Just a quick picture to tide you tennis fans over till I can get the full post up later tonight. Canadian tennis star Stephanie Dubois won her second-round match in straight sets Thursday, defeating Misaki Doi of Japan (WR #94) 6–1, 6–4.
Headed up to Hollyburn for a bit of Women’s First Round action this afternoon, and caught an all-Canadian matchup: Stephanie Dubois, ranked #4 in Canada (World Ranking #164), won in straight sets over Egyptian-born, Toronto-based Heidi El Tabakh (WR #284), 7–5, 6–3.
El Tabakh hits with some serious power, and offered up more than a few impressive winners in the match. Unfortunately for her, on this day she allowed emotions to distract her, double faulting after a long baseline rally and swearing at herself repeatedly during the second set. Dubois, who won the Vancouver Open in 2009, took advantage of El Tabakh’s mood swings, dictating the overall pace of the game and frustrating her opponent with a calm, cool demeanor throughout the match.
More, including more pictures, after the jump.
Continue reading Vancouver Open: Dubois cruises through the first round
Mr Ferraro brought the Cup to Burnaby on Monday afternoon. No, not that Cup. And for that matter, not that Ferraro.
Chances are if you’re from the Vancouver area, you know of Ray Ferraro. Born in Trail, Ray played 18 seasons in the NHL — to this day you’ll see Hartford Whalers jerseys bearing his name round these parts — and since hanging up the skates in 2002 he’s built a tidy career as a broadcaster with Team 1040 and TSN. In 1,258 regular season games and 68 playoff contests, Ray never got close to winning it all in the NHL. But this story isn’t about him. Or the Stanley Cup.
More after the jump.
After a freebie weekend of qualifying matches, the Vancouver Open officially served up its first round of play on Monday. Pucked in the Head was there to soak up some rays, snap a few pictures, and admire some damned fine athletes under gorgeous summer conditions.
You win some, you lose some
Canadians occupied quite a few qualifying and first round spots on both the men’s and women’s side of the draw. With one of the largest purses on the ATP Challengers Tour, the Vancouver Open (@vanopen on the mighty Twitter) also attracts a high-quality international field, with more than a dozen countries represented up at Hollyburn Country Club this week.
Round one of the men’s draw saw 22-year-old Steven Diez, ranked 218 in the world, defeat #202 Matt Reid of Australia in straight sets, 6–4, 6–2. Reid seemed a little rattled early on in the match, when one of his serves (clocked at 197 km per hour, mind you) hit a young ball girl in the temple. She was forced to withdraw from her duties in the back court. She would be fine, but Reid not so much. Diez broke him in the next service game and never looked back.
The women’s side was still in qualifying rounds on Monday — Canadian Stacey Fung lost in straight sets to Sherazad Benamar, a 24-year-old southpaw from France, 6–1, 6–3. Benamar overpowered the teen with superior net play, more mobility on the baseline, and more passion between points as well.
The Vancouver Open is on at Hollyburn all week, with the semis and finals going next Saturday and Sunday. Preliminary rounds offer some great value for tickets, as well, so head out to Hollyburn and enjoy some top flight tennis with some of the best up-and-coming professional players in the world.
This weekend sees the Odlum Brown Vancouver Open Tennis Tournament open with qualifying rounds at the scenic Hollyburn Country Club in North Vancouver. While skeptics complain that the field doesn’t include the top personalities in world rankings — no Rafa or Roger, no Martina or Serena, as the OBVO schedule coincides with Canada’s only ATP World Tour event, the Rogers Cup co-hosted in TO and Montreal — but there is plenty of excellent tennis to be seen. And as a venue, Hollyburn is as good as they come.
Canadians Vasek Pospisil (Can #3, World #89), Frank Dancevic (Can #4, World #161) and Felip Peliwo (Can #7, World #434) are among the recognizable names in the men’s draw. Pospisil has taken part in Canada’s historic run to the Davis Cup semifinals, and will continue to play alongside Milos Raonic and Daniel Nestor when they take on Serbia in September. Dancevic, likewise, was a major part of the Canadian win over Spain at UBC; he has been a fixture for Tennis Canada since turning pro in 2003. Peliwo, for his part, did nothing less than become the first Canadian male to win a single’s title at Wimbledon, bringing home the 2012 junior championship.
More after the jump.
Continue reading Hollyburn boasts deep field, beautiful views for Vancouver Open
Saturday saw the 2013 edition of Five Hole for Food wrap up in Vancouver with a festival-like atmosphere. Tunes played all afternoon, free snacks and water bottles roamed the city block of Granville Street between Robson and Smithe, and hundreds of people gathered to play ball hockey. Let’s not forget the main aim of the event: participants and sponsors combined to donate over 70,000 pounds of food to the Vancouver Food Bank. In just four short years this campaign has turned into a frickin’ juggernaut of charity goodness.
Their impressive run is one of the reasons we’re proud to partner with them to introduce the inaugural Vancouver Table Hockey Extravaganza on September 20-21 at Robson Square.
Let’s put this in perspective, shall we? In 2010, Year One of FHFF collected 6,000 pounds of food in nine cities over 11 days. Pretty good for a couple of college guys looking for an interesting alternative to the traditional summer break road trip.
Well, Vancouver’s intake of well-wishing this year has beat that year’s entire tour twelvefold. In all, not even including warmup events in northern BC and as far south as New York City and Autin, TX, Year Four hit 13 cities in 17 days and collected a whopping 300,000 pounds of food. That’s over 135 metric tonnes going to regional food banks across the country.
More after the jump.
Catching a Vancouver Canadians nooner has been a summertime treat for decades. (And hey, those evening games ain’t bad, either.) The weather we’ve had for the past couple of weeks has translated into numerous sellouts at Nat Bailey Stadium, and it doesn’t hurt that the team has been pretty damned good to boot. Okay, the parent Blue Jays club hasn’t lit it up the way they’d promised to, but the Cs are playing .600 ball right now, and have won five straight series — the latest with none other than Wayne Gretzky in the building to watch his son play for the Boise Hawks.
Still need convincing? As I’m writing of this post, the Cs are in the middle of shellacking the Everett Aquasox down in WA-state. In the top of the eighth inning, it’s 11-bagel for the good guys, with LB Danzler hitting a two-run shot and a whole lot of small ball scoring nine more times. On the mound, Eric Brown has tossed seven innings of near-perfect ball, allowing just three hits while counting nine strikeouts. (Note: the final score was 13-1.)
First baseman / designated hitter Jordan Leyland currently holds the Single A Northwest Division batting lead, going.342 at the dish with a slugging percentage of .465. On the other side of the ball, Jeremy Gabryszwski and the aforementioned Brown are 1-2 in league ERA, and have gone a combined 6-1 in 67 innings pitched. (For the uninitiated, the technical term for those numbers is pretty durned good.)
For crying out loud, they’ve got fireworks after every Saturday game! Like, dude, they send bombs full of fancy coloured powder up into the air and they go boom all over your eye sockets. Get your tailbones out there, people.
Hit up www.canadiansbaseball.com for scheduling and ticket information.
After last week’s historic win over Cascadia rival Seattle Sounders FC, it was a foregone conclusion that Sunday’s afternoon match against the Chicago Fire was going to be somewhat of a letdown. Even those around the team worried about Whitecaps FC perhaps not giving the last-place Fire enough respect. “More nervous than last week,” tweeted team ambassador Carl Valentine through his @CarlTwoOne Twitter account. “The team really needs to focus and we will get the job done.”
The game on Sunday, then, lived up to expectations, with the Caps sleepwalking through much of the first half. Don’t believe me? Check the highlights below: there’s not a single play shown between kickoff and the 42nd minute. There were a couple of early chances, but they were both for Chicago. A hand ball missed by the officials allowed Fire forward Chris Rolfe a glorious chance in close, but Whitecaps keeper Brad Knighton continued his recent strong play with a goal line stand. In fact, he would throw 92 minutes and 50 seconds of clean sheet at Chicago before they broke the shutout with mere seconds left in stoppage time.
More after the jump.
Tonight’s 2-0 win over the Seattle Sounders was one of the most entertaining matches to grace BC Place in years. Two wonderful goals, spectacular netminding from Vancouver Whitecaps keeper Brad Knighton, and high energy fun from supporters of both teams.
Speaking of which, here’s just one of the many fans in blue and white this night.
Match report to follow in another post.
As early as the top ten, some people in Vancouver started champing at the bit that Hunter Shinkaruk might drop low enough for the Vancouver Canucks to take him in the 24 position.
In his last two seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League, Shinkaruk has showcased offensive abilities any team would love a piece of. Scoring 177 points in 110 games, Shinkaruk inspired this from Ross McLean of International Scouting Services:
“He is strong on the puck, has quick reactions and knows how to score goals. He typically is the player on the ice who pushes the pace of play and forces everyone else to play the game at his speed. He has great hands and is extremely tenacious around the puck. I don’t think I’ve come across a player who loves the sport as much as Shinkaruk and his passion to be on the ice, scoring goals and winning games is unbelievable.”
The knock on Shinkaruk will sound familiar to Canucks fans: he’s not the biggest player in the world. While Hunter won’t increase the team height or weight stats, he was by far the best player available in the 24 position. He’s been widely compared to Evander Kane of the Winnipeg Jets for his passion and style of play.
Look for Shinkaruk to get at least an audition with the Canucks this year, but don’t be surprised if he winds up playing a fourth year in the Dub as the big club asks him to beef up for regular NHL duty.
