Steinbach, Niverville players announce USports, NCAA division 3 commitments

Graduating players from the Steinbach Pistons and Niverville Nighthawks continue to announce where they will be playing hockey next season.

Steinbach captain Noah Szabo will be headed to the University of Windsor to play for the Lancers. The Lancers play in the Ontario University Athletics conference, last making the national championship tournament in 2023.

Szabo, who was born in St Thomas, Ont. played 136 games with the Pistons, including during the team’s 2023 Turnbull Cup-winning campaign.

He scored 100 points with the team during his time in the Automobile City, peaking last year with 44 points in 47 games.

PHOTO GALLERY: Treasured performance

Steinbach Arts Council’s Backyard Theatre Company production of In the Search of Treasarrg was held at Steinbach Regional Secondary School April 15. The program trains theatre stars as young as five.

COLUMN: Village News – Welcome to spring

Spring in Manitoba is a wonderful time of year. Daylight hours are getting longer. The temperature is edging towards above zero for nighttime and double digits for daytime. We hear a variety of songbirds from dawn until dusk. And we begin to see grass blades, flower shoots, and tree branches becoming green as they reach for sunlight and soak in the spring rains.

At Mennonite Heritage Village we are experiencing many of the same scenes as we look forward to our May 1 opening of our outdoor village. Our facilities maintenance team is cleaning up the grounds, picking up broken branches, identifying repairs that are needed on our heritage buildings, and tuning up the mowing equipment for another busy summer. The farmyard is about to get filled with the loaned or donated animals from local farmers who are eager to support the museum. The animals are a highlight for visitors of every age.

Our curators are lining up work crews to tackle the summer projects of repairing and replacing roofs and wallboards on the heritage buildings. They are identifying pieces of equipment for our mechanically inclined volunteers who want to get another antique car or tractor operational and running this summer. And they are refurnishing the heritage buildings with curtains, rugs and mattresses to create a realistic representation of ‘the way things were’.

Inside, our retail staff is stocking the stores with local wares, the latest novel or family history by a local author, and memorabilia for our visitors who will arrive from around the province and from around the world. And our program team is organizing the school trips expected in May and June, setting up training sessions to train new blacksmiths, printers, sawyers, Schnetje bakers, and museum interpreters, and booking music entertainers for our festivals.

Gas theft an ongoing issue

It may have been only $20 worth of fuel, but police are hoping the public can help find the people who drove off without paying in a March 17 incident.

“Theft of fuel has been an ongoing issue in Steinbach,” RCMP said in a Tuesday press release.

In the March 17 incident police say at 9:40 a.m. two suspects in a blue Nissan SUV with no license plates attended the Co-op gas station at Brandt Street and Reimer Avenue, putting $20 worth of fuel in the tank and leaving without paying.

“RCMP are requesting the public’s assistance with identifying these suspects,” the press release stated.

PHOTO GALLERY – The Great Easter Egg Hunt

Mennonite Heritage Village and A&W hosted The Great Easter Egg Hunt on April 19.

Jocelyne Larocque reaches 200-game milestone as Team Canada nabs silver

Jocelyne Larocque made some history this week, becoming the first Canadian defender to appear in 200 games for the country’s senior women’s hockey team.

Just four other players (Hayley Wickenheiser, Jayna Hefford, Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin) have played that many games for Team Canada.

Larocque made the 200-game mark in bittersweet fashion, as Team Canada lost 4-3 in overtime of the women’s world championships, with Larocque on the ice during the goal against. An attempted breakout pass late in the first overtime was deflected right to the stick of an American player. With the extra space during the three-on-three overtime, it took a simple pass across the crease to record the winning goal.

The 2025 tournament, hosted in Czechia, set a new all-time attendance record (122,331) as women’s hockey picks up in popularity around the globe. Last year’s tournament was also decided in overtime, with Canada coming out on top at the U.S.-hosted event.

Sprague and District Historical Museum to hold fundraiser to preserve church

The Sprague and District Historical Museum is holding a fundraiser to collect funds for the repair of one its buildings, the Full Gospel Church.

“The siding on it is falling away – it’s brittle and we have birds pecking at them and there’s holes all over and it has to be redone. It was put in there in 1934 when it was built,” said museum chair Doris Hovorka.

The history of the church began in 1933 when evangelist Hjordis Rambo came to Golden Branch to hold Gospel meetings. Golden Branch was about five miles north of Sprague. On March 16, 1934, Rambo’s daughter married Gundro Ludwig Simensen who built a church at Golden Branch and became pastor. In 1955, his wife became his assistant pastor. When Simensen died, his wife became pastor. Over the years new churches were built in the village of Sprague and the Golden Branch church was not being used except for special occasions. In time, the church became abandoned and vandalized.

In 2011 and 2012, Alton Milne, a resident of Sprague and a past member of the Full Gospel Church, approached the Sprague and District Historical Museum board on numerous occasions to move the building to the museum site and renovate it as vandalism was leading to the destruction of the church.

AHL-signed Mistelbacher, Martin named to NHL draft list

A pair of Eastman players are in the running to be drafted to the NHL this year.

Luke Mistelbacher and Owen Martin were both named to the NHL central scouting’s final ranking list, along with 12 other Manitoba players.

Mistelbacher was eligible to be drafted last season, but NHL teams passed on him. Undeterred, the forward from Steinbach pressed on, earning an invite to the Winnipeg Jets prospect camp and playing with the team at a prospect tournament last summer.

He peaked at 113 in the NHL central scouting rankings, but his play this season has him 93rd. Mistelbacher picked up right where he left off in the tail end of last season, potting 42 goals and 51 assists for 93 points in just 67 games for the Swift Current Broncos. That had him as the eighth most productive player in the WHL.

Provencher PPC candidate joins Bernier at guns announcement

Local People’s Party of Canada (PPC) candidate Noel Gautron joined his party’s leader Maxime Bernier and other PPC candidates at the Gateway Gun Club in Winnipeg to tout their policy on easier access to more guns for legal owners.

It was Gautron who helped Bernier, who is from Quebec, get his gun possession and acquisition license (PAL) in Manitoba.

“I did that with Noel two years ago in Manitoba, and I know what you have to do to have the right to own a gun and buy a gun. It’s very strong restrictions: the RCMP does an investigation on you and you must have the OK from the RCMP.

“But we don’t need all these legislations, because the Trudeau government and now the Carney government, they are looking at gun owners like they are criminals and they are not. So our plan is to be very tough on crime but not on gun owners,” said Bernier after his press conference.

Lynn and Liana Designs wins provincial business award

Local business Lynn and Liana Designs is one of seven businesses to win the Future Champions Award from the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce.

Nominated by their peers, the award recognizes businesses and individuals that use their influence to drive social and economic innovation with impact, innovation, and heart.

“We’ve done a good job of telling stories of companies that have been here for a number of years and are real pillars of the community, but (what) we wanted to focus on with the Future Champions is who are some of those up-and-coming businesses. Who are companies that are just under the radar right now and that we’re seeing a real strong path of them becoming real pillars of our business community in Manitoba,” said Manitoba Chamber president and CEO Chuck Davidson.

More than 50 businesses across the province were nominated for the award, which will be handed out on May 12 in Winnipeg.

MEF adds more eggs to school breakfast menu

The question of the day at Parc La Salle School earlier this month was, “How many eggs can you eat on an empty stomach?” The answer is, only one, for then your stomach would no longer be empty.

And the Manitoba Egg Farmers are making sure that there will be fewer empty stomachs starting the day in hundreds of Manitoba Schools with the announcement they will be donating 10,000 dozen eggs to Manitoba Child Nutrition Council’s school breakfast program.

Parc La Salle’s resident chef John Holmes had lots of help in the kitchen, as representatives from the Child Nutrition Council and the Manitoba Egg Farmers joined him to scramble up a batch of eggs for students to launch the MEF egg donation program.

Parc La Salle teacher Deana Matthys served up the results of their efforts to her Grade 2 class, and then the students were treated to a video presentation on “everything eggs”, from the farm to the supermarket, followed by a question and answer period with MEF marketing manager Adriana Findlay.