Longtime coach Joseph Iacobellis has been called the “man with the Midas touch” because he turned Capilano University’s athletics program into pure gold.

Iacobellis was born in Italy but moved to Vancouver at age five. In his high school years at Templeton Secondary in Vancouver (1965-70) his penchant for sport was clear. He was also fortunate to receive training from PE teachers with exceptional resumes, including North Shore sprinting legend Harry Jerome, Canadian Rugby Hall of Famer Ted Hunt and women’s national team volleyball coach Victor Lindal.

In the fall of 1970, Iacobellis was accepted to UBC’s faculty of science and made the university’s soccer team, under head coach Joe Johnson and assistant coach Joe Molnar. After his second year, he applied to the school of physical education and was accepted into the exercise science program to combine his interest in methodology with his passion for sport.

Inspired by his professors at the time, he applied for a master’s in PE in program in 1974. That same year he was offered to coach the UBC women’s varsity volleyball team, one of the top university squads in the country.

After completing his master’s in 1977, he took a full-time job at Capilano University, where he’d spend the next 40 years. Accomplishments there include three Canadian college soccer championship titles (1988, ’90 and ’91). 

At the provincial level, Iacobellis claimed 11 titles, coaching nine men’s soccer teams and two women’s volleyball teams between 1977 and ’92. 

In 1999, CapU won the Canadian Colleges 25-Year Soccer Supremacy Award for both the men’s and women’s teams.

But as CapU’s director of athletics for 22 years (1992 to 2016) Iacobellis did so much more than coach sports. With his golden touch, entire programs were built from the ground up on a tight budget. And scholarships were founded to foster future generations of athletes. He was named Canadian Colleges athletic director of the year in 2009.

Iacobellis was also a dedicated educator, helping to launch and entry-level PE program and developing the school’s first human kinetics two-year diploma in 2001. After further development by the school, CapU started offering a bachelor of kinesiology to students in 2021.
Even after his retirement in 2016, Iacobellis can still be found on the athletics grounds at the North Van university, supporting the school’s athletics initiatives that he helped make gold.
 

Known as the “Golden Girl” of the Paralympic Games, Lauren Woolstencroft is one of the most decorated alpine skiers in history.

Born in Calgary in 1981, Woolstencroft’s journey began differently than most. She was born without legs below her knees and without a left arm below the elbow. Undeterred from sport, she started skiing in Whitefish, Montana — one of the top-ranked ski towns in the world — at age four. By 14, she was racing with the Alberta Disabled Ski Team.

In 1998, she joined the Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Team. Four years later, at her first Paralympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, Woolstencroft’s success was immediate, claiming two gold medals and one bronze. At the 2006 Games in Torino, Italy she added another gold and one silver to her trophy case. 

But she saved her best performance for Vancouver in 2010, where she won a record five gold medals — becoming the first Paralympian to do so at a single winter Games. That year, she was named Canada’s flag bearer at the closing ceremonies.

Between 1998 and 2010, Woolstencroft had amassed an incredible 60 Word Cup medals and eight world championship titles.

In 2011, she was inducted into the Alberta, B.C. and Canadian Sports halls of fame, as well as the Canadian Paralympic Hall of Fame. She was named among the Power 50 in Canadian sports by The Globe and Mail. In 2012, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Switching over to the world of sports broadcasting, Woolstencroft joined CBC’s team for the 2014 and 2018 Paralympic Games. She was also featured in advertising, for Toyota’s global Start Your Impossible campaign. Her “Good Odds” commercial was on the air during the 2018 Super Bowl, as well as the Olympics and Paralympics.

Woolstencroft has lived among the mountains in B.C. for many years, in Squamish and on the North Shore.
 

Alex Mahood was both the face, as well as the heart and soul of Capilano Rugby Club, from its inception in 1969 to his untimely passing in 2007.

After graduating from North Vancouver High School, he went on to take a job at the North Shore shipyards building freighters for the Second World War. But as soon as he was old enough to fight, Mahood enlisted in the army and was posted overseas in England and France.

When the war was over, he worked at the world-renowned G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver, until retiring in 1983.

Outside of work, Mahood was a rugby fanatic. After returning home, he started playing rugby for the North Shore All-Blacks as hooker and kicker. He helped the team claim B.C. championships in 1948 and ’55. He continued with the All-Blacks until 1964. Over the course of his playing career, he was selected for the Vancouver reps, Nor-West reps and B.C. rep teams. Mahood toured Japan with the B.C. rep team in 1959, with a 6-1-1 record in the country.

He was the player-coach of the All-Blacks from 1957 to ’64 and head coach from 1965 to ’68, upon retiring after 18 seasons of play.

As a player, Mahood was known as an uncompromising force, in an era where referees had no yellow or red cards to wield against him.

When the All-Blacks and West Vancouver Barbarians amalgamated in 1969, Mahood took a lead role in the development and growth of the newly formed Capilano Rugby Football Club.

As the director of grounds for the club, he played a key role in establishing Klahanie Park as the home of rugby on the North Shore. He also helped ensure the clubhouse was built, and the Alex Mahood Room remains there today in his honour.

Incredibly, but perhaps not surprising, Mahood’s contributions extend outside the sport of rugby. He coached Little League baseball from 1958 to ’75, including 10 years as coach of the North Van Central all-star team. He also coached juvenile soccer from 1960 to ’66.

Among his many awards recognizing his contributions to rugby, Mahood has been elected a Life Member of the Vancouver Rugby Union and the Capilano Rugby Club. He’s also received Jack Patterson Memorial Trophy in 1969 and received the Lifetime Contribution to Community Sport Award at the North Shore Sport Awards in 2005.

Mahood’s heart and soul live on in all the players, families and community members who enjoy the Capilano Rugby Club today and for generations to come.

Pitcher Ryan Dempster will go down in history as one of the most skilled and congenial Canadians to ever play major league baseball.

Born in Sechelt in 1977, Dempster grew up playing ball on fields around the province. That included a starring role with the North Shore Twins, where he sharpened his skills before pitching for the Canadian Junior National Team in two World Youth Championships, in 1993 and ’94.

The right-hander was drafted in 1995 by the Texas Rangers, and three years later he made his Major League Baseball debut with the Florida Marlins. That’s when his career really started taking off. Dempster had a standout season in 2000, with a 14-10 record and a 3.66 ERA, earning him a spot on the National League All-Star team and winner of the Tip O’Neill Award from the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Dempster was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 2002, where he spent two seasons before signing in 2004 with the Chicago Cubs, where he’d spend the next nine years pitching. He began as a reliever but was promoted to starting pitcher in 2008. That same year was his best major league season, with a 17-6 record and a 2.96 ERA (Earned Run Average).  

He went back to the Rangers in 2012 before capping off his professional baseball career by winning the World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2013.

Apart from his incredible skill on the field, Dempster was known for his laid-back and friendly demeanour — cracking jokes with teammates and fans.

After retirement, he was hired by MLB network as a colour analyst, and he joined Marquee Sports Network as a studio and game analyst for Cub telecasts in 2020.

Dempster was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019. 
 

Pitchers, batters, basemen and back catchers between the age of 11 and 12 have been playing Little League baseball on the North Shore since 1952. In that time, only one lineup has made it all the way to the Little League World Series — the class of 1993.  

Team manager Eden Briscoe had watched the group evolve from abusing T-ball stands to hitting pitches into the opposite field. By ’93, there was enough talent to win their division.

They defeated Highlands 7-1, West Van 6-0 and Cypress Park 6-0 before being derailed 4-2 by Mt. Seymour during the district tourney. So they swung back, winning their remaining round-robin games against Forest Hills 7-5, NV Central 17-2 and Howe Sound 12-2 in order to come up against Forest Hills in the double-loss knockout finals which they won 7-1 and 5-1.

At provincials that year, Lynn Valley dominated play. Clint Hosford, who went on to later play eight years of pro ball, threw a no-hitter in the opening 21-0 victory over Comox.

Lynn Valley’s 3-2 victory over Vancouver’s Victoria Drive sent the North Van team to a sudden-death final against Whalley, who came through the losers’ round. Lynn Valley pitcher Lloyd Haggard sealed the deal with a tidy 4-1 win.

Hosford shone again at nationals in St. John, N.B., with a nine-inning, 2-0 shutdown against Nova Scotia. But game two was a gut-wrenching 4-1 loss to Quebec. That meant Lynn Valley would have to win their next three to advance to the championship game, which they did.

They did the North Shore proud with clean matches against St. John (12-2), Ontario (21-1) and Alberta (3-0). In the final, a rematch against Quebec, Hosford struck out 13 hitters and Haggard hit a home run for a 2-1 victory.

Three days later, the team of 14 boys travelled to the Little League World Championship in Williamsport, Penn. to represent Canada on the world stage. Not only was this a first (and so far only) for a North Shore squad, it also made history for being the first team coached by a woman, Kathy Barnard. Her Team Canada hat still hangs in the Little League Museum.

At the tournament, Lynn Valley faced some of the strongest baseball programs in the world. In their first game, they dropped a 6-0 decision to Latin America’s champions from Panama. They rebounded with an 8-1 victory over Europe’s team from Germany before being eliminated by Saipan (Team Asia) 4-3.

But decades later, both the coaches and players look back fondly at that once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Barnard told the North Shore News in 2018: “They gave me one of the greatest memories of my life.”

Coaching staff: Eden Briscoe and Kathy Barnard

Team: Scott Carlson, Blake Anderson, Spencer Barnard, Clinton Hosford, Lloyd Haggard, Chris Kerr, Mike Winstanley, Drew Sickenger, Tyler Lentsch, Brian Briscoe, Mark Rouleau, Cameron Janz, Andrew Janz and Shaun Layton.