Frozen fun

Team Manitoba sits sixth after week 1 of the Canada Winter Games

STEVE BOHRN STAFF

The 2007 Canada Games are being held in Whitehorse. This is history in the making, as it marks the first time that the Games have been north of 60 since they began in 1967.

Manitoba, as usual, has sent a strong contingent of medal-hopefuls to this edition of the games, and as the first week of competition comes to a close, many of them have come through.

As competition ended on March 2, Manitoba sat in sixth place with 20 medals (three gold, eight silver, and 12 bronze).

In what is probably Manitoba’s biggest success story of the Games so far, archer Doris Jones of Selkirk took home the gold medal in the compound individual event and helped the Manitoba team to a hefty victory in the compound team event.

Her victory was not a surprise. Jones has been the No. 1-ranked archer in Canada, and won the individual event at the Canada Games in 2003 when she was only 14 years old.

Manitoba continued to have success in archery as Adam Berry took home a silver medal in male individual compound, while Berry also led his team to a bronze medal in the male compound archery team.

Manitoba’s other gold medal came in female judo, where Alyssa Caughy took home the honors.

Caughy, while not quite the shoe-in that Jones was, does have some credentials to back up her win. She finished second in this event at the 2003 Canada Games and won both the national judo and national wrestling championships in 2006.

Cynthia Kelpin and Michael Leger won silvers in the judo competition as well, while Maxim Kharitonov, Anson Pops, and Matty Zebrasky all took home bronze medals in their weight classes and helped the male team to a third-place overall finish.

A whole slough of bronze medals came in the biathlon, as both the junior male and female biathlon relay teams finished third, and Megan Imrie got onto the podium in the 10.5-km individual biathlon.

Shayla Heidinger finished second in the 1,000-metre and finished third in the women’s 100-metre long-track speed skating events as well as helping the female team, which also included Karlee Gendron, Andrea Johnson, and Greta Waples, to a third in the team pursuit event. Johnson would take the silver in the 3,000-metre, while Kyle Gendron took home two bronze medals in the 3,000-metre and 5,000-metre men’s events.

But the reason most people watch the Canada Games is for the exciting hockey action. The men took to the ice in week one, while the women will compete on the second week.

Manitoba’s team played well in the preliminary round, advancing to the playoffs by coming in second to Ontario in their group. They were ranked seventh in the round-robin, which meant they would face the tough No. 2 team in Quebec.

The match that followed was an absolute barn-burner with Manitoba managing to score seven times on a Quebec team that had been beaten only twice in the preliminary round. But the team from la belle province did not go away easily as they answered back with six of their own, but inevitably fell short.

This set up the semi-finals, where the Manitobans would once again upset the favored Team Alberta 5-1, to advance to the final against Ontario.

Manitoba would end up losing the game 6-4, good enough for the silver medal.

The first week has been an exciting one, and the schedule for week two looks promising as well. Many of Manitoba’s young athletes are having the time of their lives and competing at a level they are not used to.