Local boxer gaining international experience

Isaiah Rock came home from his first two international bouts with valuable lessons he knows will make him a better boxer in the future.

In February, Rock, 23, represented Team Canada at BoxAm in La Nucía, Alicante, Spain, a tournament featuring boxers with Olympic experience. Matched against the seasoned Kazakh fighter Nurzat Ongarov, a former BoxAm medalist, Rock lost a decision, but learned plenty.

“I didn’t know who I was going to fight, but I pictured it in my head,” the West End resident said. “I imagined it would be super uncomfortable and incredibly fast-paced. I overdid it a bit, but generally handled it well.

“At that level, the smallest things really matter,” he added. “The experience plays a role on the international level. I learned that my skills work there, that I can handle the moment. Even when I was about to fight, I felt nothing. It was just a job I had to do.”

J.H. Bruns student stays focused on the pitch

Alessa Guzzi is a 15-year-old Grade 9 student at J.H. Bruns Collegiate.

“School is good,” Guzzi said. “I have great grades and great friends. My favourite class is science. I am very interested in biology.”

Alessa has always been very active and locked on to her favourite sport since a very young age.

“I have been fully focused on soccer since I started playing when I was three,” she said. “I started playing club soccer at U9 at Bonivital Soccer Club.”

Glenlawn wins big at high school pickleball championships

Two pairs of Glenlawn students recently served up success at the Pickleball Manitoba high school championships.

On May 14 at The Picklr Winnipeg South (262 Commerce Dr.), the pairing of Carlos Mendez and Jayden Lalla won gold in the boys’ doubles category. In girls’ doubles, Jessie DeCraene and Addisyn Courchaine won silver.

In the competitive divisions, there were 29 pairings in the boys category, 25 in the girls, and 10 in the mixed doubles.

“It feels good,” Mendez, 17 said. “We’ve been working really hard and going every week to play pickleball.”

For a guy who says he’s not a fanatic…

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines a fan as “a devotee or admirer of a particular activity, performer, etc.” with the example “hockey fan.’ It adds that it’s an abbreviation of fanatic. The first definition of fanatic is “a person filled with excessive and often misguided enthusiasm for something.” A second, informal definition of fanatic is “a person devoted to a hobby, pastime, sport, etc., and the example used is “curling fanatic.”

Despite following, playing and reporting on sports for much of my life, I would never define myself as a fan, let alone a fanatic. Perhaps the closest I came was during the early years of the WHA Winnipeg Jets, when I shared season tickets with a group of friends and admired the play of the Hot Line of Bobby Hull, Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson.

You won’t see me at a Jets game dressed in white like the fanatics who participate in playoff White Outs to support their team. I follow the adage that white is not to be worn before the May long weekend or after Labour Day.

On May 19, a new book titled Big Fan was released with the subtitle Two Friends, 82,490 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love. The authors are television writer, producer and director Michael Schur, the winner of three Primetime Emmy Awards, and sports journalist Joe Posnanski, who was twice named the best sports columnist in America by the Associated Press sports editors.

Club volleyball champs crowned

Volleyball Manitoba held its 2026 club volleyball championship tournaments on four successive weekends from mid-April through the beginning of May.

On the weekend of April 17 to 19, the 14U boys and girls tournaments were held in Winnipeg and Niverville. The winners were:

14U girls – 1) Jr. Bisons Gold; 2) WinMan Storm; 3) WinMan Waves.

14U boys – 1) WinMan Bolts; 2) WinMan Ice; 3) Jr. Pilots.

Pirates capture flag football title

The Grant Park Pirates are the champions of the Winnipeg High School Football League’s inaugural boys flag football season. J.H. Bruns Broncos were the runner-up.

Launched in conjunction with the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association, Football Manitoba, and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the inaugural season featured teams from seven schools across Winnipeg.

According to league commissioner Jeffrey Bannon, next year the league is looking to expand, including rural schools, a co-ed division, and more, with a goal of having over 2,000 kids playing.

“The longer term goal is to amalgamate with the Blue Bombers Girls league to create one super High School Flag Football League across the province,” Bannon said. “Everyone is working together to ensure everyone who wants to play can and it’s a joy to watch, especially those playing for the first time.”

En garde!

When Jasper Fosty was asked how it felt to bring the gold medal in cadet men’s sabre at the Canadian national fencing championship in Quebec City earlier this month, he didn’t miss a beat.

“It was an unreal feeling,” said the Grade 10 Kildonan-East Collegiate student. “It took a little while to sink in. I took off my mask, walked over to my coach. I was smiling a little, and he said, ‘You’re the national champion!’ Then it felt real.”

Fosty started fencing in 2021. An only child whose parents work throughout the summer, he first picked up the sabre at summer camp and quickly found an affinity for the sport.

“I felt like a natural at it,” Fosty, 15, said. “Within the first year I was on the provincial team.”

Sports news in brief – week of May 20, 2026

Lawn bowling season kicks off

Bowls Manitoba will host its third annual season-opening fours tournament at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 23 at the Dakota Lawn Bowling Centre, 1212 Dakota St.

Played on an artificial green, the tournament will bring together club members with former provincial champions and other leading players.

Clubs from Brandon, Gimli and Winnipeg, including Tuxedo, St. John’s, Norwood and St. James, have each provided two teams of three players. To make a foursome, each team will be assigned a skip who has competed at the provincial and/or national level. Games will be 10 ends, with each player delivering two bowls. All teams are guaranteed three games.

A pleasant round in the valley

I try to focus on rural nine-hole courses in this space. Last fall, while closing down the cottage at Pelican Lake, the weather was almost summer-like – 20 degrees, clear skies, and no wind. A call for a break from closing-up duty led me to one of my two favourite childhood golf courses (the first being Roland).

While playing, I noticed that holes 4 and 5 had had some recent modifications – which is a good excuse to write about the course. So, at the south end of Pelican Lake lies Pleasant Valley Golf Club.

The club is surrounded by a busy cottage area. There is a small clubhouse and restaurant, and a small driving net to warm up in. There is a large practice green, and a very large fleet of motorized golf carts. This impressive fleet allows the club to host many tournaments throughout the season. In 2009, Pleasant Valley course was being picked as one of Canada’s best public courses by Score magazine.

These days, Pleasant Valley is an 18-hole course, having expanded into the valley face decades ago. The back nine is a story in its own right, but the first nine still draws players from all over Manitoba for folks wanting challenging play. Today, I will discuss just the front nine.

Budding catcher loves playing ball

Lincoln Jeter Bowie is an eight-year-old Grade 2 student at École Springfield Heights School and an aspiring baseball player.

“I am mostly focused on baseball. Like all the other sports I like, it is fun and it gives me good exercise,” he said. “I used to play for the Elmwood Giants, now I am playing for the Gateway Flyers. Our coaches are really good, and I like our team. We have a good group of players.”

“I have played all the positions in baseball. My favourite position though is backcatcher,” he said, then went on to explain why.

“I like how the whole game is in front of you and how I am involved on every pitch. I like the relationship between the catcher and the pitcher. I also like the different defensive things I do as a backcatcher,” he said.

Batter up!

Luis Reis is hoping a few more folks come out swinging this slo-pitch season.

Reis is the president of the South Winnipeg Senior Slo-Pitch League, which gets together every Tuesday and Thursday during the spring, summer and fall in the south end of the city — weather permitting — and he says new members are more than welcome to join in the fun.

“The league is growing every year, and we currently have 90 members,” said Reis, who now lives in the West End, having previously lived in Whyte Ridge for 25 years.

Players gather on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for the first part of the season, switching to Tuesday and Thursday mornings in July and August to avoid the heat and humidity at that time of the year. Ideally, he said, play will continue until Thanksgiving. At press time, Reis said he had pencilled in May 12 as the first session of the season.

Provincial high school badminton champions crowned

High school badminton aficionados took part in the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association’s provincial badminton championships at the Sport Manitoba Training Centre in Winnipeg from April 30 to May 1.

Various schools from across Winnipeg took home gold in both junior varsity and varsity categories.

Kate Li of Fort Richmond Collegiate was the varsity girls’ champion, while the boys’ varsity championship went to Anson Chen from St. Paul’s High School — his second time taking the title, after winning in 2024.

Fort Richmond took home both junior varsity singles titles. Parham Raji topped the boys category and Zoey Zang won the girls.

A field of baseball memories

For most of my life, baseball and softball seem to have dominated my summers. Two purchases I made at the recent Children’s Hospital Book Market got me delving into my baseball memory bank and planning a series of related columns over the summer.

In the book If You Build it…, Dwier Brown, who played a catcher and father in the movie Field of Dreams, writes about playing catch and about father-son relationships. The Twins at the Met covers the history of the Minnesota Twins at their first home, Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, MInn.

The summer before COVID-19 hit, I visited the Field of Dreams site in Iowa with my longtime Touring All-Stars slo-pitch teammates Rob McKenzie and Bryan McTaggart, and played catch after coming out of the famous corn field. The Met was where I saw my first major league game the year the Washington Senators relocated to the Twin Cities. With me on that journey were former Elmwood Giants catcher Ted Nakano and a future Canadian 10-pin bowling champion Paul Yoshimasu.

My first real memory goes back to Grade 1 at Laura Secord School. We were playing softball at recess and I was on third base. When the catcher threw the ball back towards the pitcher, I ran home. Unfortunately for me, the pitcher immediately threw the ball back to the catcher. The batter thought it was a pitch but instead of hitting the ball he connected with my forehead. The doctor told my mother I was lucky to survive with nothing more than a few stitches and a scar. I know some readers and teammates will suggest that I never completely recovered.

Transcona wins MMJHL championship

It took seven games, but a Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League champion has been crowned.

The Transcona Railer Express beat the St. Boniface Riels 5-0 on home ice at the Transcona East End Arena on April 28 to bring home the club’s first MMJHL championship. It was the first for a Transcona team since the original Railers club won back-to-back titles in 1990-91 and 1991-92.

Railer Express brings home championship

It took seven games, but a Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League champion has been crowned.

The Transcona Railer Express beat the St. Boniface Riels 5-0 on home ice at the Transcona East End Arena on April 28 to bring home the club’s first MMJHL championship.

“It was a long time coming,” said longtime Railer Express coach Derek Gagnon. “We put a lot of hard work in. The players show up to practices in January when it’s really cold. Hard work and dedication has led to the fruition of our long-term goal.”

Captain Nolan Van Den Bussche led the way in Game 7 with four goals, scoring once in the first period, twice in the second, and again in the third, with a fifth goal from Ryder McLure. Sage Delaronde stopped all 29 shots he faced in net.