FIRM CHOSEN TO BUILD NEW SCHOOL
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LIVING EACH DAY LIKE IT’S YOUR LAST
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MAJOR COUP FOR CITY STAGE
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FRIDAY
NOVEMBER 23 2012 www.newwestnewsleader.com
Douglas College is the home for music this month. See Page A16
Sinterklaas dumped for good Event moving to Langley Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
Gaby Jones (front) and Mary McQueen will be attending US colleges next fall on lacrosse scholarships.
New wave of lacrosse pioneers Pair first New West girls to get U.S. scholarships
Calif. Her email inbox contained a message from the University of Oregon wondering if she’d be interested in playing there. She couldn’t contain her excitement. “Then I realized that people actually did want me,” says McQueen. “I was so happy. It was reassurance that I was able to play.” Although they’re not the first from B.C., McQueen and Gaby Jones are the first New Westminster girls to secure field lacrosse scholarships. The Oregon Ducks were
Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
Put a lacrosse stick in her hands and Mary McQueen has a nose for the net. What she didn’t have a nose for was what running around Queen’s Park Arena the last few years could do for her education. That realization came in January after the Burnaby Mountain Selects field lacrosse team she was playing on returned from the Sandstorm girls tournament in Palm Springs,
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tantalizingly attractive, with the university’s Nike-funded facilities and big school atmosphere. “It’s almost like you’re a pro athlete,” says McQueen. But in the end she opted to join the Long Island UniversityBrooklyn Blackbirds, a NCAA Division I school, which offered her more money and an opportunity to play right away. Jones, on the other hand, realized the scholarship potential long before McQueen. Like her play on the field, she was tenacious in trying to attract the
attention of American coaches as a vehicle for her to get the high-level academic education she craves. “As a defender it’s a bit harder to showcase yourself. When our team is doing well I didn’t get to showcase myself, and when the team isn’t doing well you’re under pressure,” says Jones. She eventually accepted a scholarship with the American International College Yellowjackets in Springfield, Mass., which is in Div. II. Please see LACROSSE, A3
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Sinterklaas will not be making a return trip to New Westminster. Until last year, the Dutch tradition featuring Sinterklaas and his 12 helpers called Zwarte Pietens—also known as Black Peters—had been staged the first Saturday in December by the Holland Shopping Centre in New West. It had been a local event since 1985, drawing people from all over the region. Sinterklaas would arrive by paddlewheeler and then go to the shop for celebrations the rest of the day. But last year it was called off at the last minute after a complaint from a member of the black community. Roger Jones said the Zwarte Pietens reminded him of old minstrel shows that used blackface to depict AfricanAmerican slaves. Although his original suggestion was to remove the Black Peters, Holland Shopping Centre owner Tako Slump opted to cancel last year’s event after many in the Dutch community said Sinterklaas would not be the same without the Black Peters. see ‘IT’S PART’, A3