AS I SEE IT COLUMN: PWHL delivers pure joy, along with societal change

I hope you were one of the 15,000 plus fans that got to experience the PWHL game last Sunday in person.

Not only was it a rare opportunity to welcome home local legend Jocelyn Larocque, sporting fans in attendance got to experience, first-hand, a completely different kind of hockey game.

When you watch a PWHL game on TV and see young girls, many of them wearing jerseys from the hockey teams they play for, you get a sense that what you are watching is completely unique, but when you are in the building, you can actually feel it.

Call it vibes or atmosphere, a PWHL hockey game is unlike any men’s hockey game.

Manitoba launches Ste Anne Hospital regionalization working group

A working group to explore designating the Ste Anne Hospital as a regional health care centre has formed and will hold its first meeting later this month.

The province, in a March 20 news release, said the 18-member group will look at the hospital’s infrastructure, staffing and long-term sustainability. It will also assess its service capacity and consider expanding the health care provided. The working group was first created in September 2025

Ste Anne Mayor Yvan St. Vincent and Southern Health’s chief medical officer Dr. Aly Dhala will co-chair the group.

Its members include Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities president Ivan Normandeau, La Broquerie’s deputy reeve Laurent Tetrault and Tyler Blashko, NDP MLA for Lagimodière. Health care officials from Southern Health and Shared Health will also have seats as members.

Taking the polar plunge for Special Olympics

Volunteers lined up on the ice at Falcon Lake on March 21, to take turns jumping or cannonballing into the icy water, all to raise funds for Special Olympics Manitoba.

Adell Gauthier, senior director of fund development, said 17 people made the plunge, raising more than $23,000 combined.

“When you look at how many people were involved those are just extremely successful results,” she said. “We’re just so grateful for everybody that fundraised and shared the word on their social networks and told their friends and families to get involved.”

“We’re just blown away by these results,” she added.

Training day in Steinbach

RCMP dog Sega took time to hone his skills with handlers on Tuesday, scouring the area near The Carillon office on Industrial Drive as part of a drill.

Springfield mayor frustrated with wait for water treatment plant environmental license

It looks like the RM of Springfield will have to wait a little while longer to get its environmental license approved for its proposed water treatment plant.

RM of Springfield Mayor Patrick Therrien is frustrated that the province’s environmental board is still withholding the approval of the licence, almost two-and-a-half-years after the licence was applied for.

“I don’t understand why it’s taken so long. It’s not a nuclear waste site, it’s a water treatment plant,” he said.

Therrien said the land has already been selected and the $29 million to build the structure is in the bank.

1946 – 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Steinbach’s past meets future up and down ‘Stony Brook’

The creek, which many believe gave Steinbach its name, winds its way through the community from east to west, or southeast to northwest, depending on your perception of the diagonal slant of Main Street.

This creek was never really given the English translation of the name it shared with the community, but the “stony brook” was just as practically important to the early settlers as it is an historic landmark and a reminder of the past for today’s residents.

The layout of the 20 lots, inhabited by the earliest of settlers in 1874, was mapped out to give each family a piece of this waterway.

Today, the Johann G. Barkman Walkway, from Elm Street to Kroeker Avenue, has a number of plaques on pedestals along the way, to give visitors to the city an idea of where it all started.

Proposed seniors’ residence hits roadblocks in Steinbach

The issue of granting a conditional use and several variances for the construction of a new seniors’ apartment complex became a thorny one for Steinbach city council on March 17, prompting them to recess the public hearing until more information can be gathered.

The property, located at 185 Friesen Avenue and owned by Steinbach Housing Inc., presented several problems for council.

It required a conditional use as multi-family residential is not permitted in a commercial neighbourhood zone.

A variance is also required to allow for the proposed seven-storey height because the current zoning only allows for three. Variances are also required for a reduced front yard setback to 20 feet from the required 25 feet.

Tabin, Larocque relish in Manitoba PWHL game

The eyes of the Professional Women’s Hockey League were on Manitoba last weekend, and the Keystone province didn’t disappoint.

The Canada Life Centre in downtown Winnipeg was completely sold out for a PWHL Takeover Tour game between the Ottawa Charge and Montreal Victoire. While Ottawa may have come out with a 2-1 win thanks to a Rebecca Leslie tally just 12 seconds into overtime, after the game both teams were impressed by Winnipeg.

The PWHL is in the middle of their third year, expanding to eight teams this season. The league started their “Takeover Tour,” series of games last season, bringing top women’s hockey action to markets that don’t yet have a PWHL team.

“There were line-ups of people on a Saturday afternoon just to watch us practice,” Leslie said after the game.

COLUMN: Carillon Flashback January 6, 2011 – Mennonite bloggers publishing cookbook

Betty Reimer’s journey into blogging and on to be part of group publishing a cookbook entitled Mennonite Girls Can Cook started when she decided to search online for a new Easter bread recipe.

Reimer had a recipe she usually used, but was curious as to what else was out there. Her search led her to Louella Schellenberg’s blog, and she wondered why this particular recipe caught her attention.

Reimer quickly became a follower, regularly posting comments. About a year after Reimer discovered the blog, Schellenberg put out the idea of starting a group blog by the group of women who, like Reimer, had all linked through her food-based blogs.

A total of 13 women from British Columbia, Manitoba and Washington, aged 49 to 63, originally signed on (though the group now sits comfortably at 10) and in June, 2008, Mennonite Girls Can Cook was launched.

Federal and provincial governments fund extension of farmer wellness program

The federal and provincial governments have extended their financial support for the Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program by investing $300,000 over two years through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

The program, which was started in 2022, has seen the numbers of farmers accessing counselling double year after year, according to the program’s chief administrative officer Gerry Friesen.

“We were very excited to hear (about the funding),” said Friesen. “It’s ongoing support from them and obviously what it does is it helps us carry on with the services that we provide to the farming community, particularly farmers, their spouses, partners, kids over the age of 16 and farm employees. So, our numbers have been increasing steadily and so every dollar counts as it were.”

Friesen said there are more mental health issues facing farmers today than in the past as “farming isn’t getting less stressful, put it that way.”