I n s I d eHockey, B2, B3Baseball, B3Scoreboard, B4

B SportSb r e a k I n g n e w s a t w I n d s o r s t a r . c o m

The AssociATed Press

Will Power is in Detroit this week poised to make his 100th start for Team Penske.

The milestone race will oc-cur Sunday at Belle Isle, which hosts an IndyCar doublehead-er this weekend. It will actual-ly be the 145th career start for Power, who began his ca-reer in 2005 with Walker/Team Austra-lia and KV Racing Tech-nology before joining Pen-ske in 2009.

His f irst start for the team was on the streets of St. Petersburg as the temporary replacement for Helio Castro-neves. He had no guarantee of a future with Penske beyond fill-ing in for Castroneves, but he scored a win in six races with the team and was a full-time Penske driver the next year.

“The second race I did was Long Beach and I kind of thought I have a chance of stay-ing here because I qualified on pole and finished second,” Power said. “It really gave me the opportunity to show what I could do, which is really hard sometimes in motorsport.

“A lot of guys don’t get that chance because it’s a full team sport and you have to be with the team for more than a few races to give you a bit of lon-gevity for one because it’s dif-ficult to do it in one (race), and two they have to have the re-sources and sponsorship.”

Power to make 100th start with

Penske

B l a c k H a w k S d o w n d u c k S 5 - 2 i n g a m e 6 . B 2

sPorTs ediTor: MArk FAlkner 519-255-5769Thursday, May 28, 2015 • ThE WINdsOr sTar

Sam’s arrival

celebrated in gay

communityMONTREAL

on the day after the his-toric signing, a man in a

Montreal Alouettes T-shirt is walking along the cordoned off strip of Sainte-Catherine Street known as Le Village Gai.

“Are you wearing that today in celebration of Michael Sam?” I ask.

“No,” he said.

“Can you tell me why you’re wear-ing it?” I continue.

“I like the Alouettes,” he

said, looking at me funny, then walking away.

If there was any kind of feel-good celebration in The Gay Village after Sam’s signing with the Alouettes, it was anything but apparent Wednesday afternoon. There was some interest, just not a lot. There was some recogni-tion, just not a lot. Mostly there was a combination of admiration and ambivalence, depending on who you spoke to. The sporting trumpets were playing but not every-one was hearing the music.

And on the practice field at Bishop’s University in the afternoon, Sam was about to ready to make his Cana-dian Football League debut at rookie camp. At the same time, at the corner of Saint-Catherine and Amherst, in the heart of The Gay Village with pink baubles adorning the street without cars in decoration, life went on.

More people than not didn’t seem to know who Michael Sam was. When it was ex-plained, some of them knew the story. One of them was particularly excited, not from the football side but from the celebrity side: “He’s sooooo sweet,” said 53-year-old restaurant worker, Denis Ma-rois, sounding like a teenager. “Have you seen him?” Marois giggled. “He is very hot.”

The walk from the middle of The Gay Village to Percival-Molson Memorial Stadium is about 15 minutes. However, getting tickets, well, that’s more complicated.

“We want to support Michael Sam in any way pos-sible,” said Jean-Sebastien Boudreault, vice-president of Montreal Pride, and a sig-nificant voice in the Montreal gay community. Boudreault has already invited Sam to be part of the Pride celebration this summer.

Other groups and other events have already reached out to the defensive lineman who has now spent three days in Canada.

Emeryville star heads home women’s unIversIty hockey

lancers landmaine forward

JiM PArkerThe Windsor Star

Emeryville’s Shawna Lesper-ance is looking forward to com-ing home.

The 20-year-old Lesperance headed to the United States at the age of 14 to pursue an NCAA scholarship and eventu-ally landed at the University of Maine.

After parts of four seasons, Lesperance decided it was time

to come home and next sea-son she’ll suit up with the University of Windsor Lanc-ers women’s hockey team.

“She’s an elite hockey player,” said

Lancers head coach Jim Hunt-er, who unveiled is six-member recruiting class Wednesday. “She adds that scoring touch and brings the power play to a new dimension.”

Lesperance has known Hunt-er since she was 10-years-old and played with his daughter

for the Windsor Wildcats. She left to play at Culver Academy in Indiana and earned a schol-arship, but a coaching change at the University of Maine changed her role.

“I wasn’t really liking it much,” the five-foot-five Les-perance said. “I just decided I needed to make a change, but I had to do the experience. It’s what every little girl dreams of, but it’s not for me.”

She planned to return home for school, but wasn’t sure about playing hockey.

“At first I was hesitant be-cause I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep playing hockey,” Lesper-ance said. “Coming back and

playing here sounds kind of exciting.

“I forgot how to have fun and this is my chance to do that. That’s what I’m most excited for is to just relax and have fun.”

Hunter has added a second scholarship transfer from the United States with London na-tive Sydney Dobbin set to join the Lancers after two seasons at Adrian College.

“She’s actually pretty physi-cal,” Hunter said. “A little like (graduating defenceman Adalena) Tridico where you’re watching and all of a sudden someone’s laying on the ground next to you.

“We’re hoping she can be a

top three defenceman and may-be add a little calm on the back end and on the power play.”

Hunter was a teammate of Dobbin’s father Brian Dobbin, who played in the NHL, and the two were teammates and room-mates during their junior days in Kingston.

“No, it doesn’t really matter,” the five-foot-eight Dobbin said of her dad’s relationship with Hunter having an influence. “I was just looking for a change and Windsor seems like the best fit. I played with and against a lot of the girls that are on Wind-sor now.”

Will Power

shawna lesperance

sTeve siMMonsToronto sun royalS take SwoSSaa title

TYLER BROWNBRIDGE/The Windsor StarLajeunesse’s Micheala difranco, right, tries to steal the ball from North Lambton’s Nicole rogers during the sWOssaa

soccer final at Mchugh Park Wednesday. The royals won 3-2 on penalty kicks and will host OFsaa next week.

Southland juniors receive new support

kelly sTeeleThe Windsor Star

Local golf professionals have joined forces to make this year’s Southland Insurance junior golf tour better than ever.

For the past five years, the Southland junior tour has at-tracted junior golfers to its 9-

and 18-hole tour.But, Nancy McCann, head

pro at Seven Lakes and hus-band and tour director Don Harrison, felt it needed a change.

“We decided to bring all the pros together to grow the game of golf,” McCann said. “By connecting the golf pros together to run the tour is giv-ing it a lot more validity.”

Ambassador Golf Club head pro Adam Wagner thinks it’s a great way to engage more ju-nior golfers into the sport.

“Let’s face it, the juniors are our future,” Wagner said.

“This is going to allow us

to build the tour from a club level.

“These pros are teaching these juniors and are in touch with them all summer so get-ting them involved in this tour is the best thing we can do to grow the game.”

Locally, golf has taken a bit of a hit over the past couple of

years because of the economy. Wagner said the tour should give the individual clubs a chance to showcase their course.

“Last year, Ambassador was the first stop on the tour and to see some of these kids play their first 18-hole round of golf was pretty neat,” Wagner said. “It’s also great for us that the parents come and they get to check out the course.”

McCann is hopeful involv-ing the local golf pros will give the tour the needed expo-sure and engage more golfers.

Local pros join forces with golf tour“Let’s face it,

the juniors are our future.”

adam wagner

see lAncers, B3

see GOLF, B3see siMMons, B5 see POWEr, B2

detroIt belle Isle

grand prIx

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