Valley Sports digest for February 20, 2008

AREA

Prep hockey team goes 1-1-1

EUCLID — The Cardinal Mooney/Ursuline hockey club finished with a win, a loss and a tie in the VASJ President’s Day Tournament.

After defeating Massilon Jackson  4-3, M/U lost to Lakewood 7-1 and tied with Medina, 6-6.

Brian Styers and Jim Lacko each collected two goals and three assists to pace M/U while Alex Figuly had two goals and an assist.

Eric D’avignon tacked on a goal and an assist while Bronson Lamoncha, Dean Macklen, Phil Monrean and Dev Olgun also scored.

Schedules needed

The Vindicator requests varsity spring sports schedules from high school athletic directors. They can be emailed to sports@vindy.com, faxed to (330) 747-6712, or mailed to Sports Editor, The Vindicator, P.O. Box 780, Youngstown 44501-0780.

Penguins announce
game time

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Penguins’ home game against Atlanta on March 2 will start at 3 p.m.

The Penguins had not previously announced a starting time because the game was under consideration for an NBC telecast. The game will be televised locally.

Kenney honored

BOARDMAN — Forward Nick Kenney of the Mahoning Valley Phantoms was given an honorable mention for Player of the Week in the North Division of the North American Hockey League.

Kenney, 19, collected two goals and an assist while helping lead the Phantoms to a 1-1 record against the Traverse City North Stars.

The Wixom, Mich. native is now fourth among rookies in team scoring with five goals and 11 assists, including a goal in each of the past three games.

Meeting tonight

POLAND — Tonight the Tri-T baseball organization will meet at the Poland Community Building at 7 p.m.

For details, call (330) 755-6949.

Steelers re-sign
Travis Kirschke

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers signed defensive end Travis Kirschke to a two-year contract Tuesday.

Kirschke was a backup until he started four games at the end of last season after Aaron Smith went out with a torn biceps muscle.

Kirschke has played in 141 games, including 64 with the Steelers.

He played six seasons in Detroit and one in San Francisco before signing with the Steelers as an unrestricted free agent before the 2004 season.

NATION

Hopkins plans to
punish Welshman

NEW YORK — Bernard Hopkins isn’t going to apologize to anybody.

Not to all those fighters from the U.K. who he claims are inferior to their counterparts from the United States. And certainly not for making that racially tinged comment toward Joe Calzaghe when the two famously stepped toe-to-toe last December in Las Vegas.

“It’s his job to prove I was wrong,” Hopkins said, “and I’m going to prove I was right.”

The cagey American takes on the unbeaten Welshman in a much-anticipated light-heavyweight bout April 19 in Las Vegas, the site of their first explosive confrontation. That was when Hopkins and Calzaghe traded barbs in the press room and again on the weigh-in stage for Floyd Mayweather’s fight against Britain’s Ricky Hatton.

Hopkins provided the last word, saying “I will never let a white boy beat me. Never.”

During a press conference at Planet Hollywood on Tuesday, the longtime middleweight champion cut off a reporter who was about to ask Hopkins to elaborate on the remark.

Champion golfer sues
after being shut out

BOSTON — Elaine Joyce has long commanded respect for her skills on the golf course, with more than 20 club championships, a single-digit handicap and a ranking among the top female golfers in Massachusetts. Still, she was banned from playing in a tournament at a public Cape Cod course because she’s a woman. So, after months of complaining, she has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force the Dennis Pines Golf Course to change its policy, saying excluding women is as illegal as having whites-only drinking fountains.

“If someone says you can’t play because you’re black, that’s a problem, but if you throw in the word ’woman,’ it really seems to be still acceptable to exclude you, and it shouldn’t be like that,” Joyce said. For Joyce, 43, her exclusion at Dennis Pines is especially personal: it was here that her father taught her how to play golf when she was 8 years old. She went on to play in college and in the 1990s won numerous female tournaments at clubs in Yarmouth and Dennis.

WORLD

Boycott urged

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Dutch lawmaker wants an international boycott of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to protest China’s human rights record.

Joel Voordewind, a member of the Christian Union party, would like governments around the world to support the boycott and lean on sponsors to use their financial clout with Beijing.

Vindicator staff/wire reports