CARILLON SPORTS SECOND SHOTS: Centennial Cup Finals

Photos from the Niverville Nighthawks win in the Centennial Cup in Summerside, P.E.I.

1946 – 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Council will build outdoor pool for cash

MAY 5, 1978—Steinbach town council, Monday, decided to build an outdoor pool at the new community park, bringing to a close, years of discussions, speculation and controversy. The issue also involved the town’s ratepayers in three pool votes over the last five years.

The spacious, well equipped outdoor pool will cost $350,000; and construction is expected to begin almost immediately to allow the structure to be used next summer.

Council spent very little time debating the matter at their last regular meeting and the vote passed easily, with only Councillors George Neufeld and Harold Unger opposed.

No tax levy will be required to build the pool, councillors pointed out, as construction will be financed on a cash basis. Financing includes a $263,000 withdrawal from surplus funds, $67,000 in labour forgiveness grants and a $20,000 provincial lottery grant.

Ewasko responds to being kicked out of the Legislature, supports word ban by Speaker

Lac du Bonnet MLA Wayne Ewasko is sharing his thoughts on why he was expelled from the Legislature and his approval of the speaker’s ban on five contentious words.

On May 4, during question period at the Manitoba Legislature, House Speaker Tom Lindsey expelled Ewasko for not apologizing for an April 15 remark he made during question period when Ewasko yelled to Premier Wab Kinew, “Hey, quit drinking, Wab,” while Kinew was answering a question from Opposition Leader Obby Khan regarding the gas tax.

Kinew, who has been open about his history of alcohol abuse, has been sober for a number of years.

Ewasko admits he said those words to Kinew, but is adamant that he is not racist and that the comment was not racially motivated.

Hanover kept in dark over proposed Sarto cell tower

A Rural municipality of Hanover councillor says a company that promised a new cell tower in the region’s service dead zone has cut communication nearly two years after it was first announced, leaving residents and local officials wondering if the tower will be built.

SLI Towers, a telecommunications contractor located in Etobicoke, Ont., previously held discussions with the rural municipality in 2024 about putting a new cellular tower near Sarto, roughly 15 kilometres south of Steinbach, said Ward 4 Coun. Ed Penner. The tower, which would have fixed the area’s signal gaps, was announced alongside another structure which was slated for Steinbach.

Steinbach administration said it wasn’t aware of any towers built after plans were brought to council in 2024. They also noted the tower falls under federal jurisdiction.

“If there was a 911 call, we’d be in trouble. If you don’t have a landline, you’re in trouble, and if you’re outside on the highway, if you have a MVA (motor vehicle accident) or there’s emergency needed, you have no response,” Penner told The Carillon.

Niverville Nighthawks team structure sets them apart in MJHL

The Niverville Nighthawks don’t look like many other Manitoba Junior Hockey League franchises.

The team does not employ a combined head coach and general manager, as is the case for nearly every other MJHL team. They instead employ Dwight Hirst as head coach and Mike McAulay as general manager.

Niverville joined the league in 2022, initially hiring Kelvin Cech in a combined role with McAulay as assistant general manager. When the team parted ways with Cech in the middle of the 2023/2024 season, they turned to Hirst, who is from Lac du Bonnet, as their interim coach and promoted McAulay to general manager, maintaining that structure ever since.

It paid off this year with a league championship and one of the strongest MJHL representatives in recent years at the national junior A championships. The Nighthawks went undefeated at the Centennial Cup en route to a national championship.

1946 – 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Steinbach mayors all kept an eye on Main

Considering the constant growth and the overall financial success of Steinbach, growing from a town of 1,000 to a city of over 18,000, it should come as no surprise that along the way most of the mayors were elected from the Main Street business community.

It would seem Steinbach residents decided that having a successful business on Main Street was a good qualification for someone to head town council. And so it was for K.R. Barkman, L.A. Barkman, and A.D. Penner, who guided Steinbach through the growing pains of the community through the first 34 years as a town.

Of the six mayors that followed, only two were not part of that Main Street business community, and they both served for a decade, showing that it was not absolutely necessary to own a business on Main Street to gain the confidence of the voting public. A few years on council before sitting in the mayor’s chair was experience enough for both Ernie A. Friesen and Les Magnusson.

As smoothly as the town has been run over the years, it would seem that it has very much been a matter of following the blueprint of previous councils and administrative staff at city hall. For 80 years, it has been very much business as usual, with the difference being that the town was no longer a corner store, but a giant supermarket.

COLUMN: Tales from the Gravel Ridge – Memories of the Rosengard Cemetery and beyond

The history of a community is, in part, and by its very nature, a history of the individuals who helped to shape that neighbourhood. That is so even if their lives may have been brief. It is a solemn thought that all of us in one way or another, have and continue to have a part in the story of a community.

In my family, those of us who survived into adulthood received part of our formal education at the Rosengard School No. 2168. That means that all of us who were already somewhat articulate in both German and Mennonite Low German, could now communicate in English as well. That early introduction to a formal education paved the way for each of us to move on into the larger world, finding meaningful employment, as well as our place in the larger world.

Cemeteries, especially in a relatively small, somewhat homogeneous community, can draw people together. Usually the individual who is being buried in such a situation is known to the rest of the community. Such is the Rosengard cemetery.

My first recollection of being at the Rosengard cemetery is not during a burial service, but rather one of members of our family tending the gravesite of my brother Erich, who died on May 23, 1946, at the tender age of thirteen months. And, invariably when we looked after Erich’s burial site, we also tended to that of my five-year-old sister Agatha, who was buried in the Rosengard cemetery in June, 1943, having died after a brief illness of cancer of her kidneys. At the same time we also paid our respects to my father’s sister Elizabeth Enns who died of tuberculosis in 1933 and is also buried in that cemetery.

SPORTS FLASHBACK 2005: All roads led back to Randolph for Andy Stoesz

Randolph’s Andy Stoesz enjoyed the travel that was part of being the best, and often the busiest, goaltender in the Southeast for close to two decades, but this Hall of Famer is more than happy to be right back where it all started.

In fact, Stoesz, his wife Debbie and daughter Jillian still live on the family farm, where Andy and his five brothers learned to skate on a backyard rink.

Stoesz first strapped on the pads when he was in grade five at Moray School and didn’t hang up those pads for good until more than 20 years later. Along the way, he played a huge role in winning national championships at both the junior and senior levels.

On his way to induction to Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba Hockey Halls of Fame, Stoesz backstopped teams to victories in junior hockey’s Centennial Cup, the Hardy Cup of intermediate hockey and senior hockey’s Allan Cup. Wherever he has played, Stoesz has been the main difference between winning and losing.

DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: The moments that win a Centennial Cup

Just making the Centennial Cup, Canada’s national junior A championship is an arduous task, but winning it, as the Niverville Nighthawks did this year in Summerside, P.E.I. takes a whole lot of effort, some great prepartion and a little bit of luck.

Every team you face is either a league champion or has been preparing for hosting duties for years. In a group of five, a team must finish first and get a bye to the tournament semi-finals to have a realistic chance at victory.

The host Summerside Western Capitals looked great at the tournament, pushing Niverville (ranked second in the country) to overtime and flat-out beating Rockland (ranked first) in group play. But a stumble against Alberta champions Canmore meant to win the tournament they needed to win three games over three consecutive days.

Beating Maritime rivals Truro in a league playoff rematch and blasting Quebec champions Longueuil was impressive but a re-match with Niverville in the final at a serious rest disadvantage was always going to be too much for the hosts to overcome.