Junior B Lions season over with 6-1 loss

Dennis Casselman has put the rumours to rest with his recent announcement that the 15-year-old back nine portion of the Cedar Glen Golf Course located east of Williamsburg has been sold to neighbouring farmer Robert Byvelds. 

In an interview on Monday afternoon, Casselman said the sale of the back nine land will probably be finalized in late January.

It’s pretty disappointing for us,” said Casselman. “The way things have been going, every year the revenue is dropping and the expenses are going up.”

With two thirds of the 165 acre property occupied by the back nine layout, Casselman says that two thirds of the maintenance budget was going on the very spacious back nine holes which totalled 3,453 yards from the blue tees.

In addition to the longer holes, the back nine Cedar Glen holes featured huge expansive greens, large-sized tees and extensive mowed areas between holes.

With the Byvelds farm expected to put the land back into crop production, Casselman says it is certainly not something he or his family want to see. 

Casselman recalls the building of the back nine holes and its opening in July of 1999, with his sons David and Paul and workers, David Stewart, Bunny Bennet and Randy Burke. “They were a great bunch of guys, and we all put in a lot of hard work.”

Although the back nine is sold, the Casselman family is pleased to be able to keep the land for the driving range intact along with the parking lot and current clubhouse location.

The northern boundary will be along the North tower line, which runs about halfway through the current 10th tee.

“Basically, we had too many holes and not enough golfers,” says Casselman of the current trend of fewer members and decreasing guest play in the golf industry. The current Cedar Glen membership of 350 members is well down from when the game was peaking in this area in the mid to late 90s.

 “All the revenue streams are down,” says Casselman. “It isn’t just the fewer green fees and fewer members, but the members are getting older and not sticking around as much. And there just isn’t the young people coming up. Around here, it is also crazy competitive.”

“Our membership is great. We have a very longtime loyal membership. We have met a lot of nice people and made a lot of friends over the years We are hoping that most of them will stay with us, but we do realize that we are going to lose some for sure who enjoyed the 18 holes. That is why they were here.”

“So far the reaction from the members is that they are sorry to see it [back nine] go, but happy that we were able to hold onto our front nine. We still have our club, it’s intact and our nine hole original course is intact.”

Dennis who is 70 and perhaps looking forward to a little retirement golf himself, says [son] David will be getting more involved. “The 18-hour days are getting hard for me to take.”

For the 2015 golf season, members and the golfing public at the Cedar Glen Golf Course can expect conditions to be every bit as good as they were this past summer, and they were great. Casselman suggests that they will even get better with the focus now on just nine holes.

Work continues on the new tee on the second hole and plans are in the works for some other sodding in needed areas.

“It’s going to be a challenge, but we will make the best of it. We look forward to continuing with all the fun events of the past and to develop new ones. We believe that with the lessened pressure of maintaining the entire 165 acres, we will be able to provide better facilities, better course conditions and an even more enjoyable golf experience.”

Golfers were out and about thanks to the warm spell earlier this week and play will continue until the snow flies…again.

In the spring, it will be golf as usual at Cedar Glen with golfers returning to the 42 year old original nine holes for their action.

[…]

The South Dundas “River Rats Treasures” Novice B Lions capped off a winning weekend by downing the Kemptville Panthers 3-2 here Sunday, after winning the “B” Championship at a Gananoque tournament on Saturday.

The Lions participated in a 10 team, Novice tournament on Saturday, in Gananoque, and made it to the “B” final against their division rival Brockville #2 Braves. 

The Lions jumped on their opportunities in the first few minutes of the game grabbing a 3-0 lead on goals by Kayne McCadden and Ben Lapier.

 Kolby Latulippe sent McCadden away twice on right wing breakaways, and both times be beat the goalie over the glove to the top corner. 

Ben Lapier followed that up with a rush of his own and scored to give the Lions a 3-0 lead three minutes into the game.

In the second period, the Lions got into some penalty troubles and on back to back power plays, Brockville’s Rhys Gibbons was able to beat Lions goalie Brendan Shaver to cut the lead to 3-2.

After another Brockville rush, Lion’s defensemen Emytt Fetterly made a clearing pass to Joshua Broad who beat the Braves defensemen and made a short pass to Ben Lapier who broke in on the Braves goalie and netted his second of the game.

The Braves responded with another Gibbons goal to cut the lead to 4-3, but the Lions Kayne McCadden put the game away with 1:37 left netting his third to give the Lion’s the “B” Championship.

The Lion’s  missed out on making it to the “A” final by just three goals in round robin play. 

In their opening game, they came up against a really good team in Port Hope, and they needed outstanding goaltending from Brendan Shaver to give them a chance to squeak out a 2-2 tie.

With Shaver on the bench for an extra attacker, Kayne McCadden intercepted a Port Hope clearing pass and quickly moved the puck to Ben Lapier who scored the tying goal with 27 second left. Lapier had scored earlier off a scramble with Joshua Broad providing the assist.

In their other round robin game, the Lion defeated a Kingston Novice Select Team, 9-2. Early on it was a battle just to get a lead as Kingston grabbed a 2-1 advantage, but the Lions would not be denied, as they battled hard to the win. 

Scoring highlights: Nolan Henry with one goal and two assists and Joshua Broad with five assists; Kayne McCadden had two goals and assists went to all the defense crew-Spencer Barclay, Trent Rae, Cassidy Bilmer and Emytt Fetterly; Ben Lapier was the offensive machine with six goals.

In league play Sunday afternoon, the Lions battled the west Division Leading Kemptville #3 Panthers and needed a third period goal from Kolby Latulippe to break up the 2-2 tie for a 3-2 win. 

The Panthers pressed in the final minute with their goalie on the bench for an extra attacker and the Lion’s killing a penalty, but they were unable to get a shot through to the net.

The Lions had the lead twice at 1-0 and 2-1 on goals by Ben Lapier, the first assisted by Owen Fetterly.

In the second period, Broad who was fore checking on the left wing got the puck and made a pass to Lapier near the goal line. Lapier attempted a pass to Fetterly in the slot, but the puck deflected off two Panther players into their own net.

With the game tied at two, McCadden grabbed a loose puck near the Panthers blue line and circled into the slot where he let a wrist shot go that was saved. However, Kolby Latulippe was “johnny on the spot” to knock the rebound into the net.

The South Dundas “River Rats Treasures” Novice B Lions next home game is Sunday, November 27th at 1 p.m. Local hockey fans are invited to come out and cheer on the Lions.

[…]

It was a busy weekend for Luke Whitteker and the Whitteker Motorsports team, with events scheduled at Autodrome Granby in Quebec on Friday night, Brockville Speedway on Saturday and Cornwall Speedway on Sunday,

Unfortunately, Mother Nature would once alter their Friday night plans with Granby canceling their racing program early. That gave the team an opportunity to implement a backup plan to return to Mohawk International Raceway, only to wait out a rain delay, and eventually get cancelled there as well.

At Brockville on Saturday night, Whitteker finished sixth in his qualifying heat race, and would have to start the 30 lap main event from 16th place.  Despite an ill-handling car, he was able to climb to 11th place at the checkered flag.

The final stop on the weekend was Cornwall Motor Speedway.  

Whitteker began the night with a second place finish in his preliminary heat race. 

After making some adjustments on the car, Whitteker rolled off the starting grid from third place, and quickly moved to second.  

Whitteker had several restarts on the outside and would challenge for the lead each time, but would end up finishing second.

While the young Iroquois driver has been running as much as he can with the DIRT Modified, attention will soon start shifting to the Race 101 pavement Late Model, as he looks forward to a test session at the end of the month at Southern National Speedway in North Carolina.  

Whitteker will be testing in preparation for his three starts at the track later this summer.

This coming weekend, Whitteker will race at Mohawk International Raceway on Friday night, Brockville Speedway on Saturday, and Cornwall Speedway on Sunday.  

With a great run this past weekend, he will be looking to capture his first win of the 2012 season.

[…]