virginia after pitching for the U17 Ontario Youth Team at the Canada Cup in Moncton, New Brunswick in August of 2011.

Marks to Join Black Bears Sarnia’s Jake Marks is taking his talents to Division 1 baseball after seven year baseball career with Sarnia Braves.

The Sarnia Jr. Sting Major Atom MD showed they were more than just a team on the ice, they are a hockey fam-ily that gives back to the community.

In October the boys used pink tape on their sticks to raise awareness for Breast Can-cer and on October 6th the sisters collected do-nations at the door during the Jr. Stings game against the West London Hawks.

Both Sarnia and West London fans gave generously and the girls raised $218 which will be used in our region through the Cana-dian Breast Cancer Society.

For Movember the team had a photo ses-sion sporting moustaches and the sisters once

again collected donations at the door during the boys game against the North London Na-tionals on November 24 at the Germain Arena.

Hockey parents and spectators from Sar-nia and London once again gave generously and $300 was raised. This donation will be spilt between two registered “Movember Campaigns”, Assistant Coach Ivan Skinn and Jesse Schaefer, brother of Jr. Sting Goalie Stevie Schaefer.

“I think it is great if the kids realize that we are a team that gives back to the commu-nity” said Linda Schaefer, organizer of both events.

The Jr. Sting Major Atom MD sit in 2nd place in the Alliance West MD division and play their home games at the Germain Arena.

(Submitted photo)

Giving Back to the CommunityJr. Sting lend their support through the fall months.

8

SaRnia expReSS

There are many challenges in start a hockey team from scratch, but Tif-fany Daley and Brandi Warner took on that challenge this past summer and have successfully created the

Sarnia Express, a senior women’s hockey team in Sarnia that competes in the Southwestern Ontario Women’s AA Hockey League.

After a 3-1 loss to Aylmer to open their season, the Express quickly got on the right track and were winners of their next seven straight, including five shutouts.

The Express are built from the shell of the former Sarnia Starfires program, which folded

last year due to players retiring and starting families. This left women such as Daley and Warner without a place to play hockey. Want-ing to play hockey again, Daley and Warner be-gan to organize the new team.

“We already had the ground work from the other team that had been around for a long time,” said Daley. “We just had to rebuild it up after the year that we folded.”

Former players from the Starfires returned to build the core of the roster, while new play-ers from Point Edward rounded it out. Fund-raising was done in the summer to buy new sweaters and help cover the costs, as the Ex-press are an independent team, and not affili-ated with any of the local hockey program.

“Since we are an independent team and not with an organization, you cover all of your own costs,” said Daley. “Ice, refs, everything like that. Cost is one of the hardest things in senior.”

“It’s hard for girls to commit all their time to it, and then still have to work and go to school,” said Warner. “A lot of people still want to play though.”

But for there to even be a team, there need to be a name and a logo. Warner says the two had an idea of what they wanted their jersey’s to look like, but had not settled on a name or logo. They came across the logo which was owned by a AAA baseball team in Texas, who granted the team permission to use the logo for their jerseys. The logo, a large E locomo-tive, also ties in the past for many of the girls who played for the Sarnia Starfires team, with stars on the front of the locomotive, and also coming from behind.

The team itself has been a strong force in the Women’s AA league, tallying 23 goals in nine games, while allowing only seven.

“We knew we were going to have a good team with the girls we had on our team,” said Daley, who also had the first goal in team his-tory. “But once numbers started to drop off and we are playing with two lines right now, we were not really sure how it was going to go.”

The team is also coached by currently Lambton AAA Jr. Sting Minor Midget assistant coach Shawn Futers, who Warner and Daley have said has done an amazing job with the

team at practice. The Express are not to be a one year won-

der, as Daley and Warner are in it for the long haul to build a successful senior women’s hockey program in Sarnia.

“Hopefully we can get younger girls to start coming in here after, and realize it is there,” said Warner. “Even girls going to Lambton Col-lege or girls that are past the Sarnia Jr. Sting.”

Daley see’s an importance for Sarnia to have a senior woman’s competitive team and offering hockey to older women who may oth-erwise not have a place to play.

“Sarnia has had a senior AA team for a long time that has been competitive,” said Daley. “It’s a big thing for Sarnia because it is a small-er community and we still manage to compete with the bigger teams like London and Toronto and we still do well.”

The current Southwestern Hockey League features teams from Aylmer, Kitchener, Wa-terloo and London. The regular season goes into February and the team’s home games are regularly at 2:00pm on Sunday’s at the Point Edward Arena.

A new Chapter in Sarnia Women’s HockeyThe former Starfires are making new tracks for women’s hockey in Sarnia with the creation of the new Sarnia Express.

9

RWspenceR bRonzi He clears the box with his cleats, and draws a line across the box. He taps both shoes with his bat and takes a

single warm up swing, stepping back to fix his pants and take a deep breath. He steps back in, stretches his legs and lays the bat flat across the plate. Then he stares at a single point on his pine tar covered stick and gets set.

A Gary Moran fastball comes screaming down to home

dAnthony deAnGeLo: He clears the box with his cleats, and draws a line across the box. He taps both shoes with his bat and takes a single warm up swing,

stepping back to fix his pants and take a deep breath. He steps back in, stretches his legs and lays the bat flat across the plate. Then he stares at a single point on his pine tar covered stick and gets set.

A Gary Moran fastball comes screaming down to home plate and Randall connects, sending the ball to the 409ft

Gseth heLLinGA: He clears the box with his cleats, and draws a line across the box. He taps both shoes with his bat and takes a single warm up swing,

stepping back to fix his pants and take a deep breath. He steps back in, stretches his legs and lays the bat flat across the plate. Then he stares at a single point on his pine tar covered stick and gets set.

A Gary Moran fastball comes screaming down to home plate and Randall connects, sending the ball to the 409ft mark of centerfield. Not known for his power hitting, Ran-

Continued from front page...

tion and it has started from the top at the ju-nior A level and filtered down into Mooretown. Depth is now the new favourite word amongst the coaches in Sarnia, as all three teams hosts a variety of strong players, capable of being called up to the next level.

“We’re helping the Sting, Mooretown helps us, the minor midgets and the midg-ets help us, and we are all in this together,” said Legionnaires Head Coach Dan Rose. “And hopefully that’s a culture we are able to cultivate in the next few years.”

“This is probably the first year that there has been enough hockey players around so that everybody can benefit,” said Mooretown Flags coach Bruce Aberhart. “And it starts from the top with the Sting for sure. Jacques [Beau-lieu] made a few moves in the summer time that made a few players available that the Le-gionnaires got and we’re down here grooming the next generation of Legionnaires.”

Beaulieu’s aggressive summer brought nu-merous players from out of town. Ryan Kuja-winski, Anthony DeAngelo, Taylor Carnevale, Domenic Alberga, Ludvig Rensfeldt and Reid Boucher all joined the Sting over the summer through trades or draft picks. It was almost too much depth for Beaulieu when he had to make choices on who stayed and who went elsewhere.

And it was the Legionnaires who seemed to benefit the most overall. Nathan Mater, Justice Dundas and Louie Rowe have played for the Sting this season, but are full time members of the Legionnaires, whose team also includes other Sting draft picks such as Matt Cimetta, who signed with the team over the summer, Anthony Donati who played last season with

the Jr. A team, and Daniel Nikandrov, the Sting’s 4th round pick in the 2011 OHL draft.

On the back end, the Flags have groomed the next set of Legionnaires which includes Brent Sauve, Derek D’Andrea, Jeff Paulley, Tyler Prong and last seasons Junior C Player of the

Year Jason Teschke, while players such as Jeff Schroeter, Spencer Bronzi and Michael Gray have played games this season for the both

the Legionnaires and the Flags. “Obvious the Sting doing better has cre-

ated an atmosphere in town where the people are excited and it filters down to the players,” said Rose. “The Sting are being talked about, we [Legionnaires] are being talked about, the Mooretown team is having success. It seems to be working for everybody.”

If you look at the current standings (as of Nov, 28th), the system has worked perfectly. The Sting are second in the Western Division, two points behind Plymouth, but have two games to make up on the Whalers. That also puts them 4th overall in the OHL.

The Legionnaires are second in the West-ern Conference and trail London by two points with a game in hand and have scored the most goals in the West. And Mooretown has been in first place in the North Division for the better part of two months.

If this is indeed the start of a new culture in Sarnia hockey, it is beneficial to everyone. Players will develop, teams will succeed, and for the first time in years, it will have to be the fans that make the tough choices on who to go and see.

Jeff Schroeter leads the Mooretown Flags with 19 goals, 17 as-sists through 22 games. He also has four goals and one assist in five games with the Sarnia Legionnaires, including a game win-ner against Strathroy.

“It seems to be working for everybody.”

6An 0-2-0 start lead to six straight from the Mooretown Flags through September into October. The Flags put 34 goals in during that time, while Andrew Ganter picked up five victories in net. Jeff Schroeter had seven goals and six assists, averaging two points a game through that stretch.

11After a terrible 1-4-0 start to the season, the Legion-naires started an 11 game winning streak on Sept 28th, through to Nov 3rd. Sarnia outscored their opponents 61 to 20 includ-ing a 12-0 victory over Welland. Jesse Drydak had seven goals and 10 assists in that span, while Kyle Washer picked up eight straight victories.

7The Sting started the season 1-1-1, but a seven game winning streak start-ing October 1st put them at the top of the OHL. Five were at home where the Sting outscored their oppo-nents 36 to 19. Nail Yaku-pov had 20 pts (6G, 14A) in that span, while Reid Boucher lead with 9 goals in seven games, includ-ing two hat-trick’s against Kitchener and Saginaw.

WInnInG STrEAKSAll three teams started the season of slow, but after combining victoties, found themselves back at the top of the standings.

10

Anyone who works out, has gone to a gym in the last five years, or at the very least has been caught watching late night infomercials has heard

the newest workout phrase - core training. Core training refers to specifically targeting the muscles that make up the “core” of our bodies. This specific type of training involves movements that are designed to exercise the abdominal muscles, along with muscles that surround the hip and spine. These muscles surround the mid-section of the body and help to stabilize the spine, pelvis and shoulders, providing a solid foundation for movement of the arms and legs. A strong core can help con-trol body movement and energy transfer, aid-ing in balance, agility and strength. A strong core can help improve athletic performance in almost all sports. If athletic performance is not your main goal, a strong core is still important as it can help distribute stresses when weight bearing to protect the back from injury, and even protect against common mechanical low back pain.

While most people think that core training refers exclusively to the abdominal muscles that make up the much desired 6-pack, they’re wrong. Abdominal training is often given all of the credit for protecting the back and being the foundation of core strength. Often people are confused about core training and simply think that by doing crunches and sit- ups that they will protect their back and build a strong core. It is more common that people who simply concentrate on abdominal muscles may be creating a weak and unbalanced core and further making them susceptible to poor athletic performance and low back pain. Abdominal muscles only make up a portion of what makes up a strong core. To build a strong, balanced core it is vital

that you train muscles in the back, hips, side abdominal and deeper abdominal muscles as well. Getting the entire core involved will help to correct any postural imbalances and reduce strain on the spine. More importantly, the biggest benefit of proper core training is to develop proper functional fitness - fitness that is essential to daily living as well as greater athletic performance.

Exercise moves

Here are four great starting exercise moves that can help to start to target core muscles of the body including the abdominal, hip and back muscles. Once these exercises are mastered, there are many additional varia-tions of these moves that can be added to any workout routine. Once youʼre comfortable with these exercises and developing a strong core, you can contact your chiropractor to move onto more challenging core exercises.

If you feel any pain or discomfort while performing any of these core exercises, or within 72 hours of exercising, please cease performing them and consult your doctor.

Dr. Michael Anning, is a Chiropractor/certified Kinesiologist, practicing at the Sarnia Chiropractic and Performance Centre. Dr. Anning is a Certified Strength and Condition-ing Specialist through the NSCA, and is a certified acupuncture provider through the Acupuncture Foundation of Canada Institute. Dr. Anning is the Chiropractor for the Sarnia Legionnaires Junior Hockey team.

Arm/Leg raise

Starting Position: Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor and arms raised straight up in front of you. Maintain an abdominal brace (by tightening your stomach and buttocks muscles).

The move: Lift one knee up toward 90 de-grees and extend the opposite arm over your head to the floor. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Return to the starting position and switch sides.repetitions: Repeat 6-8 times. Gradually work up to 3 sets. Rest for 30-60 seconds between sets.

Arm Extension

Starting Position: Kneel down onto your hands and knees. Keep your spine in a neutral position and maintain an abdominal brace (by tightening stomach and buttock muscles).

The move: Extend one arm out in front as much as you can - even a little way makes a big difference. The goal is to make your arm parallel with the floor. Be sure to keep the rest of your body stable. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Return to starting position and switch sides.

repetitions: Repeat 6-8 times. Gradually work up to 3 sets. Rest for 30-60 seconds between sets.

Leg Extension

Starting Position: Kneel down onto your hands and knees. Keep your spine in a neutral position and maintain an abdominal brace (by tightening stomach and buttock muscles).

The move: Extend one leg behind as much as you can - even a little way makes a big differ-ence. Be sure to keep your upper body stable. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Return to starting posi-tion and switch sides.

repetitions: Repeat 6-8 times. Gradually work up to 3 sets. Rest for 30-60 seconds between sets.

Cross Crawl

Starting Position: Kneel down onto your hands and knees. Keeping your spine in a neutral position, tighten stomach and buttock muscles to create an abdominal brace.

The move: Slowly extend one leg behind you; at the same time extend the opposite arm out in front until parallel with the floor. Be sure to keep your torso square and stable. Hold for 2-3 seconds. Return to starting position and switch sides.

repetitions: Repeat 6-8 times. Gradually work up to 3 sets. Rest for 30-60 seconds between sets.

HEALTH AND WELLNESSBuiLD THE CORE OF YOuR STRENGTHWith these four exercises, build and train your core muscles and help control your body and your energy. By Dr. Michael Anning

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Jeff Schroeter Maine Western Bowl Squires Express Ryan Kujawinski Jason TeschkeLegionnaires Minor Midget Jesse Drydak Blackhawks Rapids

Future StarsBrEndAn BArILL

Six year old Brendan Barill from Point Edward can currently be found on the ice with the Point Edward Blackhawks tyke team, and enjoys a variety of sports such as baseball and soccer on top of hockey.

Described as very competitive, Brendan plays defence in soccer and hockey, but has also played goalie and forward as well. His favourite teams are the Detroit Lions and the Sarnia Sting, and he says Nail Yakupov is his favourite player.

Brendan is a student of Bridgeview Elementary School in Point Edward, where his favourite subject is math. After school, he enjoys sports, playing Mario and with his two dogs Mikey and Molly. He wants to be a policeman when he gets older, and he desribes the thing he doesn’t like to do the most as “Clean up the dog poop outside.”, which he is required to do for his allowance.

Brendan is the son of Dan and Stacy Barill.

Jesse DrydakExpressBlackhawksWestern BowlMaineJason TeschkeSquiresRyan KujawinskiJeff SchroeterLegionnairesRapidsMinor Midget

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Last Yeardecember 2, 2010

northern vs St. Patrick’sLSSAA Boys Hockey

Jordan Dugas of St. Patrick’s stops Jus-tin Moore of Northern on a breakaway in a game that saw the Vikings win 5-2. It was one of a handful of games the Fighting Irish would participate in, as low numbers would cause the team to fold half-way through the season.