Top 10 Sports Stories of 2011:
January
Kenora’s Midget AAA hockey program celebrates a quarter century of league play with a pair alumni pick-up games in December.
In his interchangeable role as coach, manager, or administrator, Don Smith is credited for bringing the club into the Manitoba AAA Midget Hockey League 25 years earlier. The move laid the foundation to develop the skills of hundreds of players. Players went on to professional careers in Europe and Texas. They earned scholarships to schools in the United States and as far away as Japan.
Many make up the roster if the 2011 Allan Cup-hosting senior Thistles; Jeff Richards. Trevor Socholotuk. Sean Hughes. Some went on to pro and semi-pro careers; Mike Richards. Sean Pronger and Jimmy Roy. In an interview from his Texas winter home, Smith reflected on the program and the many young players he worked with over the years.
“If the boy’s talented, he’s going to go on. We developed a pile of kids and it wasn’t just the hockey end of it, we tried to develop everything… the schooling had to be involved in it,” Smith said. “I’m very proud of all the kids I had. They were all very, very good kids and the thing about the program is that the kids were interested in playing and wanted to play so you never had any problems.”
Canada Winter Games
Kenora skiers make up four of the five competitors in Manitoba’s female Nordic ski team in 2011. In a pair of qualifying races over Christmas, the Kenora skiers topped the leader board with Amie Mathews finishing first in both the 7.5-kilometre and the 5-kilometre runs. Along with Mathews, local skiers Jennie Hissa, Maya Boivin and Samantha Burkart compete on the Manitoba team at the Canada Winter Games, Feb. 11-27 in Halifax. Another Kenora skier, Keisha Strachan, is selected as alternate.
On the men’s side, Eric Lockhart is called up to the biathlon squad. In Halifax, Burkart finishes 30th in the 7.5-km free race among 50 competitors and is the 38th skier across the line in the 10-km classic. Boivin finishes the 7.5-km free race right behind Burkart, the 1,000-metre qualifier in 41st and the 10-km classic in 39th place.
Mathews finishes the 10-km classic 26th. Hissa follows in 35th.
All four were on the trails for a final relay race, finishing the event seventh in a field of 11 teams.
Also travelling to Halifax was Jamie Triskle, who competes in the Canada Games’ first ever sit ski event. Triskle, who suffers from Cerebral Palsy, lobbied for para-athletics to be included by the Ontario Federation of School Athletics Associations. She takes home the first ever Para Nordic 3-km free ski gold medal in Ottawa, March 3. In Halifax, Triskle races in the 800-metre sprint and finishes sixth in the 2.5 km race JM Judo club Judoka Luke Heatherington also competes in Halifax, fighting the -73kg bout in the men’s team competition for Team Ontario.
Kenora Curling Club beats out three competing Northern Ontario clubs to host the Scotties provincial championship in 2012. The club will host the 10 team tournament. The Northern Ontario Curling Association mulled over the bids delivered before Christmas and, all told, the presentation from the Kenora club was deemed the strongest “They put in a really good bid,” association executive director Leslie Kerr said. “They did a ton of work and that’s how they earned it. We compared all four bids that we had and in every category (Kenora’s) was very good.” The club’s previous experience hosting major curling events factored into the decision; including the 2012 provincial wheelchair and mixed championships. Accessibility to the community, active volunteer base, support by the city and Kenora Hospitality Alliance were also cited.
February
For the third straight year, St. Thomas Aquinas’ girls are in the provincial ‘A’ volleyball championships. According to coach Bob Kowal, the club is at its strongest, boasting an undefeated NorWOSSA ‘A’ season. The bar has been set high following the Saints NorWOSSA championship win which earned the club a bye into March’s Ontario Federation of School Athletics Associations’ championships. The club is ranked number one when the tourney gets underway March. 8. In the finals against E.S. Embrun, the top-ranked Saints folded 3-1 and take home the silver.
March
Kenora wheelchair curler Wayne Ficek earns his fourth appearance to the national championships with an undefeated performance at the regional playdowns in Thunder Bay Feb. 25-26. The Ficek rink – vice Mark Wherret, second Chester Draper and lead Denise Miault represent Northern Ontario at the Canadian Wheelchair Championships in Edmonton March 20-27.
April 16
After dumping the Norway House North Stars 8-2 in the April 10 North American First Nation Tournament of Champions finals, the OCN Penguins clinched its fourth consecutive title. The Penguins blasted through the tourney with five straight wins, allowing no more than two goals against in any outing, out scoring the opposition 30-8. Shoal Lake took the B-side bracket with a win over Whitedog and host-community Rat Portage took the old-timer division after thumping the elder Whitedog club 11-3.
Clarenville claims Allan Cup. After failing to register a single win in the 2010 edition of the Allan Cup, the Clarenville Caribous stormed to four straight wins on the way to lifting the senior hockey championship hardware in Kenora. After a week of hockey and wins over the South East Prairie Thunder, the Fort Frances Thunderhawks and the Dundas Real McCoys, the Newfoundland and Labrador representative defeating the Bentley Generals 5-3 in the finals. Kenora opened its Allan Cup drive with a decisive 6-1 win over Dundas but a loss to the Generals put the Thistles in a position of needing a quarterfinal win over the regional rival Fort Frances Thunderhawks.
May
NorWOSSA honoured BB senior Colt German with its Michael Smith award for all around achievements in sports, academics and community service. German was a captain and quarterback for the Beaver Brae Bronco gridiron squad in 2010. Assistant captain and defensive player of the year for the Bronco hockey club in 2011. He’s donned the Bronco mascot, Purple Pete, at pep rallies at the school and placed in the top three in each individual, pair and team rowing events over the summer. All the while maintaining an academic average above 90 per cent.
June
After a half-decade of cutting the ice at the Kenora Recreation Centre, the Senior AAA Thistles hockey club hangs up the skates. Five years ago, in conjunction with centennial celebrations surrounding Kenora’s 1907 Stanley Cup championship, Ryan Reynard and a handful of local players pulled together to ice the first senior hockey club the city had seen in nearly two decades.Organizers cited struggles with Ice time for practises, the lack of a league to call home, financial concerns, sponsorship issues and volunteer fatigue in the decision to fold. “I think we did ourselves and the community proud,” Reynard said. “I think we competed and we showed we’ve got a good bunch of hockey players here.”
August
Dave Bennett of Sioux Narrows and Mark Libitka of Kenora win the 2011 Shaw Kenora Bass International title. The anglers have fished together for 10 years, finishing ninth at KBI in 2008, 10th in 2007 and 11th in 2003. They previously won the 2006 Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship and the KBI title became a personal goal for both. The 2011 Kenora Bass International saw the tightest competition ever as after two days only 0.64 pounds separated first from sixth place. Bennett and Libitka had the four largemouths and a smallmouth that helped them weigh in 17.91 lbs on the third day for a 50.67-lb-total to pull ahead of tournament leaders after two days, Jeff Gustafson and Chris Savage who fell short of winning their Third KBI title by 0.14 lbs.
October 1
The Kenora Dragon Tamers celebrate the end of their racing season with a sweet victory. The dragon boat team of 19 breast cancer survivors takes first place in the Manitoba Dragon Boat Festival held on Sept. 10 and 11 in Winnipeg. They took home both the Female Division trophy and the All Female Champions title. The Dragon Tamers had competed in the festival five times before, but this was their first time taking home a first place win. More than 130 teams participated in the Manitoba festival, which has raised over $2.5 million for cancer research since it first began.
