AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Recapping 2 feel-good and 2 feel-bad hockey stories

Sport can inspire and it can enrage. It can cause healing and it can cause hurt. Here are two positive hockey stories and two that will (likely) infuriate you.

BIG-TIME CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NIVERVILLE NIGHTHAWKSKudos to all the players, coaches, managers, parents, billets, fans, sponsors and volunteers with the Nighthawks for winning the Turnbull Cup as the best team in the MJHL.

That the Nighthawks have won a league championship in only their fourth year in existence speaks volumes about their entire organization and everyone working in it.

With a balanced attack consisting of four lines that can do a lot of damage while they wear down the opposition, the Nighthawks convincingly defeated Virden in four games.

Steinbach left with more questions than answers on province’s disaster relief denial: mayor

Steinbach councillors say they’re left with more questions than answers after the province responded to council’s request to clarify its denial of disaster relief funding for last year’s flood.

The city saw wide-spread flooding in September 2025 after 134.6 millimetres of rain fell overnight, flooding homes and businesses. City administration applied to the province for disaster relief assistance (DFA) program funding, but were denied. The province also denied a previous request after flooding hit Steinbach in 2024.

Mayor Earl Funk called the criteria for how the relief funding is granted “vague”.

“It leads me to believe that there’s probably not that much policy and that this actually ends up being a political question or answer every time, and obviously we were just on the wrong side of politics,” he said on April 21 after a council meeting.

Larocque’s Charge outlast Kirk’s Sceptres to make PWHL playoffs

The Professional Women’s Hockey League playoffs were sure to have a Ste Anne flavour to them, but it took until the final day of the regular season to see which of the town’s two players would advance.

In the end, it was Jocelyne Larocque’s Ottawa Charge defeating Raygan Kirk’s Toronto Sceptres 3-0 to nab the fourth and final playoff spot.

Larocque, who is 37-years-old, scored a key goal for Ottawa against New York last week, tallying the game-winner in a critical 5-1 win over the Sirens to put her team on the brink of the playoffs.

“This will be one that I’ll remember for a while. The energy in the building when we were getting close to closing it out was amazing,” Charge captain Brianne Jenner said in a post-game media scrum following the game against the Sceptres.

Volunteer fair pitches roles for all

The first volunteer fair hosted by the Mennonite Heritage Village on April 18 gave attendees a look at the possibilities of helping out nearly a dozen local non-profits.

Perhaps the most well known was MCC, and general manager Dave Thiessen kicked off the event with a keynote of sorts, explaining the importance of volunteers to their organization.

The Steinbach MCC Thrift Store opened in 1972 in Steinbach and was one of the original thrift stores, a title that includes Winkler, Altona and Winnipeg.

Currently there are 45 MCC thrift stores in Canada and another 45 in the U.S.

12 Angry Jurors entertains Steinbach audience

Attendees at 12 Angry Jurors hosted by Storytellers Entertainment at the Pat Porter Active Living Centre on April 24 and 25 saw tensions rise and anger flare as the cast of 15 took them back in time to a 1960s court room. Jurors battled as they considered the life of a young man charged with killing his father in the play adapted by Sherman L. Sergel and directed by Andrew Doerksen. Upcoming events for Storytellers Entertainment include One Upon a Crime: The Trial of Goldilocks which takes the stage on May 22 and 23 at the Pat Porter Active Living Centre.

Niverville Nighthawks sweep to MJHL championship

Any doubts the Niverville Nighthawks were a cut above the rest of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League this season were put to rest in the league finals.

The Nighthawks dominated the West Division champion Virden Oil Capitals, defeating them in four straight games, sweeping their way their first championship.

“It doesn’t even feel real,” team captain Adam Vigfusson said after a 6-2 game four victory.

“To do it with this group of guys, I don’t even know what to say. It’s the best feeling in the world and I’m so proud of this group. We love Niverville. Niverville is the best place to play junior hockey, so to bring it home for them is unreal.”

Steinbach mayor labels relationship with The INN not healthy, says SCO is more collaborative

Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk said the relationship with a transitional housing non-profit “hasn’t been healthy,” and Steinbach Community Outreach has been more “collaborative” with council on its housing project.

Funk made the comments when speaking with reporters on April 21, after Steinbach city council voted to pass the first reading of The Initiative for Neighbourly Nights’s proposed transitional housing bylaw. The bylaw would add a transitional housing definition as a building requiring conditional use, which would spark a public hearing before receiving project approval.

The INN’s project would include 30 beds and offer wrap-around medical care and housing supports for people exiting homelessness. The estimated $2-million facility would be located at Main Street near Kroeker Avenue.

SCO and Eden Healthcare Services’s facility, billed as “supportive housing,” will also have 30 beds. On-site psychiatric care and medication management will be available 24/7 for half of the beds, located on Third Street.

Province begins work on $83M Morris bridge replacement

Manitoba has begun work on replacing a decades-old bridge along Highway 75 in the Town of Morris.

The province started discussions with local officials and land owners in March about the $83 million project, which would see a new bridge built across the Morris River, a provincial spokesperson told The Carillon in an email.

Mayor Scott Crick said the replacement was needed as the 57-year-old bridge approaches the end of its life.

“It’s certainly not the newest bridge…and it is at a point now where I believe the structure itself does need some replacement,” he said.

CARILLON SPORTS SECOND SHOTS: An all Nighthawks edition from April 23

Featuring photos from games one and three of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in Niverville April 17/21 and shots from the team's prospects camp hosted over the weekend.

Ile des Chenes farmer, former deputy minister receives award from Manitoba Canola Growers

The Manitoba Canola Growers Association has awarded Dori Gingera-Beauchemin the 2025 Canola Award of Excellence, recognizing her long-standing support for agriculture in Manitoba and her lasting contributions to the canola industry.

“I was inducted into the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame in the fall, which is an amazing award, and so it was really exciting, but I told the Canola Growers to have a producer organization in Manitoba award me, you know, it was just as exciting because the national award comes from all kinds of folks all around the countryside that I’ve had the privilege of working with, and all of their accolades, but to come from our own group in Manitoba, our own farmer group, is just equally exciting and very important to me,” said Gingera-Beauchemin.

The Canola Award of Excellence recognizes individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the sustained growth and prosperity of Manitoba’s canola industry.

Gingera-Beauchemin grew up on a cattle farm in McCreary, just north of Dauphin, before her father got a job working in education and they moved to a small town. Currently, she and her husband farm near Ile des Chenes growing canola, cereals, and other oilseeds.

1946 to 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Working together key to Steinbach’s growth

The Steinbach Credit Union was only one of any number of co-operative efforts that have helped mold Steinbach into the close-knit, ever-growing, community it became over the years.

Urban met rural at the Steinbach fairgrounds a number of times every year. Every June, all of Steinbach’s school children would march down Main Street to spend a day with parents at an end-of-the-year school picnic at the fairgrounds. The end-of-the-school-year event was so important that businesses downtown closed their doors for the afternoon to give their employees a chance to spend the day with their children.

The Steinbach Board of Trade (later the Steinbach Chamber of Commerce) organized a Dominion Day celebration every July 1, including baseball, a midway and wrestling in the evening, which drew thousands of visitors from all over the Southeast every July 1 for more than three decades. The tradition continued long after the fairgrounds became an industrial park. Today, multicultural festivities reflecting the diversity of the still-growing City of Steinbach are held on the grounds of the Mennonite Heritage Village every July 1.

An annual Hanover Fair was revived in 1946, with the organization of the Hanover Agricultural Society and a parade down Main Street, business displays, agricultural exhibits, garden produce and mouth-watering efforts by the area’s best bakers, all blended to give the multi-day event a real ‘Town and Country’ flavor.