The NAIT women’s basketball team is giving away $2000 worth of tuition!

The Ooks Women’s Basketball Prize Book is available soon, the star attraction of which is the bonus packs, which will be drawn randomly at two of the four remaining home games.  The first is a semester’s tuition up to $2000 – paid for.  A Nest package, which includes two Oilers tickets, a Nest dinner-for-two and Ooks/Oilers apparel, is the other big-ticket item.

Nest coupons, campus discounts, more apparel, and gift cards are some of the other great prizes that are available to win.

I want to have the student body a little more involved in our athletics program,” says Head Coach Curtis Nelson.  “From a player’s perspective it’s great to play in front of a full gym, but I also think we’ve got a great product for student’s to get involved with.”

The price?  Cheap.  Nine bucks cheap (with your student ID of course).  For your parents/partner it’s $12.

Along with missing out on the game-night coupons, if you don’t go to the game you won’t be able to claim the big prize should they draw it.

As mentioned, the theme nights will continue.  Last month, the team kicked off their year with “Philipines Community Night,” a great promotional event that raised nearly $2500 for those affected by the typhoon that devastated the Philipines this fall.  The next week the ladies brought in professional boxers to take on fans in a Wii version of fisticuffs, with one lucky patron walking away with a PS2.

Future themes include Breast Cancer and DJ Hero night.

Samantha Lloyd, who helps MC the events, feels “It’s a great way to get more people out to the games.  We can get the entire NAIT population pumped up.”

The team already draws quite well, but Coach Nelson wants to sell it out, making NAIT the Canadian version of Duke’s Cameron Crazies. “Let’s see if we can pack the gym and make it a place that nobody wants to come in and play at,” he says.

The first chance to attend, with prize book in hand, will be January 8 when the Ooks host Concordia College.

For more information visit NAIT Athletics website at www.http://www.nait.ca/athletics/

With the current recession slowing the pace of the economy, the Federal government is offering you money back to improve your home.  The home renovation tax credit is your chance to refinish and renew, and that can payoff in the future. Real estate agencies predict significant returns on these investments if you’re ever interested in selling.

• %100 – %110 return on bathroom and kitchen renovations
• %100 returns on paint
• %70 return on flooring and other renovations

But the question is, who will do the work? If you don’t like to get your hands dirty, contractors can come in handy, but make sure you know what you’re paying for.  John Gonkwicz says, “You can check his credentials, make sure he’s licensed. Better Business Bureau is something that you could check on to make sure everything is in order and his papers, and that he’s basically reputable, that he’s going to do the job you want done.” 

Contractors have many advantages, including knowledge of building codes, the speed of experience and the price of bulk material purchases.  But there are resources available to the do-it-yourself handyman that give you the materials, the knowledge and the equipment that you might need. 

Doing the work yourself can be rewarding.  You can gain valuable experience in painting, plumbing and other useful trades, plus the job will always be done exactly the way you want.  Retail outlets like Rona and the Home Depot offer workshops that can help you on your way to a new bathroom, kitchen or bedroom. Don’t think about it for too long though, because the home renovation tax credit expires on February 1st, 2010.

“I surprised myself a lot tonight, and I’ll probably be spending my money on beer and groceries.”

 That’s what Cillian Cross, a first year Pre-Tech student said after winning the grand prize of $500 for being NAIT’s most talented student, well, at least until next year’s talent show. Cross showed off his talent on the drums, taking a unique approach by turning is back to the audience which he says gives the audience a chance to “see what I’m doing with both my hands and my feet. It adds to my performance.”

Cross’ performance was definitely entertaining, and made his mother proud, who was there in the audience to cheer him on. “I used to gather my girlfriends and get them to cheer Cillian on so loud when he was in a band, we would get all the young girls to scream too.”

Cross says that he has been playing the drums for six years, but “it’s only the second time I’ve played in three months, but I usually try to play everyday.”

This year’s talent show featured three judges on the judging panel: NAITSA’s very own Jill Peterson, Stephanie Bosch, an up-and-coming musician who’s graced the stages of Edmonton’s Folk Festival and Carlo Atienza, one fifth of the dance group White Chocolate. The judges looked for four things in a performance: the level of talent of the student, the quality of his/her performance, level of preparedness and of course, the entertainment factor.

NAIT’s Got Talent showcased a wide range of talents from singers to comedians to Japanese flutists. Some were fabulous while others, well, could use a little work. Some of the highlights included Curtis Wolfe, a young amateur comedian who shows promising talent. I always cringe when I see a new comedian on stage due to the high risk of being incredibly unfunny. However, Wolfe refused to be put under “sucky “ category and instead work the audience in his favor.

In general the show lacked in energy, the sound was a little quiet and the venue wasn’t as packed as last year’s talent show. It was also really hard to hear the judges’ feedback, which is always the best part of any talent show. However, the show was extremely entertaining, and any student who has the confidence to go up on stage and show off their many talents, which would get a gold star in my book any day. As for this year’s winner Cillian Cross, who is now $500 richer, he says “if I can do it, anybody can do it.”

The Ooks Men’s hockey team had the opportunity to take fourth spot in the standings going into the Christmas break. They had to get two straight wins over the Augustana Vikings in the final two games of the semester.  It started off great in Camrose last Wednesday where the Ooks controlled the whole game.  The power play was the difference as NAIT went four for six and Augustana did not capitalize on the man advantage. 

Saturday night was a different story as the Vikings strolled into the NAIT arena and crushed the Ooks 7-4.  Stephen Cavanagh and Torrie Dyck of the Vikings potted two goals a piece leading the way for the Vikings.  Topilko matched their efforts but there was not enough secondary scoring to bypass the potent offense of Augustana.

Graeme Harrington could not duplicate his 40 save effort from the previous Wednesday letting in five goals on 23 shots. He was pulled and relieved by Anthony Heuer who faced six shots and let one goal get by him.  The Ooks sat one point up on Augustana after Wednesdays game but were over taken on Saturday.

Augustana has 17 points putting them in fourth while the Ooks have 16 points sitting them in fifth.  The Ooks will have some time to rest over the next few weeks and Coach Ballard can reassess his situation. Every year at the break some players decide to leave the team and some players join.  Ballard will need to find some consistency with his lineup and be able to get on a streak to push for a comfortable playoff position.  For updates on standings and scoring leaders visit www.acac.ab.ca

Christmas is upon us once again which means there’s lots of shopping being done. This season more valuables are being left in vehicles, making them more readily available to thieves.  The Edmonton Police Service officers are reminding shoppers to remove all valuables from their vehicles this holiday season, before the thieves do it for them.

Kurt Rackel, a local resident has been a three-time victim of car break and entering in our city.

 Rackel said, “ The first time was on Whyte Ave. It was a soft top Tracker. They just ripped the top right off and got in there.”

  This type of incident is occurring in our city at a disturbing rate during this time of the year. The EPS at the Summerlea Station in West Edmonton Mall are trying to curb this growing problem.

 Supt. Joe Marshall said,  ”If you leave items in your vehicle in plain view, there is enough people around this town that somebody is going to steal it.”

Nearly 9000 vehicles have been broken into so far this year in Edmonton, and just over 4600 have been stolen.  These numbers are expected to increase during the month of December, and EPS are hoping that drivers are remembering the few simple steps to try and avoid car thefts.

 *Drivers are reminded to make sure they lock their doors at all times

* Keep all valuables out of plain view

*Take spare sets of keys out of your vehicle

*Put up the All Valuables Removed sign

 Supt. Joe Marshall said, “I’m telling people to put it out of sight, put up these signs if you can, they’re readily available. But don’t be a victim, be responsible for your car and be responsible for the things in your car.”

 The EPS project is hoping to make a difference so that others don’t have to deal with break and enters like Kurt did.

 Kurt said, “You honestly feel really violated because you don’t know who’s been in there or what they’ve been doing. It honestly didn’t even feel like my car anymore. It felt like somebody else’s car.”

For more information on EPS’S new project visit:

http://www.edmontonpolice.ca/

The Alberta Reasearch Council, ARC, was part of a pilot project that turned in great and exciting results. The pilot project, ran in Whitecourt, was a test to see how pulp mills across the province and Canada would be able to salvage pine beetle-infested or beetle-killed wood for newsprint. There are two main problems with the dead trees making them unusable for newsprint:

1. Trees sap to the affected areas much like the human body sends blood to clot a cut.  When getting continually attacked by the beetle the tree soon becomes dried out and the wood becomes too brittle to run through pulp mills.
2. The trees start to turn a blue colour which is too dark for newsprint paper.

The ARC has made some changes to the production. They’ve added sensors on the belt and changed the consistency of the infected wood by adding different chemicals to it. These chemicals made the wood stronger and not nearly as dark.  Making it possible to use, otherwise, worthless wood. This is a huge accomplishment as many pulp mills were looking at laying off workers or worse closing their doors.

Gary Smith of the Alberta Newspaper Council explained it will increase production significantly. “Right now we’re running between nine and 15 per cent blue stained wood in the plant. We expect it to go up to about 35 percent blue stain content.”

This wasn’t the only good news for the province in its battle against the infestation. Minister Morton made an announcement earlier this week. “The federal government will be giving 10 million dollars to Alberta to assist in the fight against the mountain pine beetle infestation.” The 10 million dollars will be added to the already 25 million the province has allocated.

The Women’s National Hockey Team has travelled all over Alberta facing off against Midget AAA hockey teams in hopes of gaining an edge for the Olympic Games in February.  From Grande Prairie to Lethbridge the women have fared very well boasting a 9-5 record against the young men.  Just recently they dropped two straight to the likes of Red Deer, and the Calgary Buffaloes. 

On Saturday December fifth they will be in Calgary and will take on the Calgary Canucks of the Alberta Junior A Hockey League.  This will be a real test as Junior A is a much higher level of hockey than Midget AAA. The game will also serve as the Canucks annual charity event in support of the Salvation Army. 

Following the Canucks game the women have six more games in December against Calgary and other southern teams.  In the new year the Canada’s pride will make their way to the Edmonton area playing some local teams. This will continue until the beginning of February, wherein after games have yet to be announced. 

The women find it very beneficial to battle against the young men as they are fast, skilled and strong.  The boys see it as a nice way to fill the rink and bring out some fans that are not regulars at their games.  It also gives the players a chance to interact with each other and the boy’s teams can meet the ladies who they will be watching come February. 

 With the Olympic Cauldron being lit on February 12th the women will play into the first week of the month have a small break for a breather then dive into the final stages in their quest for gold.  Both the Men’s and Women‘s National Teams will be working to repeat their dominant performances of Salt Lake City 2002 and avoid the disappointment of Torino 2006.  Hockey Canada has developed the women’s training schedule in such a way that they feel will enable the team to be at the peak of their performance when the Olympics begin. I am sure all Canadians feel that a gold medal is not only attainable but expected.

The Ooks mens hockey team’s winning steak of six smacked into a giant wooden horse. A home and home series against the SAIT Trojans from Calgary began on Friday at NAIT, where SAIT ran away with an 8-2 victory. The six goal margin certainly didn’t tell the entire story.

“Jeff Topilko beat the goaltender cleanly and hit three goal posts in the first period alone,” said head coach Terry Ballard, “if those go in, it’s an early 3-1 or 4-1 lead for us.”

After winning gold two straight seasons, SAIT once again has a skilled team this year. They’re 10-2-1 and 1st place in the ACAC with a +40 goal differential, outscoring opponents 77-37.

In the second game the Ooks stormed out of the gate once again, however on this night in Calgary, they continued their strong play throughout the game and held a 2-1 advantage into the third period. But the Trojans managed to come from behind and slice the Ooks 3-2.

“They understand that they can beat the top teams and have the confidence from the weekend that we can beat SAIT. If you’re going to win the league you’re going to have to go through SAIT at some point.”

After a two game set with another middle of the pack team, Augustana, the hockey club will take a five week break and begin the second half of their season in January. The Ook players must be passing their classes to be on the team in the New Year.

Despite a mediocre 7-7-0 record going into Wednesday’s game, the Ooks tires are still spinning in on track. They’ve won six of their last eight largely due to a few players stepping up. Chevan Wilson leads the league in assists and is tied for 1st in points with 26 in only 14 games.

Goaltender Graeme Harrington looked sharp between the pipes against Concordia, a team that was 8-1-1 prior to crashing into NAIT, stopping 77 of 79 shots. He had an off night against SAIT but the bounced back and played a very winnable game in their 3-2 loss. Veteran Jiri Prochazka is once again racking up some points, as well has Topilko, who is tied for the league lead in goals with 12 in 13 games.
Could SAIT make it a three-peat? Or can the Ooks utilize their skill and experience to become a top team and contend for the title…

One U of A student is making public transportation in Edmonton simpler with just the touch of a screen. His name is Andrew Vilcsak, and he is one of the rare iPhone application developers in our Capital city. He is part of a team called Grayscale Apps, which consists of three developers who create applications for Apple products. Their most successful app so far? MyStops.

It’s designed to make finding bus schedules easier and faster. The process is simple, first download the application for just 99 cents at the online apple store; next: search for your stop. This can be done either by entering your GPS location, the bus number, or by searching intersections. Within seconds, the route will be pulled up on your iPhone or iPod touch with an estimated time of how far away it is from each stop. An option to save your most popular routes is available to make using Mystops even simpler in the future.

“You basically set up your most frequented routes, and then they are saved in your phone,” Vilcsak states, “Then it basically give you access to those routes within seconds. You pop open your phones and routes are right there.”

The popularity of the application allowed Greyscale Apps to expand Mystops outside of Edmonton. Vilcsak lets me know about what other cities the application can be used in. “In the last couple weeks we launched 25 cities across North America. So we’ve got San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, so we’ve got some pretty big cities in there.”

The success of the public transportation app has not stopped Vilcsak. He has created other applications outside of Mystops, his most recent including an application to listen to HOT 107 live from your iPhone or iPod. To check out his other applications, search Andrew Vilcsak at the online Apple store. Or to find out more information about MyStops, visit Mystopsapp.com.