Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Vipers Holding Reunion:

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

Snakes holding reunion

Ryan Bayda of the Carolina Hurricanes is coming from Saskatoon. Lanny Gare has already flown in from Germany. Petr Chytka is arriving from Arizona.
You may recognize the names. They were all-stars with the 1999 Royal Bank Cup champion Vernon Vipers, who are holding a 10-year reunion this weekend.
“We’re all going golfing at Spallumcheen on Saturday and we want to invite the public to Boston Pizza on Saturday night,” said Lennie Rampone, captain of that national-title winning team.
“We should be there after our golf outing around 8:30 or nine, and would love for old fans and billets to stop by and say hi.”
Rampone not only pocketed a Royal Bank Cup ring, but met his future wife – Katie Maxnuk – in Vernon. The couple have a one-year-old son, Jonah, and they recently moved from Calgary to Kelowna, where Lennie works for a mortgage architect company.
“There is so much tradition in Vernon’s Junior A hockey history and hopefully, we can make this an annual event for all the alumni,” said Rampone.
The Vipers pretty much sleep-walked to the B.C. Hockey League pennant in the 1998-99 season, winning 50 regulation games and taking two of four shootouts before beating the Chilliwack Chiefs in a five-game Fred Page Cup series.
Vernon, led by the dynamic line of Gare, Bayda and Tyler Knight, then took out Dany Heatley and the Calgary Canucks in a five-game Doyle Cup series.
In the RBC, in Yorkton, Sask., the Vipers went 1-3 in the round-robin before bouncing the Bramalea Blues of Ontario 3-2 in the semis and crushing the Charlottetown Abbies 9-3 in the final.
The Vipers’ John Bradley, of Kamloops, was named Top Defenceman.

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