St.Catharines "Majors"

Jan 21/99

Team Now A Reality

Finances now in place for St. Catharines entry

By BILL POTRECZ
Standard Staff

Bill LeFeuvre’s hard work has paid off with a major lacrosse franchise
for St. Catharines.
 
“It’s a go,” said LeFeuvre, who informed Ontario Major Lacrosse League 
commissioner Jim Brady earlier this week of his decision. “It was a 
lot of hard work and it still is.

"It's great to have a major team. This community deserves one because 
it’s been a hotbed of lacrosse for over 100 years.

“We had great championship teams in the ’40s and I’m glad to be part 
of bringing it back.”

The league had accepted LeFeuvre’s application for a franchise,
pending funding. Last week, LeFeuvre asked for a one-week extension 
while he secured five more sweater sponsorships at $1,000 LEFEUVRE each.

The overall team budget is expected to be at least $70,000.

“I’m still short two (sweater sponsors), but someone else, through 
a different form of sponsorship, has picked up the cost which is the 
equivalent of four or five sweaters,” LeFeuvre explained:

“We’ve met that minimum threshold.” .

While the franchise is now a certainty, there is still much work to 
be done. 

Major sponsors still need to be lined up, a coaching staff and executive 
brought in, volunteers added.

“We’ve already started doing that,” said’LeFeuvre, a long-time lacrosse 
coach and executive. “We’ve got to follow up and recruit people.” 

LeFeuvre already has a few people tentatively on board - a media 
relations manager, a front door worker for game nights, a trainer.

LeFeuvre’s next order of business is to file a list of protected players
by next Sunday and attend a league meeting in Toronto to tie up any 
loose ends.

As far as players, the still unnamed club will be permitted to protect 
any overage players from St. Catharines who played on other teams, 
as well as a handful of players from St. Catharines who played with 
Buffalo last season.

Those players - names such as Randy Mearns, Jason Luke, Doug Larocque 
and Steve Fannell - may also be protected by Buffalo. If so, they then 
would have the choice of where they wanted to play:

“Hopefully, a few will decide to play it town,” LeFeuvre said.

“We just don’t want to build a team, we want to build an excellent 
organization and compete.

“We might be more competitive in year two than in year one, but we 
really want to put a good effort forth as an organization on the floor 
and we might surprise some people.”

Major lacrosse was last played in St. Catharines in the mid-1980s.
That team was named the St. Catharines Major Athletics; a handle to 
which LeFeuvre admits to be biased.

“A senior team in St. Catharines has never been name anything but that,” 
he said.

“There is a fair amount of support to maintain that tradition, and 
I have some personal bias that way.”

One variable that could determine the team% name is a major corporate 
sponsor, who may wish to have ‘the team named after itself.

The St. Catharines entry will be the eighth team in the league which 
already has teams in Brampton, Buffalo, Six Nations,Peterborough, 
Ohsweken, Brooklin and Akwesasne.

The league plays a schedule from May to August. LeFeuvre plans to use 
Jack Gatecliff Arena (formerly Garden City) for home games.

Anyone wishing to help out the club in any capacity can contact LeFeuvre 
at 687-3529.

The St.Catharines Beat

A’s new president hopes he can put an end to political 
wars in St.Catharines Lacrosse

By JIM WAUACE
Standard Staff
Jan 5/98

Whether it be lacrosse or hockey, Pierre Kountouris (the Greek) has 
always been there for the kids. He was there when Bill LeFeuvre came 
knocking in 1995, looking for some help to run the Founders Cup, the 
Canadian junior B lacrosse championship.

He was there when his son, Philip, started playing for the Spartan 
Athletic Club. Now, he’s there for the St. Catharines Athletics junior A 
team and, he hopes, the good of lacrosse.

Kountouris, the recently elected president of the Athletics, is 
advocating a new era in lacrosse in St. Catharines, a working
relationship between the junior A and junior B teams, which have never 
enjoyed a history of co-operation,      

Having worked with both organzations, he sees no reason there can’t be a 
strong years working affiliation despite past differences

He sees himself as being instrumental in providing harmony between
the two groups, which he hopes will evolve into both teams playing out 
of Bill Burgoyne Arena, holding one training camp and “having junior B 
players come to the junior A games and the junior A players come to the 
junior B games.”

Kountouris would like to see 15 players signed to the A’s and 20 to the 
B’s, with players moving back and forth as they are needed, both for 
exposure and the chance for more to play a higher brand of the game. 
The working agreement may not be far away. 
‘The A’s and the B’s are now meeting (together), which is monumental in 
itself. We have to re-establish the relationship; I was brought up 
through the wars the last couple of years and some of the things were 
really petty “But if these kids get out and support each other, the 
executive of both clubs would be absolutely stupid if they don’t get 
along.”

Kountouris, a 32 year old restauranteur, is a relative newcomer to 
lacrosse. He doesn’t see that as a handicap. In fact, it may be a 
blessing.
“I see a lot of the politics, but I don’t pay much attention to it,” he 
said flatly. “There’s too much work to do for the game and for the kids 
to worry about, protecting the Athletics or protecting the Spartans.
“Ultimately, when all the bull is cleared out of the way, everyone loves 
the game.”
Kountouris’ love for the game grew as his involvement did with the 
Spartans. As a boy, attending Memorial School and then St. Catharines 
Collegiate, it was mainly soccer and hockey. He also rowed, both at the 
club and competitive levels. “I had never been exposed to (lacrosse) and 
had never seen a game. I got thrown into the fire (in 1995) and four 
years later I’m president of the A’s”
After the Founders Cup, in which he worked on the hospitality committee, 
he became involved as a director of the Spartans, then as a corporate 
sponsor for the junior B team, which led to the involvement with the A's.

It’s the kids, though, who matter, a lesson he learned from Joe 
Engemann, founder of the Spartans. Kountouris remembers hiking up to 
Garden City Areta one day as a kid, asking where he could play hockey.
“The guy flipped me a dime and wrote down Joe Engemann’s phone number. 
I phoned Mr. Engemann right from the arena and asked him ‘Where do I 
play hockey?’ “He asked me where I lived, and said he’d be by at 5 
o’clock Saturday to pick me up. He pulled up in a station wagon with a 
bunch of kids in it. In the back, he had a bunch of boxes. He pulled out 
my dufflebag, dumped everything onto the ground, looked at it and 
replenished my equipment. He gave me whatever I needed and took me to 
the arena and I was on a team that night.”
It’s something Kountouris has never forgotten. “Because of that . . . I 
have an obligation - a heartfelt obligation at first, but now because I 
love it.
“The sad thing, in lacrosse especially, is that people say I bleed St. 
Catharines blue and others say bleed Spartan red. “I bleed for the kids, 
and I don’t care if it’s Welland, Niagara Falls, Oshawa, it doesn’t mean 
anything to me.”













                          
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