Paying another visit to the variety store...



Classic night

The Star Beacon-Frank Roskovics Senior Classic volleyball match turns legal this fall.

Believe it or not, the Classic will turn 21 and its birthday will be celebrated on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at beautiful Lakeside Gymnasium.

The match will feature the top senior performers from the 11 teams in our coverage area.

The annual contest will tip off at 6:30 p.m. and will be a best-of-five affair.

The Star Beacon Ashtabula County Player and Coach of the Year awards will be presented that night.



Old friends

Let’s take our weekly look at how the five former area high school football head coaches are faring through Week 9 of the 2009 season at their current gigs:

n Brian Cross, Olentangy Orange — The former Pymatuning Valley head coach has his Pioneers on the cusp of a playoff berth in the Division II, Region 7 ratings.

Cross & Co. are 7-2 at this point, occupying the eighth and final playoff spot after whipping visiting Hilliard Bradley last Friday night, 42-0.

This week, the Pioneers will invade Delaware Hayes (6-3).

n Steve Nolan, Troy — The former Conneaut head coach and his Trojans are 5-4 on the season after belting visiting Piqua in Week 9, 26-0.

Troy stands 11th in the Division I, Region 3 computer ratings and will play at Sidney (5-4) on Friday night.

n Mike Elder, Avon — The former Perry head coach and his Eagles stand 5-4 after a thrilling 27-24 overtime victory against visiting Fairview last week.

Rated 16th in the Division II, Region 6 playoff chase, Elder & Co. will play at Bay (7-2) on Friday night.

n Jeff Whittaker, Liberty — It has not been a typical season for the former Conneaut head coach and his Leopards this fall.

They dipped to 4-5 on the season with a Week 9 loss at Howland, 18-0, and stand 15th in the Division IV, Region 13 ratings.

Whittaker’s troops have lost three straight games, but they haven’t exactly come against chopped liver. Liberty fell to 6-3 Lakeview in Week 7, 21-14, and at 8-1 Hubbard in Week 8, 19-7, before last week’s loss at 8-1 Howland.

To put a bow on it, the Leopards’ opponent in their season-finale?

Undefeated Girard (9-0).

n Art Bortnick, Benedictine — The former Madison head coach and his Bengals are 3-6 headed into their season finale at Columbus St. Francis DeSales (6-3).

Rated 15th in Division III, Region 9, the Bengals earned a nice road win in Week 9, prevailing at St. Thomas Aquinas, 28-7.



Keep ’em coming

My plea to keep the “Thankful Fors” coming my way was answered once again yesterday as I received another heart-tugging correspondence.

Loyal Readers, this is your chance... your opportunity to tell the whole wide world what/whom you are thankful for.

I’m compiling them and we’ll put together a centerpiece package that will appear around the holidays.

You can send them to me by email at donmac@suite224.net, by fax at 998-7938 or by old-fashioned snail mail at P.O. Box 2100, Ashtabula, Ohio 44005-2100.

One final request, Loyal Readers — please include your telephone number. We won’t publish it, I promise.



Brrrrrr!

An Idaho junior hockey team was banished temporarily from a city ice rink after players engaged in a game of “strip hockey” — shedding a piece of uniform every time a practice shot missed its mark.

As redress for last Wednesday’s incident, Boise forbid the Idaho Junior Steelheads team from using Idaho Ice World for four days; one 17-year-old player who shed his underwear briefly was suspended until next week. In addition, police are investigating, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Doug Holloway, Boise’s recreation superintendent, says rink employees told him the shootout drill went like this: “If they missed a shot, they had to take off a glove. If they missed another, they had to take off another glove. And so on, and so forth.”

An adult whose young daughter was on an adjacent rink saw the 17- to 20-year-old Steelheads skating in their skivvies and complained to a city hotline.

Rink employees who also noticed the scantily clad skaters urged them to cover up.

Police who were alerted on Thursday are now looking into whether Boise’s public decency laws were broken by the incident.

“The investigation is pending,” said Boise Police Department spokeswoman Lynn Hightower.

The city forbids people from showing their rumps in public, largely to curb erotic dance parlors. Exemptions include dance, ballet, music or dramatic performances, or artistic displays; nudity during hockey practice isn’t on the list.

John Oliver, the Idaho Junior Steelheads owner, wasn’t at the practice where the players held the “strip shootout.”

But an assistant told him the players were emulating a professional team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, whose members held a similar shootout last week where they discarded pieces of equipment after failing to score.

Internet videos show a Lightning right winger, Martin St. Louis, stripping to his long, dark shorts and shirt; the Junior Steelheads apparently went further, with some disrobing down to their sports briefs. At least one 17-year-old player doffed his underwear completely, to “moon” another player.

That teen was also punished by the team, Oliver said.

“His behavior didn’t live up to our player code of conduct,” said Oliver, whose squad plays in the Western States Hockey League against opponents from Arizona and California.

The Junior Steelheads’ suspension from Ice World ends Wednesday, when the team will be allowed to return.



The Associated Press contributed to this report. McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.