West Islanders return with gold

Before leaving for Fort Lauderdale Fla., to participate in last week’s 11th annual NFL Global Junior Football Championship, West Island residents Frank Bruno, Ameet Pall and Samael Lavaud said to a man they wouldn’t be intimidated if they ended up playing Team U.S.A in the final. The threesome, along with their teammates weren’t. Canada defeated the U.S., whose roster featured some of the top student-athletes from South Florida, 23-13 on Saturday to capture its fourth gold medal in eight appearances. Bruno, Pall and Lavaud each played big parts in Canada’s strong performance throughout the four-day event, which included preliminary wins over France and Japan last Wednesday. Pierrefonds resident Pall in particular, was nothing less than outstanding. The five-foot-11, 230-pound defensive end who was named the CEGEP AAA league’s defensive Most Valuable Player for the 2006 season with the Vanier Cheetahs, was named team MVP for Canada and earned a spot on the All-Tournament team.



Lions back on track

The Quebec Midget AAA Hockey League Lac St. Louis Lions returned to their early season winning ways last weekend with a pair of home victories at Dollard des Ormeaux Civic Centre. Head coach Danny Dupont’s boys defeated third-place Magog 6-3 last Friday before doing away with Collège Antoine-Girouard 7-4 on Saturday. A two-goal effort by rookie forward Louis Leblanc led the Lions on Friday while a pair of goals by Chris Reiss supplemented by solid goaltending by Michael Codina-Lucia paced the club on Saturday. The Lions entertain the Lévis Commandeers on Saturday at the Civic Centre. Game time is 7:30 p.m.



Davidson one short of

school record

In women’s university action Sunday afternoon at McConnell Arena in Montreal, Kirkland resident Vanessa Davidson picked up a pair of assists, helping the McGill Martlets defeat the Concordia Stingers 3-0. Davidson, who learned her skills in the Lakeshore Hockey Association, ranks first in the Quebec conference and seventh in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport scoring race with 14 goals and 12 assists in 12 games. In 30 games overall, she has registered 30 goals and 52 points, one shy of the school’s single-season overall points record set by Paula Mailloux in 2001-’02. The tall forward with an adept scoring touch will try to set the mark this weekend, when the Martlets travel to the nation’s capital to take on the University of Ottawa on Saturday and Carleton on Sunday.