High school hockey playoffs heating up

Winnipeg

High school hockey playoffs heating up

High school hockey players across Winnipeg and beyond are deep into playoff action.

The Winnipeg High School Hockey League’s top Platinum Promotions division wrapped up its championship series last week, with the Oak Park Raiders prevailing over the Vincent Massey Trojans in the best-of-three final. The two teams finished at the top of the regular season standings before blazing through the playoffs.

Manitoba a hotbed of goaltending greats

In our last Memories of Sport column, which featured Jimmy Foster, the goaltender who led Great Britain to hockey gold in the 1936 Winter Olympics, there was a comment that Manitoba had been blessed with many outstanding goalies. Charlie Gardiner, Sugar Jim Henry, Terry Sawchuk, Brandon-born Turk Broda and Ed Belfour, from Carman, were named as examples.

The Manitoba Hockey Players Foundation was formed in 1967 as an umbrella organization for hockey-oriented people such as former players, officials, coaches and fans. Over the years, the foundation has supported ex-players in need, as well as scholarships and charities. In 1985, the foundation formed the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum to preserve and promote our province’s hockey heritage. Sam Fabro was the first chairman.

On Oct. 13, 1985, the first class of inductees was named. The group included Manitobans who had been inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame. The goalies were Gardiner, Broda, Sawchuk and Charlie Rayner, who played for the Kenora Thistles in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League and won the NHL MVP award in 1949-50 with the New York Rangers.

Sugar Jim, who shared the Rangers net with Rayner for three seasons of his NHL career, was inducted in the initial Manitoba Hall of Fame group. Gordon Bell, Wilf Cude, and Paul Goodman were the other goalies. Bell helped the Portage Terriers win the 1942 Canadian junior championship and had a lengthy pro career, primarily in the AHL. Cude played junior for St. Vital and spent 10 years in the NHL from 1930 to 1940 with five different teams. Goodman played junior in Selkirk and won a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1938.

Next stop: junior ball

The Winnipeg Rifles’ latest group of player signings has head coach Geordie Wilson looking forward to training camp and the upcoming season. Several local high school stars recently committed to play with the Canadian Junior Football League club, with more names to be announced in the months ahead.

A pair of Grant Park Pirates top the list. Quarterback Alex Balasko looks to make the jump to junior in the coming season. In 2025, Balasko completed 78 of 127 passes for 1,341 yards and 10 touchdowns, while also averaged 6.4 yards per carry and scoring three touchdowns. In an October game against the Crocus Plainsmen, he threw for 377 yards and four touchdowns while rushing for a fifth.

“He’s tall, and a good athlete with good mechanics,” Wilson said. “He has the ‘it factor’.”

Balasko will have a familiar face protecting him on the offensive line. Fellow Pirate Sebastian Weisberger comes from a football family. Wilson said the young lineman has a great frame and loves to move bodies.

Boutet, Hayward win Manitoba junior titles

Skip Evan Boutet led his team to its second provincial title of the season when it capture the Manitoba junior men’s championship on Feb. 22 in Morris, Man.

Boutet’s rink from the Heather Curling Club, which also includes Luc Cormier, Bryce Buchel, Quinn Lagace and coach Blaine Malo, defeated Morden’s Nash Sugden 7-4 in the final, adding the junior men’s championship to the U-18 title it won earlier this year.

Shaela Hayward’s Carman foursome won the junior women’s championship for the third year in a row, defeating Cassidy Dundas of Heather 6-5 in the final. Hayward will be joined by teammates Keira Krahn, India Young, Dayna Wahl and coach Ron Westcott at the Canadian junior championships in Sudbury, Ont., next month.

Both Boutet and Sugden will represent Manitoba at the men’s tournament in Sudbury.

Top volleyballers earn Iwanoczko scholarships

Top volleyballers earn Iwanoczko scholarships

Transcona

The Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association and Volleyball Manitoba announced the 2026 recipients of the Dr. Dale Iwanoczko Memorial Volleyball Scholarships last week.

Gabriel Beaudin of Dauphin Regional Comprehensive Secondary School; Kaitlyn Couckuyt of Vincent Massey High School (Brandon, Man.); Céleste Pelletier of Collège Jeane-Sauvé and Elliot Smith of Miles Macdonnell Collegiate each received $1,000 for exceptional work both on and off the court.

A sport for everyone

Table tennis is hot right now.

So hot that Marty Supreme, a recent movie about a table tennis player from New York’s Lower East Side, played by Timothée Chalamet, has earned itself nine Academy Award nominations — including best picture, best actor (Chalamet) and a best director nod for Josh Safdie.

So it’s no wonder that the Manitoba Table Tennis Association is putting in the work to make table tennis as accessible as possible to those looking to pick up a paddle and join in on the fun.

While Marty Supreme features its share of healthy movie magic, presenting the sport at its global peak in the 1950s and lacing the match scenes with energetic cuts and cinematography for maximum effect, its depiction of competitive play wasn’t that far off the mark.

Stretching for success

Growing up, 16-year-old Manon Lambert split her time athletically between hip-hop dance and soccer. But now she is pretty much focused on soccer and plays for Bonivital Soccer Club.

“I love soccer. It’s physical. It’s exciting and it’s challenging,” she said. “It demands a lot of time and energy, but the payoff is worth it.

“I play defence, mostly centre back but sometimes fullback. There is nothing like sticking a good tackle or blocking a hard shot,” she added, which must make her coaches happy.

Speaking of coaches, Manon had nothing but good things to say about hers.

Off to the skate races

Blades flashed fast and furious at Canada Life Centre on Feb. 18.

That evening, hundreds of students from 17 elementary schools in Winnipeg School Division took part in the division’s 105th annual skate races, held this year in the downtown NHL rink.

“The goal of this event is to promote physical activity, healthy living, and positive sport behaviours,” said Alyson Gysel, WSD divisional physical and health education support teacher. “Building on what students learn in class, this extra-curricular opportunity allows them to explore skating as a lifelong activity.”

This year, approximately 375 students in Grades 3 to 6 took part.

Getting kids in the ring

The North End Community Renewal Corporation (NECRC) is pairing up with the North End Boxing Club after-school program for a knock-out of a collaborative pop-up on Feb. 18, the second in a planned series of similar events with the aim to introduce more youth in the area to affordable, accessible sports and recreation.

The project is a direct result of the hard work put in by Mary Alagao, sports co-ordinator at NECRC, who said she is personally invested in creating sporting opportunities for kids in the area.

“It’s hard for kids to get into sports in the area,” she said. “(The neighbourhood is) low-income, with a higher crime-rate … Kids need things to do to get them out of crime.”

“I had experience growing up and being in sports,” the North End resident continued, adding that although her own experience doesn’t exactly compare to many others in the area and what she continues to see today, she credits it as a constant positive influence during her upbringing.

Blazing a trail

Sunthaya Chea is blazing her own trail in the local taekwondo community.

Since last September, the 10-year-old has been taking classes at Elite Taekwondo in St. Vital, following in the footsteps of her two older sisters.

But there’s one significant thing different about Sunthaya’s journey — she’s hard of hearing and takes her classes with an American Sign Language interpreter nearby. The interpreter is made possible through funding from KidSport Manitoba and the Manitoba Deaf Sports Association.

Julius Bañares, Elite Taekwondo’s owner, explained that Chea’s mom, Florence Dumaguing, approached him about her daughter taking lessons. He said he hadn’t experienced having a hard-of-hearing student in 30 years of teaching the sport and was happy to give it a try.

Giants stand tall this season

The Elmwood Giants varsity boys basketball team is living up to its name this season.

In Winnipeg Tier 2 league play, the Giants were undefeated at press time, leading to the team being ranked the top AAA boys varsity team in the province.

“Coming into the season, we had a pretty young team,” coach Patrick Gadsby said, adding that the bulk of this year’s roster are Grade 11 players, with some Grade 12 and Grade 10 players in the mix as well.

“So far, they’ve been able to answer the call as far as showing a bit of progression and understanding the moment. They’re still young, so you get nerves and lack that veteran experience.”

A great, big football family

A Windsor Park-based football team has an extra 25,000 reasons to be cheerful.

The Falcons Football Club, based on Maginot Street, was recently named one of three Canadian recipients of an NFL Forward Pass grant.

The Falcons will receive a $25,000 donation from NFL Canada to help expand access to the sport and remove financial barriers.

Coaches, players, and community members were invited to nominate their programs and share how the funding would help them grow football locally.

Annual Skate the Oval deemed a success

The 2026 edition of Skate the Oval, organized by Speed Skating Manitoba, was held Feb. 1 at Cindy Klassen Recreation Complex, 999 Sargent Ave.

The annual, volunteer-run event was split into two parts – a fundraising initiative for the speed skating association and an accessible introduction to the sport for newbies, kids and adults alike. It raised $2,000 for the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba.

Speed Skating Manitoba organizes several events and programs throughout the winter. For more information, visit speedskatingmb.ca

An Olympic upset made in Winnipeg

The name Jimmy Foster might not be familiar to many Manitoba sports fans. He did, however, play the major role in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic hockey history in 1936 – when Great Britain won gold.

Hockey historians will know that the Winnipeg Falcons captured the gold medals in the first Olympic hockey competition in 1920. In the next three Winter Olympics, Canada continued to be the best in the world. In 1924, Canada was represented by the Toronto Granites, who had won the Allan Cup, emblematic of the Canadian senior championship the previous two seasons. In 1928, the rep was the Toronto Varsity Grads, and the Winnipeg Hockey Club, a.k.a. the Winnipegs, was on top of the world in 1932. Both were Allan Cup champions. The Winnipegs lineup included future Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame members Bill Cockburn, Vic Lindquist, Walter Monson and Romeo Rivers.

A goaltender, Foster was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and came to Winnipeg with his family when he was six. Beginning in 1922-23, he played three seasons of junior for the Argonauts and the University of Manitoba and then senior with several teams, including the Winnipegs and the Elmwood Millionaires. Foster moved east for the 1931-32 season and helped the Moncton Hawks win back-to-back Allan Cups in 1933 and 1934. English hockey then came calling and Foster joined the Richmond Hawks in London. His coach in Moncton and England was Percy Nicklin, whose son Jeff won the Grey Cup with the Blue Bombers in 1935 and 1939.

The 1936 Winter Olympics were held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, with 15 countries competing in hockey from Feb. 6–16. Due to players either moving away or being unavailable, the 1935 Allan Cup champion Halifax Wolverines could not represent Canada, so the runner-up Port Arthur Bear Cats were selected as the replacement. The Port Arthur squad was bolstered with players from other Canadian teams plus former Bear Cat Jim Haggarty, who was playing in England for the Wembley Canadians.

In the house

Charleswood Curling Club has become the new official home of the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame and Museum, which has set up shop in the building’s second floor.

The organization was established in 1987 to “procure, preserve and promote the rich history of curling in Manitoba and to honour the outstanding accomplishments of curlers, builders, curler/builders and teams”. Today it boasts a collection of over 40,000 artifacts — everything from lapel pins to on-ice measuring sticks to club and team jackets — dating all the way back to the 1880s, when curling became an organized sport in Manitoba.

The museum was originally located in the former Hudson’s Bay Company building on Portage Avenue. When the department store closed in 2020, the artifacts there were wrapped up and kept with the entire museum archive inside a storage unit at the Canada Games Sport for Life Centre.

“From a very practical perspective, a museum space is very expensive,” said Resby Coutts, treasurer of the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame and Museum’s board of directors. “(But) we always had a dream that we would have a museum space again.”