Manitoba bowlers eager to strike gold on world stage

Already making history earlier this year when she became the first woman to win the Marinelli City Singles bowling tournament, Marissa Naylor-McCall is now bolstering her training routine as she prepares to represent Team Canada at the 2025 International Bowling Federation World Championships.

Bisons look to bounce back to winning ways despite injured Tachinski

The Manitoba Bisons are in the middle of the chase for a Canada West playoff spot, but might be without their quarterback for the second week in a row.

Jackson Tachinski’s status is up in the air for Saturday’s home contest against the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds at Princess Auto Stadium (12 p.m.).

Tachinski, who did not return to the field after halftime of the Bisons’ Sept. 20 game against the Alberta Golden Bears, missed last week against the Regina Rams.

The star fifth-year pivot practised this week, but head coach Stan Pierre could not say how confident he is that Tachinski will start.

Rugby clubs ready to rumble in super Saturday clashes

The stakes are vastly different, but Courtney Maines can draw parallels between her rugby team and the one playing for a world championship in Twickenham, England, on Saturday.

After the Canadian women’s national rugby team tries to pull off what many thought was the unthinkable when it faces world No. 1 England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup final (10 a.m. CT), Maines and the Brumbies will attempt to pull off a shocker of their own at the Manitoba Provincial Rugby Championships.

The Brumbies haven’t won a women’s 15s premier title in their 16-year history — and haven’t won a provincial championship since its first season in Division 2 — but will have their best opportunity this weekend against the five-time reigning champion Assassins at Maple Grove Rugby Park (2 p.m. CT).

“We’re a team where we’ve always had to recruit new players, so a lot of times we’re recruiting people who have never played rugby… so we were always one step behind the other teams,” said Maines, the team captain.

No guarantee community-based teams will adopt CFL changes

While fans, players and coaches of the Canadian Football League come to terms with the major rule changes announced earlier this week, stakeholders across Canada’s amateur football landscape are wrestling with the potential ripples at the grassroots level.

Thunderbirds finally have a home court advantage

The court is far from the Field of Dreams, but it’s a court that kept dreams alive.

When Ebb and Flow First Nation started a complete renovation of its school a couple of years ago, it left the Thunderbirds varsity teams without a home gymnasium to train and play in.

But head coach Tyrone Desjarlais was determined to give his athletes the opportunity they’ve worked tirelessly for, so he took matters into his own hands — and his own property.

Desjarlais secured an old volleyball net from the school and pounded wooden posts into the ground, assembling a makeshift grass court to hold practices on in the community located 200 kilometres north of Brandon, due east of Ste. Rose.

Penner a rising star with the Rifles

For Jarome Penner, it was about embracing the good and letting go of the bad.

The Winnipeg Rifles receiver, admittedly, grew up a perfectionist, harping on the things he failed at and not giving himself enough credit for what he did well.

“At the end of the day, sometimes that’s going to haunt you more than it’s going to help you,” Penner said Tuesday.

When he arrived at the Rifles as a highly touted recruit from Sturgeon Heights Collegiate, those traits reared their ugly heads more than once as he acclimated to playing with bigger and stronger players.

Bisons trample Golden Bears in blowout victory

The Manitoba Bisons ran the Alberta Golden Bears out of town Saturday.

Homecoming for Fust

It was Christmas break of 2024 when Kyu Fust found herself in a familiar setting, wrestling with an unfamiliar feeling.

New Bisons women’s hockey head coach already inspiring team

Jordan Colliton has a history of elevating women’s hockey programs to new heights.

She did it with the Mount Royal University Cougars from 2015-22, first as an assistant head coach and then as associate head coach, guiding a team that was new to U Sports competition to perennial national championship contention.

The Blackie, Alta., product did it more recently across the pond, where she helped Leksands IF of the Swedish Women’s Hockey League to its best regular season finish in five years and first playoff win in eight years.

Now Colliton will try again with the University of Manitoba Bisons, a group that is starving for stability and looking to build on last season, which included its first playoff series win in six years.

Bisons back in business

Stan Pierre found the right buttons to push at the half.

With the Manitoba Bisons trailing 17-0 at home against the Saskatchewan Huskies on Saturday, the first-year head coach delivered a message that got his troops to wake up.

“Coach P really lit a fire under us. He mentioned he hadn’t seen any Bisons team get that out-physicaled in years,” said fourth-year receiver Nathan Udoh.

“Credit to Sask for that, but we’re a competitive group. There was no way we were gonna stand for that.”

Banfield brothers bring double-barrel noise to Rifles

Kaiden and Kyler Banfield have been trying to outdo one another for 22 years.

In sports, and in more recent years the weight room, it’s only natural for the Portage la Prairie-born twins to push each other every day. That healthy competition has bred two football players who are both currently at the top of their respective games.

The twin stars of the Winnipeg Rifles have taken the Canadian Junior Football League by storm this season.

Kaiden, a running back, is the focal point of the Rifles’ offence, while Kyler, a linebacker, is the heartbeat of the defence.

Kemp and Elizarov intend to keep the party going

On a 10-point scale, just how excited are ascending pairs skaters Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov as they contemplate what lies ahead this Olympic season?

“Ten,” Elizarov said without hesitation. “I’m very excited. I think it’s going to be a good season.”

Kemp concurred.

“Yeah, I would say 10. Last season showed us when we sat and watched others compete, we were eager to compete and wanted to, but couldn’t,” she said, referring to her back injury that sidelined the pair for several months last fall before they rebounded to claim their second Canadian junior title.

Colvin up to the challenge as new Bisons women’s soccer bench boss

Three years ago, long before he was anointed head coach of the University of Manitoba Bisons women’s soccer team, Mark Colvin was in Sweden, hastily figuring out how to pronounce the most basic words of the native tongue to communicate with preteens at a local academy.

The Toronto-born coach had touched down a day earlier with an agreement to be an assistant coach for U13 IF Brommapojkarna for a season while he adjusted to the European country.

When he arrived for the first day of practice, however, Colvin — jet-lagged and all — was informed that the head coach was sick and that he would need to take over as interim.

“I literally, quickly on a piece of paper, scribbled the Swedish words of pass, shoot, left, right, yellow and red, and then went on to the field to coach these young players, who, a lot of them, their English was not good,” Colvin, who holds onto that scrap piece of paper for sentimental reasons, told the Free Press recently.

Royals host historic rumble against Pirates

In the days and hours leading up to kickoff, head coach Brett Delisle-Boughen harped on one message to his players: what they were doing was unprecedented at Windsor Park Collegiate.