News briefs for February 20, 2020

The University of Winnipeg Wesmen women’s basketball team saw their season come to a close on Thursday night. 

U of W lost 92-85 to the UBC Thunderbirds in the quarterfinals in Saskatoon. 

The Wesmen finished the regular season 12-8 and beat the Manitoba Bisons in a play-in game to earn a spot in the quarterfinal.

OTTAWA — The Winnipeg Jets will carry a 4-1 lead over the Ottawa Senators into the third period tonight.

Kyle Connor scored his team-leading 30th goal and Nikolaj Ehlers added his 22nd in the second period to give the visitors a three-goal cushion.

Mark Scheifele snapped a 12-game scoring slump with two power-play markers in the first period.

Nick Paul had given Ottawa a 1-0 lead midway through the first.

It’s the first of four straight games on the road for the Jets, who have won their last two games and can vault into a wild-card spot in the Western Conference with two points tonight.

Laurent Brossoit has stopped 22 shots between the pipes for Winnipeg.

OTTAWA — Mark Scheifele’s goal-scoring slump is over.

Winnipeg’s top centre scored a pair of power-play goals in 71 seconds to propel the Jets to a 2-1 first-period lead over the Ottawa Senators tonight.

He had gone a dozen games without scoring but raised his total to 25 tallies, tying Patrik Laine but still four behind team-leader Kyle Connor.

Laine drew assists on both of Scheifele goals on netminder Marcus Hogberg, the first coming on a shot to the top shelf at 16:35 and the second on a nifty deflection at 17:46.

The Jets gave up the first goal for the sixth straight game, as Ottawa forward Nick Paul scored his eight goal of the season off a faceoff at 11:50. Winnipeg winger Nikolaj Ehlers left his side of the circle but didn’t pick up Paul, who slid to the slot and beat goalie Laurent Brossoit.

Valour FC today announced the permanent transfer of Winnipeg product Tyler Attardo to Chilean club Fernández Vial S.A.D.P. (Segunda División) for an undisclosed fee.

Attardo becomes the youngest player in the Canadian Premier League to be transferred to another club and the first to transfer to South America.

Attardo was signed January 28, 2019 and played 1,049 minutes scoring 6 goals in all competitions.

The Canada West awarded their top basketball performers from the 2019-20 season on Thursday and the city’s university programs were well represented.

In women’s hoops, Manitoba Bisons’ fourth-year guard Taylor Randall was selected as a third-team all-star for a third consecutive season. First-year guard Lauren Bartlett was named to the all-rookie team. Winnipeg Wesmen freshmen guard Anna Kernaghan also made the all-rookie squad. 

The Herd also had a duo recognized in men’s basketball. Fifth-year guard Rashawn Browne was named a first-team all-star. Fourth-year forward James Wagner was selected to the third team.

Fourth-year Wesmen guard Narcisse Ambanza made it as a second-team all-star and becomes the first Wesmen player to make four straight all-star teams since Erfan Nasajpour did it from 2004 to 2008. 

OTTAWA — Dylan DeMelo will be paired with Nathan Beaulieu on the Winnipeg blue line tonight as he and the Jets take on his former team, the Ottawa Senators.

Game time is 6:30 p.m. CT at Canadian Tire Centre. DeMelo was acquired in a trade with Ottawa earlier this week, with the Jets sending a third-round pick in this summer’s draft to the Senators.

Winnipeg will be backstopped by goalie Laurent Brossoit. The Jets (31-25-5) have won their last two contests and are 6-2-1 in their last nine, including a 5-2 victory at home to the Senators on Feb. 8.

With a win, Winnipeg could vault into a wild-card playoff spot over the idle Calgary Flames.

Manitoba still has no cases of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus.

As of today, 23 tests have been completed for COVID-19 in Manitoba and no one tested positive, Manitoba Health, Seniors and Active Living said in a press release Thursday. 

The risk of getting the virus in Manitoba remains low, the release said.

Eight cases of the COVID-19 have been confirmed in Canada, all of them in Ontario and British Columbia. 

Two men and a woman have been arrested and a man is being sought after a robbery at a rural residence in the RM of Rockwood.

The suspects went to the property in a red pickup truck on Feb. 18 at about 6:20 p.m., stole items, then fled by driving through a closed gate, nearly hitting the homeowner who was trying to stop them, according to police.

RCMP officers from Stonewall, Arborg and Gimli launched extensive patrols of the area and finally spotted the suspects’ vehicle near Riverton at about 11 p.m.

A 35-year-old Riverton man, 26-year-old Winnipeg man, and a 36-year-old Arborg woman have been charged with robbery. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of 51-year-old Tom Joseph Raill of the RM of Bifrost-Riverton.

If you’ve received a Manitoba Hydro phone call from a toll free number it is a scam.

Winnipeg police are warning Winnipeggers that unknown people are phoning saying they are Manitoba Hydro employees and asking for personal information as well as payments either by Bitcoin or in person using "large amounts of cash".

Police say the calls are coming from the phone number 1-800-696-4720. The calls may also come from other phone numbers.

Manitoba Hydro is asking people who have received one of these calls to contact them at 204-480-5900 or go to www.hydro.mb.ca/accounts_and_services/frauds_and_scams/report/ and they will report the call to police.

The redeveloped Portage Place Mall will include up to 10,000 square feet of community space, accessible to the public 24 hours a day.

The space, which will include public washrooms, will be named P3Commons, according to a press release issued by developer Starlight Investments on Thursday.

Toronto-based Starlight is planning to redevelop the downtown Winnipeg mall.

Red River Co-op members should be getting their profit-sharing cheques in the near future.

A total of $37.8 million is being returned to members for the 2019 fiscal year, the cooperative said Thursday.

Cheques worth $33.7 million are being sent to Red River Co-op’s more than 310,000 members in the Winnipeg area, while the remainder will stay in co-op members’ equity accounts.

Two members of the University of Manitoba women’s basketball team have been handed year-end honours.

Fourth-year guard Taylor Randall, who hails from Dundas, Ont., was named to the Canada West Conference’s third-team all-star squad for the third consecutive year while first-year guard Lauren Bartlett, a Winnipeg product, has been chosen for the all-rookie team. 

Grammy Award-winning R&B/pop artist the Weeknd will be bringing his After Hours tour to Bell MTS Place June 17. 

The Canadian singer will be on the road to support his upcoming new album, After Hours, his fourth full-length, which will be released Mar. 20. 

"The After Hours tour will showcase state of the art production and one of the most innovative stage designs to date, containing the most LED lights and video for an arena show," says a news release about the more than 50-city tour which takes the singer through North America and parts of Europe.  

Tickets go on sale Friday, Feb. 28, at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster. Pricing information was not made available. 

The Canadian Premier League announced today that Valour FC will play its home opener on May 2 against Atlético Ottawa. 

The season will open on April 11 as Forge FC will host Cavalry FC in a rematch of last year’s final.

The rest of the 28-game schedule will be revealed Friday. 

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have signed American defensive back Jamalcolm Liggins.

Liggins, a 6-2, 200-pounder from NAIA Dickinson State, finished his career with the Blue Hawks by earning-first team all-American honors in 2018.

A man is facing charges in connection with a crash that shut down traffic in part of the Exchange District for hours.

Winnipeg police said officers tried to pull over a vehicle driving erratically in the area of William Avenue and Princess Street at about 4:30 a.m. today. The car kept going and soon collided with another car at the intersection of Bannatyne Avenue and Princess Street, the Winnipeg Police Service said.

A traffic light standard was toppled in the crash.

The driver of the first car fled and was captured after a short foot chase.

The other drive, a woman, was taken to hospital in stable condition.

Justin Vandale, 29, of Winnipeg, has been charged with impaired driving, dangerous driving, flight from police and multiple weapons offences. He remains in custody.

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