MARCH 5 - CFB Valcartier tightened its grip on the title of top military men's broomball team earning a third consecutive CF National Championship for the Quebec region by defeating CFB Edmonton 3-1.

CFB Edmonton official, Greg Christensen, gets ready to drop the ball on a face off between players from the Quebec and Ontario regions at the 2002 CF National Men's Broomball Championship game held at CFB Borden. Working with Kevin Mehrmann, of CFB Kingston, the two hockey officials referred the final game between CFB Valcartier and CFB Edmonton.

"It feels really good to win this tournament," said Pat Dauost, team captain of the CFB Valcartier Men's Broomball. "It's been a big week for us and a lot of work." CFB Valcartier was held scoreless in the first period, but early in the second period their forward line muscled within striking distance of the Edmonton team's net and scored the game's first goal. Minutes later Valcartier repeated the same play and scored the game winner.

The Valcartier team kept it simple. The hustled for every ball and controlled the tempo with their passing game.

Edmonton players were quick to pick up on the first-on-the-ball strategy. They played man-to-man when Valcartier came into their end. At the opposite end of the ice they switched to a two-on-one strategy.

"Our team played really hard today and played well the whole tournament," said CFB Edmonton Coach Shawn Rowe. "Valcartier has a good team every year and they are hard to beat and we had to come up with a system to play these guys,"

He added, "We wanted to keep the game as close as possible, so we were playing for a zero-zero tie. With a team like this you have to play a hard physical game and the longer you can keep the score zero-zero the more it works to your advantage."

Last year's win was the third for the Quebec region and the second for CFB Valcartier. In 2000 the Valcartier team was defeated at the regional level by CFB Montreal, which went on to win national championship title by a score of 2 to 0 over the Ontario region.

The top broomball teams representing the Prairie, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic regions were at CFB Borden from February 23 to 28 to compete at the annual CF National Men's Broomball Championship. After the tournament round robin, Quebec finished first with three wins and no loses. The Prairies region captured second spot one win and two loses, followed by the Atlantic region and then Ontario.

The final game's most valuable player (MVP) award went to Martin Tremblay, of the Quebec region. Pat Daoust, also from the Quebec region was named tournament MVP.

BROOMBALL MEN'S 2002 ALLSTARS

Eugene McLeod: Prairie region
Bernie McNicol: Quebec region
Rocky Hins: Ontario region
Gino Grenier: Quebec region
Scott Kelly: Atlantic region
Patrick Daoust: Quebec region