Patenaudes collect a Giant Tiger mixed two-ball win

The Morrisburg Junior B Lions had no success this past weekend when they skated into Rideau Division territory against the Gananoque Islanders on Friday night in Morrisburg and the South Grenville Rangers, in Prescott on Saturday.

Friday night the Lions lost to the Islanders 7-2, and then, on Saturday, they were handed a 5-3 loss by the Rangers.

With the two weekend losses, the Lions fall further back in the St. Lawrence Division standings and now trail the fifth place Alexandria Glens by five points.

The Casselman Vikings continue to dominate the St. Lawrence Division with 31 points, while the Char–Lan Rebels have bumped into second place with 25 points.

Friday night in Morrisburg, the Islanders were held to a first period 1-0 lead on a goal  by Wyatt Cota.

They got it rolling in the second period with an unassisted short-handed goal from Chris Smith at 3:35 and then increased it to 3-0 at 5:51 of the period.

Peter Ketcheson, with help from Steven Savage and Chris Rutley, put the Lions on the scoreboard with a power-play goal at 7:32 of the second.

The Islanders answered to make it 4-1 with 5:49 left on the clock, but the Lions kept working at 16:53 Nicholas Pilon scored while the Lions were short-handed to cut the gap to 4-2.

Unfortunately, that was it for the Lions, as the Islanders went to work and nabbed Mikael Dion for another three unanswered third period goals for the 7-2 win.

Saturday night in Prescott, the Rideau Division’s fourth place South Grenville Rangers showed no mercy as they went up 2-0 over the Lions in the first period and increased it to 3-0 in the second.

They made it 4-0, early in the third period, before the Lions were able to get on the scoreboard at 7:35 with a short-handed goal from Clarke Veenstra assisted by Ty Hodgson.

One minute later the Rangers made it 5-1.

In the last 10 minutes of the third period, the Lions got it together for two goals.

Clarke Veenstra counted the first at 11:05 with Sylvester Bzdyl and Peter Ketcheson providing the assists and Brandon Chaffe scored on the Lions power-play, unassisted at 14:35.

Ryan Cooper was in the Lions net for the loss.

Coming up, the Lions travel to Athens on Sunday, December 9 for a 7:30 p.m. match against the Rideau Division’s first place Aeros.

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The Morrisburg Club started league play last week, and we look forward to another successful year. As always, there are a few membership changes, and we wish well those unable to curl this year. Perhaps we’ll see you later in the season, and we welcome those new to the club. 

To those who have not signed up yet, there may still be openings. Contact the league coordinators soon, though, to make sure you get in. At the very least, there are openings as spares in any of the leagues. Relative to other sports, curling is the least expensive of sporting activities.

Concerning league coordinators: Little Rock Curlers (Ian Wilson) ianwilson@ucdsb.on.ca, after school Monday; Afternoon, daytime ladies, Tuesday p.m., (Alice Thompson), 613-543-3134; Senior men, (Dave King), 613-652-4227; Tuesday night men, (Jack Barkley), 613-543-3908; Daytime mixed, our new president, Ruth Kelly, ruthkelly@explornet.com; Evening ladies, Wednesday, (Sue McIntosh), 613-543-3118; Competitive league, Thursday p.m., (Ian Wilson);  Evening mixed, Friday night, (Mahlon Locke), 613-543-3104. 

Ruth Kelly is organizing a Monday night league for curlers of five years experience or less. Hope to see some new folks out.

Saturday, we had our first bonspiel, an Oktoberfest. (The swing and sweep fell victim too often in the past to iffy weather.) 

We thank Sandra Beckstead, owner of Smyth’s Orchards, for sponsoring. The hot apple cider, the prizes and the bushel basket full of apples and other treats, won in the draw by Greta McGann, were wonderful. 

The lunch, soup, German sausage and sauerkraut, prepared by Claire Locke and her committee, combined with appropriate beverages, sent the curlers out happy for their afternoon games.

Thanks to those who organized the day, and to Bill Laurin, whose pictures are great, and who will continue to promote the club with them and in other ways this year.

The top team on the day was Sam Locke, Keith Robinson, Paula Locke and Don Lazenby. Finishing second were Mahlon Locke, Joanne Baker, Laurie Lazenby and Linda Murphy. 

There are openings for teams in the Lions’ Bonspiel, Nov. 1, and the United Way Bonspiel Nov. 8 here at the club. The entry fee for each is $100 per team. Keith Robinson would be the contact for the former and Mahlon Locke for the latter. 

At our general meeting last month, Ruth Kelly was accepted as the new president, and Mahlon Locke, our president, retired from the job, though he’ll still be active in club business. We owe a huge debt to Mahlon for his service to our club over the past several years. 

Kathy Johnston, our long-time treasurer, presented her annual financial report, which showed another successful year for the club’s finances. There are still a few openings for the club board of directors, by the way.

[…]

Approximately 50 members attended the annual fall meeting of the Morrisburg Golf Club on Sunday afternoon with much of the discussion this year centering around the summer-long problems with several of the greens.

With three greens severely damaged by blue algae, and several others showing slight damage, it was a long tough season for both the club’s board of directors and the greens staff, as they did their best to work on the problem and provide the members and paying guests the best playing conditions as was possible.

With the season now behind them, and the course officially closed to all play as of this past Monday, October 29, the board members laid out the plans for next spring’s work on the troubled one, two and three greens.

According to treasurer Sean Boulerice, greens two and three are to be sodded in the spring, while the first green which has been showing signs of recovery since it was seeded in September, will continue to be worked on.

Greens chair Shawn Hummel, along with Boulerice and club president Jason Broad, have solicited much appreciated help from several area greens professionals and it is following their advice that the club will proceed next spring.

“We started off pretty tough,” said Hummel in his report. “There was a lot of maintenance required on the equipment and we were looking at a lot of water damage on the fairways. We decided to go ahead and fix the fairway drainage problems (where required).”

Questioned as to how long the second and third greens, could be expected to be out of play after sodding next spring, Boulerice said they were hoping that it would be six weeks max, after the sodding. 

Boulerice said the sodding can be done as soon as the ground reaches a temperature of 50 degrees and that will be dependent on the weather. “So we are hoping to get an early spring and to get at it in April,” he said.

With declining membership, which is being felt throughout the golf industry, and the fear of losing more members due to the problems with the greens, at the advice of the executive, the Morrisburg Golf Club members voted a fairly hefty drop in membership fees for the 2013 season.

“We feel that by lowering our prices, we would be very price competitive,” said Boulerice explaining the board has looked at other clubs’ pricing and what they have been doing to attract members and green fee players. 

The drop sees the fee for single member golfers drop from last year’s $540 to $450 (before applicable taxes and a club levy that is being collected to help pay for the beautiful deck added to the clubhouse two years ago).

All membership categories were adjusted to correspond to the base rate change and come spring reduced green fees will be put into effect.

The club will also have membership gift certificates available immediately for people to purchase as Christmas gifts.

The meeting ended with the annual election of officers for the 2013 season which saw the majority of board members returned.

The main changes in the board are in the club captain positions as Monique Patenaude takes over for Lori-Anne Davies who finished out two terms, and Andy Patenaude replaces Bob Mann who handled the men’s duties in 2012.

Jason Broad was returned as president, Mick Mabo as 1st vice-president and Barry Henderson as second vice-president. Sean Boulerice remained as treasurer, Candace Jamieson as secretary and Shawn Hummel as greens chair. A seniors rep had yet to be found to replace Lawrence Larocque who has stepped down.

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