Kariya calls it a career
Eleven games shy of 1,000 in his NHL career, Paul Kariya, who played for the Penticton Panthers from 1990 to ’92, announced his retirement from the NHL on Wednesday. The North Vancouver native scored 402 goals and 989 points in 989 games with Anaheim, Colorado, Nashville and St.Louis.
Al Formo, a colour commentator for the Penticton Vees, watched Kariya play during his days as a Panther and described him as a player with tremendous speed and finesse.
“A guy that sometimes even looked a little bit lazy but it wasn’t that he was lazy, he was just so much quicker and so much faster than everybody else,” said Formo. “He was so far above anybody else on the ice. He was just a tremendous talent. A guy that probably should have been at least a league above. His biggest problem was that the rest of the teams keyed him physically. He took a lot of punishment and didn’t have the toughness of other guys. He took a lot of punishment.”
With the Panthers, Kariya scored 91 goals and 244 points. In college, Kariya starred for the Maine Black Bears and captured the Hobey Baker award as the top player in U.S. college hockey in 1993.
Triathletes shine in Coeur d’Alene
Among the 2,500 athletes competing in the 2011 Ironman Coeur d’Alene, three were local. Penticton’s Tom Evans finished third completing the event in 8:49.54, while Olly Piggin, also of Penticton clocked in at 9:22.24 for ninth-place, while Kaleden’s Scott Tremblay was 10th at 9:23.26.
Okanagan Super Springs
The Okanagan Super Sprints Dragon Boat Races has 18 teams registered to race on July 2.The 250 metre race starts at 8:30 am and running until 2:30 p.m. For more information about how you can get involved, call the Penticton Paddling Center at 1-866 658-6333, or go to www.pentictondragonboat.com. To learn more about Pompe disease, visitwww.pompe.com or www.muscle.ca
