Monday, January 4, 2010

Local Sports for Monday January 4

A four-goal third period powered the Fort Frances Lakers to a 5-1 win over the K-and-A Wolverines in Thunder Bay yesterday afternoon.

Justin Erhart, Conner Foster, Jordan Carne and Colton Kennedy scored in the third to break a 1-1 tie. Byron Katapaytuk scored the Lakers other goal. Jameson Shortreed stopped 36 shots in net for the win.

Saturday, the Lakers were thumped 11-3 by the Fort William North Stars.


It was a weekend split for the Fort Frances Thunderhawks in Kenora.

Saturday night, the Thunderhawks were blanked 7-0 by the Thistles, but rebounded for a 4-3 win Sunday afternoon.


The Nor-Fab Flames won the pee-wee title at a girls' hockey tournament in Fargo, North Dakota on the weekend with a 6-1 drubbing of the Bismark Chill in the final.

Madisyn DeGagne had 3 goals in the game with Amber Jourdain, Jessica Coran and Madyson Weir getting the others.

During the tournament, the Flames outscored their opponents 36 to 2 with netminders Kate Parsons and Shanleigh Fryer each recording shut-outs along the way.



The Dynamic Homes Hurricanes brought home Silver medals on the Atom side of the same tournament, losing to Grand Forks 2-1 in overtime.

Alyssa Alderson scored for the Hurricanes.



The Boston Pizza Pee-wee AA boys' team won the B-side of a tournament in Bemidji, defeating Cloquet 1-0 in the final. Graeme Kitt scored the lone goal.

Boston Pizza actually went undefeated in round-robin play and tied for first in its division, but dropped to the B-side bases on its goals for and against.

Polar Plunge Nets Nearly $14,000

It may have been cold, but 45 people still took up the challenge to go jump into Rainy Lake on New Year's Day as part of the Voyageur Lion's Club's Polar Plunge.

A total of $13,600 was raised with the Muskies Sports Association raising $2,000, the most by participating groups.

Top individuals were Lion President Jim Martindale with $1,800 and Reverend Barb Miller who took in $1,150 for her plunge into the water.

Costume prizes were awarded to Maureen Hahkala, David Filleul and Jayde Wright.

Festive RIDE Campaign Ends

More than a million vehicles were stopped by OPP across the province as part of their festive RIDE campaign

A total of 277 motorists were charged with impaired driving while another 700 had their licenses suspended for recording a blood alcohol level in the so-called warn range.

The numbers for northwestern Ontario were not readily available.

Falls Councillors Meet Tonight

International Falls City councillors will hold their first meeting of 2010 tonight.

Their agenda includes visits by Senator Tom Saxhaugh and House representative Tom Anzelc as as a prelude to the upcoming session at the State capital in February.

The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at Falls City Hall.

More Power Problems

More power problems for the Rainy River district this morning.

Hydro One spokesperson Danielle Gauvin says the outage impacts residents between Fort Frances and Rainy River.

"We had 3,770 customers without power," says Gauvin. "The extremely cold weather conditions overloaded one of the transformers."

The outage occurred short after 7:30 a.m.

Hydro One was able to restore power to effected areas within an hour.

The outage did impact some area schools, but none were closed by the public or catholic boards.

However, some bus companies did not run or were running late because of the weather.

Cold Day for Torch Relay Through NWO

The Olympic torch relay has a long and cold day ahead in northwestern Ontario.
The day starts with a visit to Fort William First Nation and the Bombardier plant in Thunder Bay before heading on to Kakabeka Falls.

The relay then heads to Upsala, Ignace, Dryden, Vermilion Bay and ends the day in Kenora.

This afternoon, Fort Frances campus manager Anne Renaud will carry the torch for a short distance through Vermilion Bay.

Thousands lined the streets in Thunder Bay yesterday and many sang ``O Canada'' when the torch arrived at the Terry Fox Lookout.

DriveTest Workers Back to Work

DriveTest workers, including those in Fort Frances, are expected back to work this morning after a long strike.

Workers have ratified a new contract after a strike that had prevented many Ontario residents from getting new drivers' licenses or renewals since August.

Some 590 DriveTest employees walked off the job August 21st after talks with their employer, Serco, collapsed.

Fort Mayor Pondors Budget

A new budget will be one of the first major issues tackling the Fort Frances town councillors in 2010.

Mayor Roy Avis is hoping any tax increase will be modest.

"I would like to see us stay as close to zero as possible," says Avis. "I know the index is 1.8 per cent, but if we can maintain that or less we have to look at our services. We might have to restrict services slightly, but if we do that it becomes a light hardship on resident in the community so we have to balance that."

Council will begin its budget deliberations January 18.

Weather Records Set

Bitterly cold air that spread across northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario over the weekend broke weather record in International Falls.

Temperatures in International Falls hit 37 below F both Saturday and Sunday morning.

Saturday's low broke the mark of 34 below F set both in 1979 and 1968 while Sunday's low passed the previous record for January 3rd set back in 1911 by one degree.

Power Outage Hits District

Nearly four-thousand Hydro One customers in the Rainy River district were left without lights and some without heat for a few hours last night.

A hydro spokesperson says the cold weather was to blame, causing a piece of equipment on a main line to malfunction.

This caused the entire district, including the town of Fort Frances, to go dark shortly after 7 p.m.

The outage in the Fort lasted for only about 15 minutes while Hydro One crews were able to restore power to the rest of the district by midnight.