B8 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 30, 1994

TERRACE STANDARD

SECTION C

INSIDE. Pa
MALCOLM BAXTER 638- 7283

SPORTS MENU Bo

VERY SPRING I take a trip to the
Kitimat River; every year I’m left
wondering why I do. This year I set
out again accompanied by Ed Chap-
plow and Doug Webb.

There was a Oy Gsherman working the water
above the Orange Bridge, which was encouraging
Since, in years past, it has been the sole domain of
spin fishers. At the big rock — the first place
where the river meets the road, and where there
are always fishermen — a pair of plunkers were
soaking some salmon eggs. As we drove on in the
direction of Kitimat, we saw vehicles parked at
every access point, a symptom of hatchery illness.

Washington and Oregon have over three
decades of cxperience with hatcheries. Pete
Soverel, award winning conservationist and
chairman of the Federation of Flyfishers’ Steel-
head Committee told me about it. First, said Pete,
the hatchery fish returned to the rivers where they
mingled with Ihe wild stocks. The regulars were
the first anglers 1o take advantage of the
abundance, enjoying some pretty spectacular fish-
ing in the process.

Word traveled quickly. By the next season the
tiver banks were crawling with anglers, most of
whom were ecstatic technological intervention
had fixed the problem of declining stocks.

The expectations of anglers increased apace
wilh the pressure and the number of fish. After a
few cycles the fishing fell off. The hatchery man-
agers found that more and more juvenile fish had
to be released to ensure decent returns of adults,
Siowly the dark side of hatchery technology
emerged.

Technofixes breed dependency. The farming in-
dustry, which has embraced-man made wonders
like chemical fertilizers and pesticides — with
terrible consequences for. the health of farmers
and consumers alike — is an example of the same
dynamic: Sportsmen, the tackle business and the
bureaucracy spawned by. proliferation of
haicheries, were now dependent upon large scale,
hard enhancement, as were the native peoples and
market fishermen who had also zeroed in on the
newfound, artificially created abundance.

The bubbis. has burst, as a few visionaries,
suspicious of any plan that involved mucking
about with natural processes, suspected it would.
The returns of salmon to the rivers of Washington
and Oregon are at all time lows. The stocks ap-
pear to be collapsing despite increased plantings
of hatchery fish.

Sadly, there is every reason to suspect the
Kitimat River will experience the same fate as
have the hatchery-infected rivers in the U.S.

We parked at the former site of the Crown Zei-
letbach Bridge, where logging trucks carrying the
giant fluvial spruce that once filled the valley bot-
tom crossed the river on their way to the. mill.
Save for a small stand opposite Radley Park in
Kilimat, those giants are gone, and with them the
integrity of the river, which now jumps from
channel to channel in every high water with a

mon. Ironically this instability was one of the
major reasons for the decline of salmon stocks
and one reason cited for the constriction of a
hatchery.

While Doug and Ed readied to slug through the
snow-bound trail to the river, and I prepared to
walk Nalabila Creek, two anglers pulled up. "I
guess the race to the river is on,” sald one. "My
racing days are over," I replied.

When I reached the mouth of the creek a bait
fisherman was there. | watched from a distance. as
he winched out one trout after another with a
giant pole more suited to spring salmon: another
example of the down side of hatcheries.

Because they are reared in artificial, less
demanding environs, hatchery fish don’t have to
endure the natural selective processes wild fish
do, therefore there is no guarantee that hatchery
reared fish will be the fit survivors wild fish are.
Since they are less valuable than the wild fish,
killing them is encouraged by fish managers.

Unfortunately, bait is foolishly permilled on
many hatchery rivers to the detriment of trout.
Coastal cuithroat trout have half the eggs of sal-
mon. They find roe imesistible. The use of roe on
the Kitimat will ultimaicly wreak havoc on what
remains of what.musl have been the Finest sea
trout river on the coast. To address this problem
the hatchery in Kitimat has already begun fooling
around with arlificially enhancing cutthroat, thus
crealing a new sel of problems. ....

There is no question the Kitimat fishery has suf-
fered greatly asa result of greedy and careless
logging and the poisoning of its estuary by indus-
try. Still, if you want to manage fish, the best way
to do it is by managing people. I’d much prefer to
sec siringent regulations, including the banning of
balt, and the closure of the - hatchery rather than
the present management regime. When it comes
to restoring runs; I’m more inclined to let the
forces of nature have a go at solving {t, than leave
itlo people, ~~

In the meantime, I'll break with tradition and
leave the Kitimat alone in springtinic.

devastating effect of the rearing habitat for sal-

POINT POWER. When Terrace's Randy Prinz wound up for a
blast from the point, opposing goalies at the ‘AA’ PeeWee
provincial championships had reason to take notice. His bullets

gave Port Alberni a couple of third period scares as Terrace tried

to put the game away. They ultimately fell to the islanders 4-3,
their only loss of the round-robin, to be eliminated,

PeeWees come close

SIXTY SECONDS, That proved
to the difference behveen a berth
in the ‘AA’ provincial semi-finals

‘and a seat in the stands for the

Terrace PeeWees.
With two and a half minutes
temaining in their final tound-

changed almost as soon as the
puck was dropped in the second.
The Terrace bench erupted as
Wade Stevenson took the feed
from Travis Lamming and made
no mistake.
With Lamming and Chris

robin. game,:a must-win affair: -L’Heureux both getting solid, -

against Port Alberni, - Terrace
were one-up,

Sixty seconds later they were
trailing by one.

‘Atid, despite a furious last gasp
effort, the task proved as im-
possible at it looked.

The result was all the more
frustrating for Terrace having
been in control for much of the

. Final period.

‘They hadn’t shown that
authority early in the game, how-
ever.

. Although the hometowners had
a couple of good chances in the
first 20 minutes, Port Alberni had
always - looked the more
dangerous.

But for several huge saves by

_ goalie-Derek Hadley in the mid-

die of the frame and another by
the cross-bar, Terrace could have
gone into the Brst interval down
three or four instead of being

“locked in a scoreless tie.

However, the momentum

chances in the next five minutes,
the prospecis for widening the
gap looked good,

Snatching up a giveaway, Port
Alberni captain Scott Manson
went in alone and won the duel to
give his team their first lead of
the game,

As in the previous frame, Ter-
trace. were quick off the mark in
’ What: they, knew: could be. their
final period of the tourney.

Lamming gathered the puck at
the redline, shook off the defence

Terrace were now in contro! but the
puck stubbornly refused to go in.

However, Port Albemi took ad-
vanlage of one of only three
penalties Terrace would collect in
the game to tie it at 6:27.

The Terrace bench was back on
its fect again three minutes later
when it appeared L’Heureux had
put them ahead again on an in-
and-out just inside the ieft comer.

However, there was no red light
and the score remained at one

apiece.

It stayed that way thanks lo a
Spectacular reach-back save by
the islanders netminder Brandon
Wells until the dying seconds of
the second.

ee

TYREL ARMSTRONG uses tha boards | to beat Port Alberni

defender McMillan as Terrace mount another second period.

rush. Although kept off the board In this game, he had picked up
two goals and ¢ an assist in Terrace's earlier 8-7 win over Seafalr.

and poked one goalwards.

Wells gave up the rebound and
Thomas Ames pounced to blast it
over the prostrate goalie: 2-2.

Thirty seconds lalcr Wells only
just managed to contain a blast
from the point by Blake Wiebe,

Terrace were now in control but
ihe puck stubbornly refused to go
in

In the next five minutes Lam-
ming couldn’t pul away a
rebound off Randy Prinz’s rocket
from the point, Wells smothered
Stevenson’s attempt to jam it in
the side, Matt Thomsen careened
one off the crossbar and another

blast from Prinz was shouldered
over the glass.
The persistence finally paid off

with eight minutes left After.

Brandon Smoley had done the in-
itial work, Stevenson passed out
from behind the net to L’ Heureux
‘who fired, collected the rebound

and’ fired again ‘to put Terrace “

ahead.

A little over a minute later
Lamming was hauled down on a’
breakaway and a Port Alberni
player’s over enthusiastic protest
of the call handed the hosts. a
two-man advantage.

However, Terrace never really -

got organized and Port Alberni
killed the double-penally with rel-.
ative ease. It proved the tuming
point, the islanders mounting.
their first serious threats since

.mid-period.
Hadley came through again on.

the first chance, but he had little

chance on the next as Kurt Nelser

squared it with 2:30 left.

A minule later Ryan Paul ct
one go from well out on a two-
on-one to beat Hadley on the
glove side for what proved the 4-
3 winner,

(See page B9 for game by

game stats for Terrace)

Rossland-Trail

storm to

WITH TERRACE eliminated, it
was up to Kitimat io keep this
year’s ‘AA’ PeeWee provincial
litle in the northwest.

But Rossland-Trail had other
ideas, and the talent to enforce
them.

Led by captain Dallas Stanton
and Daren Smith, the
southerners cut loose midway
through the second and never
looked back.

Stanton had given Rossland-
Trail the lead four minutes into
the game, one that held up until
the final minute when Whelan
tied it, Coleman and Daniels
picking up the assists.

Kitimat's hopes rose sharply
just 30 scconds into the second
when Coleman connected from
Whelan and captain Markwart,

However, they were living on
borrowed time.

After Jason Handley evened it,
Rossland-Trail delivered. the
hammer blow with two markers
eleven seconds apart.

‘Jason Proulx restored the R-T
lead then Steve McCarthy struck
for what would prove to be the
winner at 8:34, Smith collecting
another assisl.

Two minutes later Stanton
scored his second, the 3-2 lead

"94 title

holding up to the interval.
After McCarthy stretched the

gap still further less than two |

minutcs into the final frame,
Kitimat managed to halt the jug-
gernaut for the next 10 minutes. .
However, Stanton would not be
denied his hattrick, the goal com-
ing at 11:27 on assists’ from
Jeremy Robinson and Smith.
Silva added Kitimat’s final goal

with just over three minutes left .

before Smith and Stanton

rounded out the 9-3 rout.

While Stanton’s four goals led

that department, Smith had. the
edge in points with a goal and
four assists,

Jeremy Robinson waited until
the third to get on the board but
then tallied three assists.

In total, 10 Rossland-Trailers
put thelr names on the score
sheet,

For. Kitimat, Whelan and

Coleman proved most effective at .

penetrating the R-T defence,
picking up five points between
them. -

In semi-Gnal action, Rossland-

Trail had edged Dawson Creek 5--

3 while Kitimat outgunned Port
Alberni 7-4. In the game to dy-

cide fifth and sixth, 100 Mile
House squeezed out Terrace 7-6,

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