Area students set for high school provincials

High School athletes will be competing for top-end banners this weekend as the baseball, softball, rugby and soccer provincial championships are all set to be given out June 6.

Those looking to travel close to home can catch the soccer championships at the Steinbach Soccer Park. Eight teams will play in a single-knockout format on both the boys and girls side.

The Steinbach Regional Secondary School Sabres girls team will be taking on Léo-Rémillard at 10 a.m. June 5. The girls final will be at 2 p.m. June 6.

In the boys’ bracket, SRSS will be facing Zone 15 champions Vincent Massey (Brandon) in the quarterfinals. The game kicks off at 11:30 a.m. June 6, with the boys final 12:15 p.m. the next day.

Carillon Sports Second Shots: May 28th Edition

Featuring an SRSS rugby match, SRSS spring football games and the Zone 13 softball championships.

DSFM schools duke it out for Zone 13 softball championship

Throughout the Zone 13 Softball championships, Collège Régional Gabrielle-Roy and École Saint-Joachim schools had a competitive advantage. They were able to shout instructions to their players in French to keep their cards close to their chest.

That wasn’t the case in the final, as St Joachim defeated Gab-Roy 10-6 to claim the Zone 13 softball championships. Four Division scolaire franco-manitobaine schools were represented in the final, with Les Roys teaming up to field a co-op team with Pointe-des-Chênes and the Braves playing alongside Réal-Bérard.

“It’s the first time in probably 20 years two DSFM teams were in the finals in Zone 13,” St Joachim head coach Pat Tetreault said after the game.

“Hats off to their team, and I’m proud of my bunch for stepping up. Two little schools competing against some pretty big schools and we’re not done.”

SRSS win Zone 13 baseball banner in dramatic fashion

Since the 2018 season, the Steinbach Regional Secondary School Sabres have dominated the Zone 13 baseball diamonds. The Sabres have yet to lose a game in either the league or the championship tournament, en route to banner win after banner win.

The team got their toughest test in years this season, but managed to overcome the Saint-Joachim Braves to win the final 6-5, thanks to a walk-off single from Grade 9 student Kyler Verestiuk.

“Every year is exciting but when you win in walk-off fashion, it’s obviously a little different,” Brandt said.

“That was a fun moment.”

Carillon Sultans off to hot start in MJBL and fundraising

The back-to-back Manitoba Junior Baseball League champions Carillon Sultans are back on the field, preparing for another memorable season.

The team is 5-0 to start the year. They earned the right to represent the province at nationals in Windsor, Ont. with their 2025 championship win. The team got a head start on fundraising last season, but are still looking for support.

They’re hosting a trivia night at St Adolphe Community Club June 5 to support their fundraising efforts. The cost is $240 per team.

Head coach Don Meilleur, who has taken over for Rick Penner this season, said the team was also planning on doing another raffle this season, with tickets to go on sale soon.

SPORTS FLASHBACK 1995: La Broquerie teen excels at cricket

Eighteen-year-old Andrew Amsden of La Broquerie is consumed with cricket, and for good reason. The 1995 graduate of the Steinbach Regional Secondary School, who emigrated to Canada from Britain with his family in 1989, spent the summer playing for Canada’s Under 19 National Cricket Team.

While Amsden’s classmates at the SRSS naturally are more familiar and more concerned with sports such as volleyball, basketball, hockey, baseball, or perhaps curling, Amsden is ensconced in cricket, and understandably so.

For the uninitiated, according to the dictionary, “cricket is a game played with a ball and solid wood bat by two sides of 11 players on a grass field centering on two wickets, each defended in turn by a batsman.”

The rules of cricket make it a complex game for the outsider.

DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Zach Collaros has been underpaid by Blue Bombers

Last week I was talking with my dad about the upcoming CFL season and the talk inevitably turned to the Blue Bombers quarterback situation. With 37-year-old Zach Collaros in the final year of his contract worth a reported $550,000, the conversation inevitably turned to the back-up position.

It has been a facinating battle this camp for the Bombers, with highly touted Canadian Taylor Elgersma, who had a stint with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers battling normal back-up Terry Wilson and former Los Angelas Rams pivot and United Football League 2025 most valuable player Bryce Perkins. Wilson, seemingly recognizing he was the low man on the roster, appeared to leave the team before the start of their pre-season game last weekend.

The future of Winnipeg’s quarterback position is exciting, if a complete unknown, but Collaros still deserves mention. The pivot who led the Bombers to back-to-back Grey Cup championship wins seemed to have lost a step last season, putting up just 3,000 yards while leading the league in interceptions and posting a 6-7 record.

After a mediocre season, some may question if Collaros is still deserving of being the highest paid quarterback in the CFL. But those stats miss the bigger picture thanks to a 2025 stat which was released this April.

AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Sidney Crosby: A true Canadian hero

When Hockey Canada announced that Sid Crosby would be joining Team Canada at the World Championships in Switzerland, it’s safe to say that hockey fans from coast to coast to coast rejoiced.

The last time we saw Crosby wearing the maple leaf on his chest, it was at the Milano Olympics, where Canada was robbed of a gold medal by the spectacular play of Connor Hellebuyck.

Crosby wasn’t just the captain of our Olympic team; he was the heart and the soul of Team Canada. After sustaining an injury late in the tournament, an anxious nation wondered if he would somehow be able to play in the gold medal game.

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall as Team Canada officials decided whether a 70% Crosby is better than no Crosby. There was speculation that he would be asked to suit up for the game just so he could sit on the bench to cheer on his teammates.

Warkentine set to join Kihn at Valley City

Another softball player from the region is heading south to pursue a post-secondary career.

Landmark’s Kelsey Warkentine will be playing for the Valley City Vikings beginning next season. The graduating player was named the Jean Mayne Memorial Award Winner as the top female softball player in the province for 2025, helping the U17 Eastman Wildcats to a provincial championship.

La Broquerie’s Pascale Kihn joined Valley City last year, so Warkentine had the inside scoop on what the program was like.

“It’s a very small school, their coaches are very nice, it’s the right level for me I feel like,” Warkentine said.

Rugby continues expansion at Steinbach Regional

The Steinbach Regional Secondary School Sabres are fast becoming a destination for Rugby.

After dominating the Winnipeg Sevens league for the past few seasons, they’ve added 15s and 10s to their offerings and have immediately found success there as well, all while maintaining that high level in the smaller formats.

“We’re on the rugby pitch most days of the week now which is amazing, but learning a couple different games has been a challenge,” head coach Tahnee Grosskopf said.

“The girls have definately risen to that challenge.”

CARILLON SPORTS SECOND SHOTS: Centennial Cup Finals

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

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.

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.

AS I SEE IT COLUMN: All hail Canadian champion Niverville Nighthawks

It is impossible to put into context just how massive, just how exceptional it is that the Niverville Nighthawks, in only their fourth year in existence, are the best junior A hockey club in the nation.

Going through the Centennial Cup without a loss? Impressive. Being crowned the best junior A team in Canada at such an early age of an organization? Historic.

Some context is needed here to at least try and explain how big the Nighthawk’s championship season was.

In the storied history of Canadian hockey, there had been only three Manitoba teams that had won the Centennial Cup before this year’s tournament. The Portage Terriers have done it twice (in 1973, led by Blumenort’s scoring sensation Randy Penner, who scored an astounding 34 goals in 24 Centennial Cup playoff games that year, including a hat trick in the deciding game. The Terriers won again in 2015). The Selkirk Steelers did it the following season in 1974, thanks to a core of fantastic hockey players from Steinbach (Andy Stoez, Ken Neufeld, Randy Reimer, Ray Mutcheson and Chester Reimer.)