As captain of the St. Francis Prep hockey team, it is in Dan McCloskey’s job description to be a leader on and off the ice. When the game plan calls for a hard-hitting, aggressive forecheck, as was the case against CHSHL B Division rivals Archbishop Molloy Friday night, the senior from College Point is at his best. Comment.

Queens is once again alive with the sound of music. Comment.

It may have been a battle of Beantown rivals, but the men’s basketball game between Boston University and Northeastern Sunday had plenty of local flair. Comment.

The St. John’s women’s basketball team left its Jamaica campus Friday to travel to Blacksburg, Va. for a Big East game at Virginia Tech Saturday. Darcel Estep, however, didn’t make the trip. After just 2 1/2 years at the helm, Estep was fired as the team’s head coach. Comment.

Marcus Hatten ran all the time off the clock he possibly could. The junior college transfer out of Tallahassee had Derrick Snowden draped all over him as he dribbled left then right and left again, draining precious seconds. Comment.

It was hard not to know when York sophomore Roberto Tapia was in the game Saturday. That’s because whenever the Cardinals’ sharp-shooting guard was in, John Jay men’s basketball coach Guy Rancourt called him out. Comment.

York women’s basketball coach Jackie Smith says her team has improved dramatically from the start of the season, even from the beginning of January. But the one thing the Lady Cardinals lack and the one thing Smith can’t teach her young group, is experience. Comment.

This past season was an exciting and challenging one for Team Arcadia from Douglaston. From purely non-spinnaker racing, the team expanded its racing program to include both spinnaker and non-spinnaker races with spectacular success. Comment.

The Pathmark Grizzlies held on to their first-place standing as they edged the Peter Pan Games Blue Devils, 38-35. Leading for the Grizzlies with 13 points each were Kerry Chang and James Lizzul. Matthew Stein scored seven, Trone Frazier put four points up and had eight blocked shots. Vincent Vita and Rob Fielder scored two points each. The Blue Devils hung tough with 14 points scored by Justin Cugini. Frankie Davi and Allesandro Santorelli scored seven points each. Matt Kelly scored four points and Jenna Fogelman and Andrew Reyes had two poi Comment.

In a stunning upset, the Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament eighth-grade “AA” boys team beat first place St. Nicholas, 50-48. This defeat was St. Nick’s first at-home loss in two years. Joe O’Connor had a monster game with 20 points and 15 rebounds. Nick Kofteris chipped in with 12 and Paul Savino and Randy Bayron had seven each. Reny Mazorra and Kristian Delgado led the defense and Erik Anderwkavich and Kevin Hyde provided key fourth quarter baskets. Comment.

Registration for the Ridgewood, Glendale, Middle Village, Maspeth Little League 2002 season will take place at its clubhouse, located at 80-17 78th Ave., Glendale, on the following dates. Comment.

The St. Luke’s fifth-grade girls’ basketball team improved to 9-4 with a convincing 20-11 victory over St. Mel’s. Cecilia Ehresman led all scorers with nine points. Jacklyn Kutogowski dominated inside with five points. Amy Oronato, Colleen Brennan and Melissa Takos each contributed a basket. The entire team played well on both sides of the ball. Comment.

“Todo Tango,” the wildly successful dance musical which debuted at the Thalia Spanish Theatre back in June, is back for a limited return engagement until Feb. 17. Comment.

Regular readers of the TimesLedger editorial page know that we have been decidedly pro-immigration. Queens has one of the most diverse populations of any place in the world. It is a borough that has been built by immigrants and it is a borough where thousands have been able to realize their American dream. Comment.

It has been three weeks, four days, 14 hours and 23 seconds since the regular football season ended dismally for my Giants. Ugh! I have not smiled once in all that time except when the auto mechanic advised that my ‘90 car was repairable and I didn’t have to buy a new one. Comment.

The Lunar New Year is just around the corner. Chinese people all over the world will celebrate it with jubilance and feast. It’s the year of the Horse beginning Feb. 12. It’s also year 4699 by the lunar calendar. Comment.

Growing up in Laurelton during the Great Depression was an interesting experience. It was a huge challenge for our parents. Employers, like our father’s, wanted to be fair and wanted to maintain their knowledgeable staffs but, at the same time, they needed as much rebuilding money as possible to keep the company afloat. Employees were told that if they would agree to work unpaid, at least for a specific period of time, their employment would be guaranteed when the desperate financial crunch had passed. Our dad agreed to do that. Comment.

During the past few weeks my wife Edna and I have attended the swearing in of several City Council members and enjoyed the power brokers who attended these events. Comment.

Welcome to the Point. The Point being College Point. Comment.

“I always knew I wanted to be in business for myself,” said Julig. Comment.

136-37th Avenue Flushing Comment.

A plan to open a home for mentally retarded young men in a residential area of Springfield Gardens was presented last week to Community Board 12, where residents said a disproportionately high number of such facilities already exist. Comment.

An ear-splitting boom jarred Ebony Dixon awake in her St. John's University dorm. Outside, Greg Streck’s conversation with a friend was drowned out by a screaming jet engine. Unimaginable had struck two blocks away. Comment.

Scan a list of the project titles for which 300 young scholars earned semi-finalist status in the Intel Science Talent Search and you may very well question your competency in English. Comment.

Forget the groundhogs. Queens has its very own ground-dogs, Flushing Meadows Phil and Corona Kate. Comment.

Tifford Gibbs-Field, a small forward on the Benjamin Cardozo HS basketball team, said farewell Sunday to his father, who was senselessly murdered last week in Maryland and had played for the same high school coach years ago. Comment.

Tifford Gibbs-Field, a small forward on the Benjamin Cardozo HS basketball team, said farewell Sunday to his father, who was senselessly murdered last week in Maryland and had played for the same high school coach years ago. Comment.

Although City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) received top billing on the invitation to his installation Friday, it was a night to be shared with his father, the longtime council speaker whose lengthy tenure ended as soon as his son’s term began. Comment.

A Flushing drug dealer who had been acquitted in May on charges of killing a police officer dodged another conviction Sunday when a Queens jury deadlocked in deliberations over whether he had committed a second murder in 1996 in Kissena Park. Comment.

The grand jury that indicted John Taylor on charges of massacring five people at a Wendy’s restaurant came from a pool of jurors that systematically excluded Hispanics, a Queens College professor testified at a hearing last Thursday. Comment.

Since MIC Women’s Health Services in Astoria celebrated its grand reopening last week, only one pin has made its way onto the world map that was put up to reflect the diversity of the clinic’s patients. Comment.

When Marangely Gonzalez fled the World Trade Center after hearing an explosion from a cafeteria in the second tower Sept. 11, every step she took was a struggle to save not one, but four lives. Comment.

In many ways, Maria Renee Milcetic of Whitestone is a typical teenager. She is a forward for the Bayside Traveling Soccer Team, has covered the wall’s of her room with music posters and proudly displays the cards she recently received for her 18th birthday. Comment.

In a bid to improve health care, patient trust and employee education, the North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System has teamed up with the Harvard School of Public Health and General Electric to launch the first employee learning initiative in the health care industry. Comment.

When Chinese dragons march down Flushing’s Main Street on Feb. 9 in this year’s Lunar New Year Festival, they will be accompanied not only by men and women from Taiwan, China and Korea, but Bahamians dancing, beating drums and wearing bright paper costumes. Comment.

Helen Marshall, Queens’ first black borough president, hosted a multicultural celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last Thursday at Jamaica’s 300-year-old Grace Episcopal Church. Comment.

A controversial plan by police at the 106th Precinct to move the Phagwah parade from its traditional home on Liberty Avenue a few blocks north to Atlantic Avenue was shelved last week after parade organizers told police they would scale back the popular Hindu celebration. Comment.

After 43 years of loyal service and threats to quit for the past 12 years, Jamaica’s postmaster, Gino Gentilini, has finally ended his illustrious career with the United States Post Office. Comment.

Monique Greenwood had served for two years as editor in chief of Essence Magazine when she gave up the steady paycheck in July to run a Brooklyn bed and breakfast she had founded seven years earlier. Comment.

With a Jan. 15 eviction deadline from the city well behind them, Ann Jawin and her Queens Women’s Center remained in their Fort Totten headquarters this week and the Douglaston resident said she was ready to go to court to keep it that way, if necessary. Comment.

A Kew Gardens student who developed a simple way to make semiconductors and a Richmond Hill teenager who studied HIV vaccines were among 19 borough residents to be named semifinalists last week in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Comment.

A Kew Gardens student who developed a simple way to make semiconductors and a Richmond Hill teenager who studied HIV vaccines were among 19 borough residents to be named semifinalists last week in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Comment.

Federal officials next month will start rerouting more jetliners taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport away from the Rockaway Peninsula, where a Nov. 12 crash into Belle Harbor killed 260 people in the plane and five on the ground. Comment.

A Rosedale party promoter and rap group manager was shot to death Sunday after trying to break up a fight at a club on South Conduit Avenue a few blocks from his home, police said. Comment.

As a result of tighter security at Kennedy Airport, five Flushing men were arrested last week after police seized nearly 700,000 contraband Chinese cigarettes from their home, the Queens district attorney said. Comment.

A Forest Hills HS student last week became the only Queens public school student named a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Comment.

Three teenagers injured in the collision of an Acura with an SUV in Kew Gardens Hills that killed an 18-year-old from Flushing last week were expected to recover, hospital officials said. Comment.

As one of only four Republicans on the City Council, Dennis Gallagher (R-Middle Village) was the sole member of the Queens delegation not selected to lead one of the Council’s many committees. Comment.

Jumping out of the gate after being selected to chair the City Council’s committee on environmental protection, James Gennaro (D-Jamaica Estates) last Thursday said the most pressing environmental concern facing the city today is contamination at the World Trade Center site. Comment.

It was a peculiar gift that inspired U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to address the country’s current nursing shortage, the former first lady admitted to an adoring crowd of hospital staffers at an appearance last week at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Comment.

There was hip-hop hysteria at York College in Jamaica Monday as more than 1,000 young people lined up outside the college hoping to see a famous rapper and attend a youth summit honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Comment.

When the destruction of the World Trade Center brought terrorism directly into the lives of New Yorkers last fall, Queens residents from India found themselves facing a struggle that was all too familiar. Comment.

Albert Lin checked the Intel website Jan. 16 to see if any of his St. Francis Prep classmates had been selected as semifinalists in the company’s prestigious Science Talent Search. He was shocked to see his name on the list of winners. Comment.

Beleaguered School District 29 was dealt another severe blow in its attempt to turn the district around when one of its intermediate schools was placed on the state’s Schools Under Registration Review list for failing schools. Comment.

The Kew Gardens-based low-fare airline JetBlue is buying 10 new Airbus A320 jetliners to be delivered over the coming four years. Comment.

Revitalizing Lower Manhattan is a priority for city officials, but the newly selected chairwoman of the City Council’s Land Use Committee said the rest of New York City will not be left out in the process. Comment.

Despite widespread fears of major flight delays, travelers reported few problems at borough airports this week after new federal regulations governing airline security took effect. Comment.

It has been almost a month since freshman City Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) took office and he has been ready to jump right in ever since the November election. Now if only his office furniture would catch up with him ... Comment.

Though science achievement has become a tradition in city schools, Baysider Jane He said she was surprised last week when she and 14 of her Stuyvesant High School classmates were named semi-finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search. Comment.

A black rabbi from St. Albans visited a white Forest Hills temple Sunday to broaden the dialogue on what it means to be a Jew and to salute the achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who fought for equality for all. Comment.

The crazy and contentious election year is over and the only thing former Democratic mayoral candidate Alan Hevesi won was the title of the heaviest fined political candidate by the New York City Campaign Finance Board. Comment.

The construction of the High School for Law Enforcement and Public Safety on Guy R. Brewer Boulevard at 116th Street in South Jamaica is 19 percent complete and within budget, the district manager of Community Board 12 said last week. Comment.

When term limits kicked in and it became apparent that the entire Queens City Council delegation would be forced out, there were rumblings that the borough’s political clout would be lost. Comment.

Dr. Stephen Dobrow complained at a Metropolitan Transportation Authority hearing last winter that the agency never listens to suggestions from the people who ride the subway daily. Comment.

Billing themselves an institution for the masses, officials at Doral Bank toasted the opening of their third and newest New York branch on Steinway Street last week with promises of unbeatable customer service. Comment.

Southeast Queens lost one of its most outspoken and ardent fighters for the rights and betterment of the community when Dolores Grant died Jan. 15 after a long battle with lung cancer caused by asbestos poisoning. She was 72. Comment.

Bayside civic leader Frank Skala and his civic association began courting business owners along Bell Boulevard this week, pushing them to join a group that he founded 10 years ago to restore Bell Boulevard. Comment.

136-37th Avenue Flushing Comment.

Garden Jewish Center of Flushing, 24-40 Parsons Blvd. Mondays, 7:15 p.m. 445-1317. Comment.

Senior Theater Acting Repertory welcomes seniors Comment.

From most accounts, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas was a swell guy. He passed away Jan. 8, after a long struggle with liver cancer, and the tributes began immediately. His impact in Queens, of course was enormous -- how many people haven’t been inside a Wendy’s at one point? Not only did he have dozens of the vaguely Victorian looking franchises throughout the borough, but most of his homey, idiosyncratic TV commercials were filmed at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. Comment.

What is going on in the world when a 16-year-old high school junior is considered a lock to be the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NBA Draft without having ever played a lick of college ball? LeBron James is his name and he’s coming to an NBA team near you — but not for at least another year. Comment.

Ricky Yan couldn’t hear the rambunctious crowd that swelled nine deep behind him at Whitestone Lanes Jan 18. While everyone around him felt the anxiety of an incredibly tight CHSAA city championship bowling match, the Holy Cross sophomore was the definition of calm. Comment.

After playing league rivals Molloy, Rice and St. Raymond’s — three of the stronger basketball programs in the city — the St. Francis Prep Terriers and Holy Cross Knights were winless in CHSAA league play. Friday evening’s contest between the archrivals was a respite and presented a chance for each club to steal a conference win. Comment.

Asbury Park, N.J. — Another game, another dramatic come-from-behind victory for the Christ the King girls basketball team. Comment.

The Jamaica boys’ basketball team traveled back through time Friday afternoon. While it never left the confines of the Jamaica High School gym, the Beavers used a defense it had not used in quite some time. Comment.