What does Christmas mean to me? It means joyfully witnessing the tornado that is the unwrapping of gifts by my grandchildren, who annually justify my belief that spending 10 minutes to wrap a gift in picture-perfect style is pointless when it takes children what seems like one-10th of a second […]
Joey Payeur – Goalline Stand
To contact Joey, email him at jpayeur@fortfrances.com
Time for another hodgepodge of thoughts on a chilly winter’s day to hopefully warm your heart, if not your frozen toes, and stimulate your brain. • • • This past week saw the passing of two well-loved local residents with sporting connections, Fort Frances is grieving the loss of Louise […]
The questions of life seemingly forever outnumber the answers. So, instead of coming with all the answers (because, in his own words, wrestling legend “Rowdy” Roddy Piper would just change the questions, anyway), I decided to pose a compendium of inquiries—both serious and tongue-in-cheek—about local sports topics for you, the […]
Instead of spring cleaning, I figured this week I would beat the rush and partake in some pre-winter cleaning. No specific theme today—just doing some housekeeping on some leftover sports news items of recent weeks. Now, if I could only find the dustpan. . . . • • • It’s […]
The story never changes, even if the circumstances do. For what seems like forever, society is rife with a culture of bullying that only seems to be getting worse as the years go on—despite the admirable efforts of those who carry the anti-bullying flag. Bullying exists on the playgrounds, in […]
There’s really only one place to start this week’s column. I was as surprised as anyone when I got the word last week about Fort Frances Lakers’ assistant coach, assistant general manager, and director of scouting Grant Perreault having been diagnosed with colon cancer. It’s the rare person in this […]
NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley had an abundance of disdain for the concept of athletes being role models. The former great with the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns even authored the script and did the voice-over for a Nike commercial in the mid-1990s which said as much. But, as I learned […]
First off, my apologies for the lateness of my NHL predictions. I’m sure some of you have turned blue with breathless anticipation—or not. I figure with the season only two weeks old, there still was some integrity left in making prognostications at this point. But the fact is, whether I […]
Overdue congratulations to district runners who turned in some great results at a pair of running events last month. At the Walker North Country Races in Walker, Mn. on Sept. 21, Devlin resident Freeda Carmody, 75, placed first in the female 70-and-up age category in the half-marathon with a time […]
Let me say this right off the bat: people are not commodities. Well, unless you’re a member of a perennially-lousy sports franchise making anywhere near the league average salary. Then you can get bet your paycheque you’ll be shipped out to some more financially-stable team in exchange for anything from […]
The SIJHL regular season left the starting blocks last Friday night, with the Fort Frances Lakers leading the charge. The Lakers earned a split of their opening two-game homestand—losing 4-3 to the Thunder Bay North Stars on Friday before dumping the expansion English River Miners 12-2 on Saturday. While it […]
I went into this past weekend with a clear mission when it came to my gridiron interests. Knowing I would be watching three different levels of football over a three-day span, I made a point of keeping track of the differences I saw between them. First, there was Friday afternoon’s […]
