Dan Weaver

The Washington Horse Racing Commission was in Spokane Tuesday night to search for ways to reverse the business decline at Playfair Race Course. But as ideas were aired and frustrations vented at the meeting with about 400 horse owners, trainers and fans, a new and potentially serious problem surfaced. Construction at the new track in Auburn is reportedly behind schedule, a development that could delay the opening of the King County facility a month or more.

The Chiefs' Hugh Hamilton came up huge against Tri-City in the postseason last spring. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Jim Ray: "This job requires more time than any of us anticipated." Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

The Spokane Chiefs will take on a younger look in two weekend exhibitions with nine of their veterans at or on their way to pro camps. The Chiefs are in Mountlake Terrace Friday night to play the Seattle Thunderbirds. The rivalry resumes here Sunday at 6 p.m. with the Chiefs and T-Birds at Eagles Ice Arena. Forward Jason Podollan will leave Saturday to join the Florida Panthers, with hopes of sticking with the big club.

Spokane Chiefs hockey club owner Bobby Brett checks on the progress of the installation of training equipment. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

It dominates the brick-warehouse neighborhood on the north bank of the Spokane River. It also blends in as the promised extension of Riverfront Park. The people who planned and built it see it as a realization of a visionary plan, the right building in the right place at the right time. It has yet to open but praise is already gathering for Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena. The newest member of the Spokane Public Facilities District board, Roger Paine, put it simply.

The chairman of Spokane's Public Facilities District, which oversees Spokane Arena, was quick to see the basketball floor of the old Coliseum as a joke. He wasn't alone. The Coliseum floor - long known for its dead spots - was salvaged and refinished, to be used in the new building whenever a second floor is required.

Opening night at Playfair Race Course always brings out the best in the Warthens, Bob and Evelyn, and their horses. Particularly Hope's Rullah. Hope's Rullah won on opening night for the fourth consecutive year Wednesday night, again confounding the wagering public who sent him off at a longish 7-1.

It's almost post time. After nearly 10 months of being cooped up in front of TV screens, glued to a simulcast, horse players in Spokane are about to go live. Playfair opens Wednesday night for 50 days of on-site thoroughbred racing. It's a brief season, the shortest in Spokane since 1971.

1. Homecoming memories. Boyd Eddy, with his wife, Ellie, remembers that daughter Susan was 4 years old when he returned. He quit his first postwar job rather than miss a fifth Christmas with his family. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review 2. Former Marine Donn Thompson is forever relieved that the bomb beat him to Japan. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

After 23 years as president of the Western Hockey League, Ed Chynoweth has a new challenge. Chynoweth, 53, will operate a WHL expansion franchise in Edmonton starting in the 1996-97 season. He announced his resignation Friday as president of both the WHL and its umbrella organization, the Canadian Hockey League, pending approval of an agreement to play in the 4,000-seat AgriCom. The expansion franchise hopes to provide a hockey alternative to the higher-priced NHL Edmonton Oilers.

Myrtle Hagan Talbot of Spokane filled a conventional women's role in an unconventional way during World War II - as a nurse aboard a hospital ship, the Mercy. Talbot dug out her 50-year-old notes on VJ Day. "We are in Subic Bay (the Philippines)," she read. "It was a few minutes after 8 a.m. on Aug. 14 when the report came that the war was over. All the ships blew sirens and whistles, signal flares were shot off, a smoke screen was laid and everybody was out taking pictures.

1. Verona Connors became a crane operator at the Trentwood aluminum works. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review 2. Below right, a war-era photo of Connors. 3. A World War II poster was intended to encourage women in the workplace. File/Associated Press

Though he may look tired, it was time that robbed Dan Weaver of Mount Hood's summit, not age. Photo by Seabury Blair Jr./For The Spokesman-Review

1. Driver Tom Hindley (top) and crew members Scott Phipps (left) and Bill Macklin put the finishing touches on the latest Spokane-based unlimited hydroplane. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review 2. Tom Hindley, Hydroplane driver

1. Miss Spokane, here on Lake Coeur d'Alene, was a hard-luck competitor. File/The Spokesman-Review 2. The story of the Miss Eagle Electric comes to a tragic end with the death of driver Warner Gardner after the crash on the Detroit River at the 1968 Gold Cup. File/The Spokesman-Review

Spokane Chiefs defenseman Adam Magarrell is recovering from burns suffered June 10 when the car he was driving was struck from behind by a motorcycle. Magarrell, who came to Spokane in a Feb. 2 trade with the Brandon Wheat Kings, is in a Winnipeg hospital, where he underwent skin grafts to repair second degree burns to his hands, back, neck and face.

Hoopfest would be the perfect event if it could just figure out how to get rid of the one niggling, nagging, disappointing element. Players.

Chris Winkler has days when his shot clanks, when he's just another 31-year-old shooting guard. But then there are games when Winkler - a starter as a sophomore on one of Washington State University's finest basketball teams, the Cougars of 1982-83 - resurrects the touch that made him one of the Pacific-10 Conference's respected shooters. Winkler will dust off his shot for this weekend's sixth annual Hoopfest on the streets of downtown.

It started in 1990 with 511 teams on 30 courts. This year Hoopfest will unleash 3,636 teams on 30 blocks.

The National Hockey League's San Jose Sharks and Vancouver Canucks will play the inaugural sports event in Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena. The Sunday, Sept. 17 exhibition will match star right wing Pavel Bure of the Canucks with San Jose's Spokane Connection.

A leading trainer in the horsemen's group that is appealing for additional racing dates in Spokane is temporarily moving away from the fight. Trainer Mike Odom leaves today for Winnipeg, Manitoba, with a string of thoroughbreds. An officer in the Spokane-based Organization to Preserve Horse Racing in the Northwest (OPHRN), Odom said he'll spend the remainder of the spring and most of the summer racing horses at Assiniboia Downs.

Hoopfest is about to become the largest 3-on-3 street basketball tournament in the country, the event's executive secretary said Tuesday. More than 3,500 teams have registered for the June 24-25 event on the streets of downtown. "We're still processing entries," Rick Steltenpohl said, "hoping to squeeze in all of those who mailed their registration before the deadline."

An intense, five-month campaign to add warm-weather racing dates in Spokane appears stalled. Inland Northwest horsemen remain stuck with the same 50-day racing season that was outlined last December. Playfair Race Course will open Sept. 6 and operate through Nov. 27, weather permitting, Washington Horse Racing Commission executive secretary Bruce Batson said Tuesday.