Monday, January 11, 2010

Local Sports for Monday January 11

A 3-2 record was good enough for Judy LaBelle and her Fort Frances foursome at the Northern Ontario Curling Association's inter-regional senior curling playdowns at the Fort Frances Curling Club.

LaBelle finished in a four-way tie for first place on the women's side which earned her team a berth to the provincial event next month in Blind River.

Five of the six women's teams entered advanced.

On the men's side, Thunder Bay's Al Hackner went through the event undefeated, while Larry Chepsiuk also of Thunder Bay needed a tie-breaker win over Bruce Melville to advance.

Fort Frances' Ken McKinnon finished the playdown with one win and four losses.


Fort Frances Muskies girls hockey team beat the Beaver Brae Broncos of Kenora 8-5 at the Ice for Kids Arena Friday.

Shae-lynn Smith, Jessie Baker and Jillian Langtry had two goals each for the Muskies while Nicole Beadle and Courtney Bethune added singles.


International Falls Broncos boys team dropped a 6-3 decision to the Hermantown Hawks Saturday.

Matt Youso with a pair and Dylan Farmer scored for the Broncos.

Meantime, Broncos girls hockey team fell 8-1 to East Grand Forks Friday.


In the SIJHL, Fort Frances Lakers lost 8-3 to the Fort William North Stars.


Fort Frances Canadians Midget AA team won the championship of the Junior Gold Tournament in Brookings, South Dakota on the weekend.

The Canadians clinched the title with their third win of the tournament Sunday - a 4-1 decision over Mounds View, Minnesota.

Ryan Lundy had a hattrick while Brad McDonald added an empty netter in that game.


Fort Frances Boston Pizza Royals Pee-wee AA hockey team lost 4-1 to Kenora in the bronze medal game of its tournament at the Memorial Sport Centre.

The event was won by Dryden.


The Rolling Lake Lightning captured gold at a atom girls hockey tournament on the weekend beating the Lake of the Woods Flyers of Kenora 3-2 in the championship game.

Annalise Hayes had all three goals for the Lightning.

Kaemingh Esso beat the Emo Penguins in the bronze medal game 5-0.

Scoring for Esso were Alyssa Alderson with a hat trick, Caitlin Visser and Maighyn Degagne.


In college basketball, the Rainy River Voyageurs dropped both games played against Northland Community & Technical College Saturday.

The men lost 71-64 while the women fell 82-51.

Stamps Go Up


It's going to cost more to mail a letter starting today.

The cost of sending a first-class letter within Canada will increase from 54-cents to 57.

Letters to the United States will cost one-dollar -- an increase of two-cents.

Canada Post says it needs the extra money to invest in new mail-processing equipment.

Legal Aid Boycott to Expand?

Low-income Ontarians charged with serious crimes could find themselves in an even tighter legal spot in two weeks.

Members of the Criminal Lawyers' Association have reportedly voted unanimously to expand their boycott.

A memo says a deal must be reached by January 24, otherwise the expansion of the boycott will go ahead.

Frank Addario, past president of the association who is involved in the negotiations with the Ministry of the Attorney General, won't confirm the deadline cited in the memo.

But he says lawyers, who are already boycotting homicide and gun and gang cases under legal aid, have been ready to widen the boycott since the fall.

The lawyers want the government to pay them more money for work done for legal aid cases and/or agree to a binding review mechanism for compensation.

H1N1 Flu Numbers

The incidence of the H1N1 flu has pretty much vanished in northwestern Ontario.

The Ontario Ministry of Health says there were no new cases reported anywhere in region over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

There have been 73 cases reported by the Northwestern Health Unit since the fall, but no new cases reported in the past four weeks.

Fort Councillors Meet

A report that calls for an increase in the salaries earned by members of Fort Frances council comes to its meeting tonight.

A committee of council reviewing council remuneration last November recommended the mayors salary increase to $23,000 a year while councillors would receive $12,000.

The increases would be the first in six years and would take effect this December, following this year's municipal elections.

Tonight's council meeting begins at about 6:15 p.m.

Phone Outage

A line break near Orr is being blamed as the reason for an outage to Internet, long-distance phone and 911 service to Koochiching and northern St. Louis Counties Friday evening.

Service to the area was restored by 9:30 p.m. after being knocked out for almost four hours.

An official with the St. Louis Country Sheriff's Office said residents could still make local calls.

The sheriff's office said firefighters manned phone lines at local fire stations to handle any emergency calls while 911 service was out.

The outage also impacted the U.S. Border and Customs Services causing lengthier than normal waits time for travellers going into States.

Mill Fire Fought

Members of the Fort Frances Fire and Rescue Service spent nearly twelve hours Friday dealing with a fire at the AbitibiBowater mill in Fort Frances.

The fire broke out about 8 o'clock Friday morning in the kraft mill.

Heavy smoke could be seen coming from the roof area of the seventh floor on the north side of the building.

The building fire sprinklers assisted in containing the fire and fire crews had it under control within three hour, but deep snow and other debris on the roof hampered fire fighters ability to remove large sections of the roof where fire had extended and was continuing to burn into the insulation.

Cause of the fire is still under investigation and the extent of damage to the mill has also not been determined.