Mike Stubbs scored the game-winning goal in the second period as the Portage Terriers rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to beat the Virden Oil Capitals 4-2 in Manitoba Junior Hockey League playoff action at Stride Place Friday night.

Austin Peters, Brenden Holba and Ryan Botterill also scored for the Terriers, who took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven semifinal.

Naton Miller and Andrew Blocker replied with goals for the Capitals, who host Game 6 Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

The Winnipeg Ice found a way against the fourth-ranked Moose Jaw Warriors, prevailing 5-3 in Game 1 of the East Division semi-finals at Wayne Fleming Arena on Friday night.

Owen Pederson and Graham Sward bookended an offensive output that saw five different players score for the hosts. For the first time in the playoffs, the Ice paced the game in shots 37-29 while goaltender Daniel Hauser secured the victory on the strength of 26 saves.

The Ice and Warriors will run it back for Game 2 at Wayne Fleming Arena on Saturday night, 6 p.m. puck drop.

Manitoba hasn't recorded any COVID deaths for four consecutive weeks, the longest stretch of time without any fatalities from the virus since 2020.

Zero new deaths were reported for the week of April 2 to 8, according to the latest data available in the provincial government's respiratory virus surveillance report. There were 132 COVID cases lab-confirmed that week, as well as 53 hospital admissions and eight intensive care admissions among patients who tested positive.

The case count is up slightly, but hospitalizations are relatively steady.

There were 121 cases reported, including 57 hospitalized patients with COVID and 10 in intensive care, during the week of March 26 to April 1. The week before that, 146 COVID cases, 59 hospitalizations, and 11 ICU admissions were reported.

Firefighters doused flames in an Albert Street hotel early Friday morning.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said crews were called to the hotel at 2:42 a.m. When firefighters arrived, they saw smoke coming from the building.

They got the blaze under control by 3:10 a.m., WFPS said. No one was hurt and the fire is under investigation.

Allied health workers have voted overwhelmingly in support of a strike.

On Friday, the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals said 99 per cent of its membership voted in favour of walking off the job if contract negotiations with their employers do not progress.

The union's bargaining committee called for a strike vote last month and the vote was held this week.

MAHCP represents rural paramedics and emergency dispatch; diagnostic imaging and laboratory technologists; mental health and addictions counsellors, respiratory therapists, midwives and over 40 other specialized professions. Over 6,5000 workers are represented by the union and are employed by Shared Health and regional health authorities in Manitoba.

Workers have been without a new collective agreement for over five years.

“This strike vote result vote clearly shows they are done waiting," MAHCP president Jason Linklater said in a release.

Police are investigating after a body was found inside a burning garage on Mountain Avenue.

Fire crews were sent to the fire in the 500 block of Mountain at about 5:30 a.m. Friday. Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service members found a dead adult inside the garage and advised police.

The body was transported to hospital pending an autopsy.

The major crimes unit is investigating.

The Winnipeg Police Service is asking anyone with information about the incident to call investigators at 204-986-6219 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477 (TIPS).

The Winnipeg Jets will meet the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Jets clinched the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference following a 3-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, leaving them to wait to find out who their opponent would be in the postseason. That was determined late Thursday, following a 3-1 win over the Seattle Kraken, earning the Golden Knights top seed in the West.

The other option would have been the red-hot Edmonton Oilers, who earned a victory over the lowly San Jose Sharks Thursday that forced Vegas to earn at least a point against the Kraken to surpass Edmonton for top spot in the Pacific Division and a chance to host the Jets in Round 1. The Golden Knights have beat the Jets in all three games they've played this season, with Winnipeg earning just a single point from a 2-1 overtime loss back in January.

Game 1 and Game 2 will be played in Vegas on Tuesday and Thursday, with Game 3 and Game 4 in Winnipeg still to be determined.

Thompson RCMP are asking for help investigating a "serious incident" in which a 32-year-old man was found with life-threatening injuries in the northern city earlier this month.

RCMP said officers were called to the parking lot of a business on Station Road in Thompson at about 10:10 p.m. on April 5, where the man, from Tataskweyak Cree Nation was found unresponsive. He was taken to hospital, where he's still in critical but stable condition.

Mounties ask anyone with information about the incident to call the Thompson detachment at 204-677-6909 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

A 38-year-old man was shot and cut with a blade after a dispute in a Furby Street suite Tuesday evening.

Winnipeg police said officers on patrol were approached by the injured man on the 500 block of the Spence neighbourhood street at about 5:30 p.m. He had been shot in the lower body and cut in the upper body, police said.

Officers gave him medical care before paramedics took him to hospital in critical condition, where he's since been stabilized. Police think the man had been visiting a home on the street, where an argument escalated into a woman shooting the victim before a man assaulted him with a bladed weapon.

Major crimes police arrested a 22-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man, who have been held in custody and charged with multiple weapons offences.

A group of Good Samaritans who stopped to help free a vehicle stuck in the snow were carjacked and robbed in St. Theresa Point First Nation Saturday.

Island Lake RCMP were called to the carjacking at about 1:40 p.m. The Mounties were told the 20-year-old driver had been pulled from the vehicle, assaulted with a knife and an electro-shock weapon, before the assailants got in his pick-up truck and sped off with two female victims, 18 and 21, still inside.

The driver was taken to the local nursing station, while the two uninjured women were let out of the stolen truck a short time later.

RCMP have arrested two men and a woman from the First Nation. The trio, who have been remanded into custody, have been charged with kidnapping, robbery, assault with a weapon, uttering threats and other weapons offences.

A book detailing the bumpy path to reconciliation between the town of Rossburn and the Waywayseecappo First Nation is among the five-book short list for the $12,000 John W. Dafoe Book Prize.

Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson is in contention for the prize along with Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police by David A. Wilson; Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay by Merilyn Simonds; Jackson’s Wars: A.Y. Jackson, the Birth of the Group of Seven, and the Great War by Douglas Hunter; and I Will Live for Both of Us: A History of Colonialism, Uranium Mining, and Inuit Resistance, by Joan Scottie, Warren Bernauer and Jack Hicks, which was published by University of Manitoba Press.

The winner of the prize will be announced in late April, and the winner will be invited to give a talk in Winnipeg in the fall.