Thompson Sports News Archives for 2023-02

Four down, two to go for Canadian women's curling championship playoffs

Four of six playoff teams at the Canadian women's curling championship were decided with a five-way race for the remaining berths Thursday.

Defending champion Kerri Einarson, Northern Ontario's Krista McCarville, Manitoba's Jennifer Jones and Ontario's Rachel Homan advanced to Friday's six-team championship round at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kamloops, B.C.

Quebec, Nova Scotia, B.C., Alberta and a wild-card team skipped by Kaitlyn Lawes were all in contention for the last two spots in the final draw of pool play Thursday evening.

Einarson is chasing a fourth straight national championship previously achieved only by Colleen Jones between 2001 and 2004.

Manitoba's Jennifer Jones, with six Canadian titles, could be the first woman to claim seven.

Sitting atop their respective pools, Einarson and McCarville get byes to Friday evening's championship-round finals, which will in turn seed the final four teams for Saturday's Page playoff.

Manitoba's Jennifer Jones reaches playoffs at Tournament of Hearts

Manitoba's Jennifer Jones reached the playoffs at the Canadian women's curling championship Wednesday with a 7-6 win in an extra end over Casey Scheidegger's wild card team.

 

Jones topped Pool B at 6-1.

 

Northern Ontario's Krista McCarville was 5-1 with games against Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador to play Wednesday. Ontario's Rachel Homan got to 4-2 in that pool with a 9-5 victory over Meghan Walter's wild card 3.

 

Defending champion Kerri Einarson was already playoff-bound at 6-0 atop Pool A. Quebec's Laurie St-Georges, an 8-4 winner over Prince Edward Island, moved into a tie for second at 4-2 with Nova Scotia's Christina Black.

 

B.C.'s Clancy Grandy, Alberta's Kayla Skrlik and Kaitlyn Lawes' wild card team were all 3-2 in Pool A.

 

The top three teams in each pool of nine advance to Friday's championship round.

Hockey Canada renews partnership with Sheldon Kennedy's Respect Group

Hockey Canada says it has renewed and expanded a partnership with Respect Group, an advocacy organization co-founded by former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy.

In a statement released Wednesday, Hockey Canada said it will collaborate with Respect Group to develop new, age-appropriate player programs while continuing to deliver existing online training courses.

Hockey Canada said the partnership will help drive cultural change around the sport, an area in which the organization said there is “still work to be done.”

The national hockey governing has been mired in controversy for months after it was revealed in May that it settled a lawsuit with a woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by several members of the 2018 world junior team. Police in London, Ontario, have since re-opened their investigation.

In July, Halifax Regional Police began investigating allegations that members of the 2003 team sexually assaulted a woman and filmed the attack during that tournament.

The allegations have not been tested in court.

Canada's Fernandez and American partner Mattek-Sands advance in doubles at Dubai

Canada's Leylah Fernandez and American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands advanced to the women's doubles quarterfinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships with a 3-6, 6-1, 13-11 win over Xu Yifan and Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Wednesday.

Fernandez and Mattek-Sands won 76.7 per cent of first-serve points and broke China's Xu and Belarus's Sasnovich three times on 10 chances.

Xu and Sasnovich struggled with their opening serve, winning just 47.2 per cent of available points. The pair scored both of their breaks in the first set before the North American partners responded with a dominant second.

Fernandez and Mattek-Sands will face the Russian duo of Liudmila Samsonova and Veronika Kudermetova in semifinal action on Thursday.

Fernandez, who was eliminated from singles competition at the WTA 1000 event with a second-round loss to top-ranked Iga Swiatek on Tuesday, is looking to advance to her second doubles final of the season.

She teamed with Mattek-Sands to reach the final at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand in January, where they lost to Miyu Kato of Japan and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers agree to terms with veteran receiver Rasheed Bailey

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers agreed to terms with American receiver Rasheed Bailey on a one-year contract Friday.

The six-foot-one, 211-pound Bailey became a free agent Tuesday and returns for a fourth season with Winnipeg.

Bailey started 18 regular-season games last season as well as the West Division final and Grey Cup game. He registered 63 catches for 729 yards and nine touchdowns.

Over his time with the Bombers, Bailey has played in 37 regular-season contests, recording 134 receptions for 1,564 yards and 14 TDs.

Ukraine Select's run for title ends with loss to Vermont at Quebec peewee tournament

Ukraine Team Select's run at the Quebec International Peewee Hockey Tournament ended with a 2-1 loss to Vermont Flames Academy at Videotron Centre on Friday.

Goal scorers Phillip Groeling and Kuba Pavlik staked Vermont to a 2-0 lead, before Oleksii Shkrabak answered for Ukraine late in the third period.

The Ukrainian team, consisting of 11- and 12-year-old refugees displaced by war in their home country, became the toast of the tournament after scoring a pair of victories in tournament's Class AA division.

The squad defeated Team Romania Wolves 2-0 on Monday, in addition to handing the Boston Junior Bruins a 3-1 loss last Saturday. Following the victory over the Wolves, the team was hosted by the NHL's Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, first at practice, then at their game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Ukrainian players got to sit on the Canadiens' bench to take in the pre-game warmups and received fist bumps and pucks from players as they prepared for the game.

The Canadiens also presented a welcome video in the first period highlighting their path through the tournament. The Ukrainian team received an ovation from the Bell Centre crowd.

53rd Annual Munn Cup takes place this weekend

Munn Cup weekend kicks off at noon today with the Thompson Carroll Aeros taking on the Cross Lake Girls Team at the CA Nesbitt Arena.

 

Meanwhile the Thompson A King Miners are up against the Norway House Bruins 1 at 1:30 while the Double A King Miners battle with The Pas Huskies.

 

Teams from across northern Manitoba as well as Rankin Inlet are in town for the annual tournament, which has been around for over 50 years.

 

Einarson, Jones set out for history books as Scotties Tournament of Hearts opens

Kerri Einarson and Jennifer Jones take a shot at history as the Scotties Tournament of Hearts begins Friday at the Sandman Centre.

Einarson, alongside Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Briane Harris, sets out to become one of two to ever win four straight titles at the event. Team Canada opens its title defence against Quebec's Laurie St-Georges on Friday.

Nova Scotia's Colleen Jones, Kim Kelly, Nancy Delahunt and Mary-Anne Arsenault are the only other team to achieve the feat when they did it from 2001 to 2004.

Jennifer Jones of Manitoba, meanwhile, looks to become the first woman to win seven national titles. She opens against Krista McCarville of Northern Ontario on Saturday.

In Friday's other matchups, Kaitlyn Lawes of Wild Card 1 faces Alberta's Kayla Skrlik and Saskatchewan's Robyn Silvernagle takes on Nova Scotia's Christina Black.

Lastly, Clancy Grandy leads B.C. against Suzanne Birt of P.E.I.

Canada's Auger-Aliassime reaches quarterfinals at Rotterdam Open

Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime defeated Gregoire Barrere of France 6-4, 6-3 to reach the quarterfinals of the Rotterdam Open on Thursday.

Auger-Aliassime, the tournament's third seed, needed just 83 minutes to dispose of Barrere.

Auger-Aliassime, ranked eighth in the world, dominated Barrere with his service attack, firing nine aces and winning 78 per cent of his first serves.

The 22-year-old Canadian, won the event in 2022, his first career ATP title, as well as the first of four tour victories last season.

Auger-Aliassime will meet sixth-seeded Daniil Medvedev in Friday's quarterfinal.

Medvedev has won all four of their previous matches.

Rugby Canada the latest national body to sign on to join Abuse-Free Sport

Rugby Canada has joined other national sports organizations in signing an agreement to join Abuse-Free Sport, the federal government program to prevent and address maltreatment in sport.

Following a transition period to end no later than March 31, Rugby Canada national team players, coaches, contractors and volunteers, as well as the organization's staff and board, will be subject to safe sport complaints with the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC).

During the transition period leading up to March 31, Rugby Canada policies and procedures will be updated to direct complainants to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada.

Canada's sport minister, Pascale St-Onge, has given national sport organizations a deadline of April to sign on with OSIC, or risk losing federal funding.

Athletes in numerous sports including gymnastics, bobsled and skeleton have been vocal about maltreatment in their sports, amid what St-Onge has called a “safe-sport crisis” in Canada.

Olympic champion weightlifter Christine Girard named Pan Am Games chef de mission

Olympic champion weightlifter Christine Girard has been named Canada's chef de mission for the Pan American Games in Chile later this year.

The 38-year-old from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, will lead the Canadian team into Santiago's Pan Am Games from October 20 to November 5.

Girard became Canada's first Olympic gold medallist in weightlifting when her bronze medal from London in 2012 was upgraded to gold six years later.

When more than 1,500 drug tests from Beijing in 2008 and London were re-tested in 2016, the two competitors ahead of her in London were stripped of their medals because they tested positive for banned substances.

Girard was also upgraded from fourth in Beijing to the bronze medal in the redistribution of medals.

Girard, who lives in Gatineau, Quebec, has continued to work in the area of drug-free sport since retiring from sport.

 

Nick Taylor's second place finish puts five Canadians in men's top 100 golf rankings

Nick Taylor's second place finish at the WM Phoenix Open on Sunday made Canadian golf history.

 

His US $2 million in winnings was the most ever won by a Canadian at a single event, even topping previous winners, as the PGA Tour significantly increased its purses this season.

 

It also elevated the native of Abbotsford, B.C., to No. 73 in the official world golf rankings, putting five Canadians in the top 100 of the men's standings for the first time ever.

 

Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., is the top-ranked Canadian, sitting at 37th overall.

 

Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., is 53rd, Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford is 63rd and Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., is 69th.

Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont., is just outside the top 100 at 112th.

Tom Brady retires at 45, insisting this time it's 'for good'

Tom Brady has announced his retirement.

Brady won a record seven Super Bowls for New England and Tampa.

He is the most successful quarterback in NFL history and one of the greatest athletes in team sports. He posted the announcement on social media in a brief video lasting just under one minute.

He says this time it's for good. He briefly retired after the 2021 season but wound up coming back for one more year.

He retires at age 45, the owner of numerous passing records in an unprecedented 23-year career.

Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame to welcome Barfield, Boucher, Harden, Wiwchar

The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2023 includes Jesse Barfield, Denis Boucher, Rich Harden and Joe Wiwchar.

 

They will be inducted on June 17 in a ceremony at the Hall of Fame grounds in St. Marys, Ontario.

 

Barfield hit 179 home runs over parts of nine seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Joliet, Illinois, native also spent four years with the New York Yankees.

 

Boucher, a Montreal native, played for the Blue Jays and Expos over his 10-year pro career and later served as a pitching coach for the Canadian men's team.

 

Harden, a Victoria native, posted a 59-38 career record and 3.76 earned-run average over nine big-league seasons with Oakland, Texas and the Chicago Cubs.

 

Wiwchar is a longtime Manitoba baseball coach and executive. The Winnipeg native served as an assistant coach on the provincial team that won silver at the 1977 Canada Summer Games.

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