Quebecor complains to Competition Bureau about Loblaw-Glentel agreement

Retired guidance counsellor defends explicit 2025 sex-ed presentation to high school football team in disciplinary hearing

Gus Watanabe, a former employee of Oak Park High School in Winnipeg, was the subject of a public disciplinary hearing on Thursday.

Sisters relieved hospital takes accountability after mother’s death

Eight months after losing their mother, two Winnipeg sisters say an internal hospital review has finally given them something they had been seeking since her death: accountability.

Chelsea Mann and Samantha Burns said St. Boniface Hospital officials acknowledged mistakes were made in the care of their mother, Judy Burns, during a recent meeting to discuss the findings of a critical incident review into her death.

The acknowledgement marked a significant departure from an earlier meeting with hospital officials, when they felt their concerns were largely dismissed.

Burns, 68, died on Jan. 21, three days after being admitted, after experiencing rectal bleeding.

Jets bench boss Arniel talks rebuilding from last season’s struggles

Scott Arniel has a lot on his plate these days.

But the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets took some time Thursday to sit down with Free Press hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe to discuss a number of topics on the eve of a new hockey season. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Wiebe: What was the evaluation of last season like? What did you personally do in an attempt to improve after going from first-overall to 26th-overall?

I just went back and looked at things and made sure my communication was where it needed to be with my players. Was my communication where it needed to be with my boss, with my general manager (Kevin Cheveldayoff)? How our coaching staff worked. How we handled highs and lows. Things I felt I could have done better.

Board game company charts winning path

Dennis Northcott has launched a game without frontiers.

The Winnipeg entrepreneur is the co-designer of Galactic Cruise, a board game published last year by Kinson Key Games LLC, the business he co-founded. Since its release, Galactic Cruise has been translated into 11 languages and sold around 50,000 copies worldwide.

It’s also one of three finalists for this year’s Deutsche Spiele Preis, a prestigious community-voted board game award. Northcott will travel to Essen, Germany, later this month, where the winner will be announced at Spiel Essen, an annual board game trade fair.

“It’s been amazing,” Northcott said of the response to Galactic Cruise during an interview in his Island Lakes neighbourhood home earlier this week. “The sales have been great, but it’s also been amazing in terms of people giving their reviews.”

Ferraro gets call-up to the Jets

Landon Ferraro vividly recalls the moment his NHL career came to an extremely painful end — Oct. 20, 2017, in downtown Winnipeg.

“My last play was a breakaway on Connor Hellebuyck,” Ferraro told the Free Press this week.

“I tried to poke the puck past the first D. It was me and (Dustin) Byfuglien chasing it down. I thought he was going to throw me across the ice, so I tried to cut in on him, and he moved. I overextended, and I literally ripped my abductor off the bone and gave myself a hernia.”

Ferraro — at the time playing forward for the visiting Minnesota Wild — said he managed to get off a weak shot that hit the Jets goaltender square in the chest. But his 77th appearance in the big leagues would be his last following previous stops with Detroit (which drafted him 32nd overall in 2009) and Boston.