In tournaments held this past weekend, all teams with rostered Canadians playing in the USQRA have advanced to post-season play.

Ian Chan's San Diego Bushwhackers earned top-seeds in their division, while the California Quake which features Garett Hickling will be the #2 team from the League's Pacific Division, which held their sectional tournament in sunny Chula Vista, CA.  Both teams will be in the USQRA Division I Championships, which is the strongest rugby league championships in the world.

The Hoveround Lightning, featuring our own Head Coach, Joe Soares, as well as National Team co-captain David Willsie, took the #1 seed in the Atlantic Division, while Mike Whitehead's Casco Bay Navigators will be fighting to earn a title in Division II after placing 4th in the Section, behind Hoveround, the Tampa Generals, and surprisingly, Philadelphia's Magee Rebels.  Kudos to the Rebels, who have upped their play this season with some newly developped talent.

No Canadians play in either the Heartland Division or the Mountain West Division.  Heartland had their sectionals at the same time as the other two divisions, while the Mountain People are having their sectional this upcoming weekend in San Antonio, Texas, the home city of the Division II champs from last season.

In other tournament news, the schedule and rosters for the 7-team Vancouver International Wheelchair Rugby Tournament are now posted on the CWSA web site.  There are five Canadian and two US teams registered this year.  Complete rosters for the two US teams are yet to be confirmed... [Edit: Now the American rosters are fine, although a few tweaks may be done to a couple of the maple-syrup 'n backbacon fuelled teams, eh!.]

There is a small round-robin format tournament going on this weekend in Las Vegas, which was put together by a guy who lives out of state.  The tournament attracted six teams, and is a good late-season preparatory tournament for both the USQRA and Canadian Championships which will be held within the next two months.

There are three teams from Canada, and three teams from our neighbours down south.  The pre-tournament ranking looked like this:

1 - Phoenix Heat
2 - San Diego Bushwhackers
3 - Canada Ice
4 - British Columbia Bandits (their development squad)
5 - Prairie Dawgs
6 - Corona (pretty much Plan B from San Diego)

The rosters are incomplete, but I expect to have more info on them later today:

PHEONIX HEAT:
3.5 - Brad DUBBERLEY (Team AUS - Gothenburg-02)
2.0 - Andy COHN (Team USA - Athens-04, Gothenburg-02)
1.5 - Lance SEDBROOK
1.0 - Scott HOGSETT (Team USA - Athens-04)
& 1 other player

SAN DIEGO BUSHWHACKERS:
3.0 - Ian CHAN (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
2.5 - Dean MACCABE (Team USA - Gothenburg-02)
2.0 - Sam GLOOR (Team USA - Athens-04, Gothenburg-02)
1.5 - Jeff BEVERLEY
0.5 - Paul RICHARDSON

CANADA ICE:
3.0 - Mike WHITEHEAD (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
3.0 - Fabien LAVOIE
3.0 - Steven DUNN
1.5 - Patrice SIMARD (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
1.0 - Mike BACON (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
1.0 - Gordie PUBLICOVER
0.5 - Daniel PARADIS (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)

BC BANDITS (Development):
2.5 - Adam FROST (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
2.0 - Travis MURAO
...

PRAIRIE DAWGS:
3.5 - Dale NORDING
2.0 - Allan SEMENIUK (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
2.0 - Daryl STUBEL (Team CAN - Gothenburg-02)
2.0 - Allan CHARTRAND
2.0 - Ken HICKS
0.5 - Jared FUNK

CORONA:
...

TOURNAMENT RESULTS:

FRIDAY, March 12, 2004
Game 01 - Canada Ice 38  –  Prairie Dawgs 23
Game 02 - Bushwhackers 45  –  Corona 29
Game 03 - Pheonix Heat 46  –  BC Bandits 25
Game 04 - Bushwhackers 30  –  Canada Ice 32
Game 05 - Pheonix Heat  –  Corona (PHX wins)
Game 06 - BC Bandits  –  Prairie Dawgs (Dawgs win)

SATURDAY, March 13, 2004
Game 07 - Canada Ice 38  –  Corona 29
Game 08 - Bushwhackers 50  –  BC Bandits 20
Game 09 - BC Bandits  –  Corona (Corona wins)
Game 10 - Pheonix Heat  –  Prairie Dawgs (PHX wins)
Game 11 - Bushwhackers 44  –  Prairie Dawgs 33
Game 12 - Pheonix Heat 32  –  Canada Ice 31

SUNDAY, March 14, 2004
Game 13 - Canada Ice 33  –  BC Bandits 21
Game 14 - Prairie Dawgs 50  –  Corona 42
Game 15 - Pheonix Heat 46  –  San Diego 43Bushwhackers

FINAL STANDINGS:

1st - Pheonix Heat (5-0), seeded #1
2nd - Canada Ice (4-1), seeded #3
3rd - San Diego Bushwhackers (3-2), seeded #2
4th - Prairie Dawgs (2-3), seeded 5th
5th - Corona (1-4), seeded 6th
6th - BC Bandits Development (0-5), seeded 4th

23-Jan-04 – Part 3 of Andy Barrow's journal covers GB's recent US-tour with a game-by-game analysis;

2-Mar-04 – Part 2 of Brett Boylan's journal over at the Strike Zone addresses and contrasts the pending decision by the Australian coaching team on the selection of their Paralympic team, which will be held sometime in May.  Check them out!