Break on first - question

I need to write the xsl to produce html for the following:

I have an xml file that is a calendar of events.  A typical event is

<EVENT recordID="DIA-00000" organizerID="DIA" updated="2002-12-21">
            <title>Clinical Research Associate Training</title>
            <longTitle>this is the long title</longTitle>
            <description>Introductory Clinical Research Associate
training</description>
            <agendaURL>http://www.agenda.com/</agendaURL>
            <programURL>http://www.diahome.org/</programURL>
            <venue>
                  <eventDate>

<startDate><year>2003</year><month>01</month><day>25</day></startDate>

<endDate><year>2003</year><month>01</month><day>26</day></endDate>
                  </eventDate>
                  <status>Cancelled</status>
                  <geographical>
                        <location>
                              <city>Arlington</city>
                              <state>VA</state>
                              <country>USA</country>
                        </location>
                        <continent>North America</continent>
                  </geographical>
            </venue>
</EVENT>

Note: Since this is my calendar, I can write the startDate and endDate as
xsl:date (<startDate>2003-01-25</startDate>), and in fact would prefer to.

I have many EVENT records and need to sort them (I can do the sort just
fine) by date and title, and then produce HTML that breaks on each new
month (or year) so I can insert some formatting etc..  So it's a grouping
issue.  How in the world do I do it?  Whatever I try gives me some success
(=complete failure) but I can't get every new month to behave itself.




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