LOCAL SPORTS
Basketball: The Memorial Sea-Hawks capped their home stand at the Field House with a 105-88 win Saturday afternoon against the X-Men. The Sea-Hawks improve to 6-4 with their two wins this weekend, while the X-Men drop to 5-6.
On the women’s side, the Sea-Hawks mounted a fourth quarter comeback to defeat the X-Women 82-76, winning their second of two weekend games.
In Men’s Hockey, the Acadia Axemen were unable to capitalize on an early lead, and fell 3-2 to the visiting X-Men. It was a strong night for the netminders, as Max Paddock stopped 25 of 28 shots for Acadia while his St. FX counterpart and third star of the game Joseph Raaymakers turned aside 27 of 29 shots. The X-Men host the Huskies tonight at 7 at the Keating Centre, a make-up from Friday’s postponed match. Fans with tickets for Friday’s game can redeem them tonight.
Also in Hockey, the nationally seventh-ranked X-Women came out flying in their first game back in over two months with a convincing 7-1 victory over the UPEI Panthers. The X-Women are in Halifax tomorrow night to play the match against Saint Mary’s that was postponed on Friday.
The St. FX track teams were in Saint John to compete in the UNB Reds University Invitational. On Friday, sisters Allie and Breanna Sandluck came first and third in the women’s 3000m. In the men’s 3000m, Luc Gallant ran a personal best of 8:47.25, coming third overall. Representing the X-Men in the 4x800m relay, Yared Tareke, Tyler Baker, Jacob Benoit and Jack Wierzbicki came third with a time of 8:25.20. The X-Women fielded two teams in the women’s 4x800m relay race. The team of Natasha Chojnacki, Brynn Hebert, Aidan MacDonald and Siona Chisholm were second, only three seconds off the pace.
On Saturday, Aidan MacDonald won top spots in both the women’s 1000m and one mile run.
The STFX runners will next see action on March 4-5 at the ANS Open in Halifax at the Canada Games Centre.
Junior B: The Scotians were thumped 6-1 by the Junior Miners in Membertou. Tonight, they host the Eagles at the Trenton Arena at 6:30. Also tonight, the Strait Pirates and Bulldogs play at the Antigonish Arena at 7:30.
NS U18: The Islanders were trounced 6-2 by the Weeks Majors on Saturday. The teams meet again at the Pictou County Wellness Centre at Noon.
NS U15: The Novas defeated the Valley Wildcats 5-2 at the Antigonish Arena, while the WearWell Bombers edged out the Bearcats 2-1 in Truro.
Today, The Bombers are in East Hants at 11 and the Novas host the Cougars at 3:30 at the Keating Centre.
NS U16: The Highlanders shutout the Admirals 2-0 last night – their road trip continues this afternoon as they face off with the Armada at 12:15.
Maritime Major Female League: Northern Selects blanked the Cape Breton Lynx 5-0, with Jorja Burrows recording another shutout in goal. The teams face off again at 10 am at the Hector Arena in Pictou.
NATIONAL SPORTS
There were plenty of Canadian teams in action in the N-H-L. The Calgary Flames ran their win streak to nine straight with a 2-1 victory over the Seattle Kraken, the Edmonton Oilers doubled-up on the Winnipeg Jets, 4-2, the Toronto Maple Leafs fell to the St. Louis Blues 6-3, the Ottawa Senators lost in overtime to the Boston Bruins, 3-2 and the Vancouver Canucks got beat by the Anaheim Ducks, 7-4.
The Maple Leafs traded forward Nick Ritchie and a conditional pick to the Arizona Coyotes for forward Ryan Dzingel and defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin. Ritchie, who had been demoted to the Toronto Marlies of the A-H-L recently, was making 2-point-5 million dollars and so there was speculation leading up to this move that he would be traded. Both Dzingel and Lyubushkin are on contracts that will expire at the end of the season.
Toronto F-C ended its pre-season with a 1-1 draw of Sporting Kansas City. Finishing its pre-season with a 3-2-and-1 record under new head coach Bob Bradley, T-F-C will now look ahead to the start of the M-L-S regular season next Saturday against F-C Dallas.
There were a couple of Raptors participating In the NBA All-Star Saturday Night festivities. Rookie Scottie Barnes took part in the skills challenge alongside Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons and Josh Giddey of the Oklahoma City Thunder as Team Rooks. The rookie squad couldn’t beat the hometown Team Cavs in the contest, though. And in the three-point shooting contest, Fred VanVleet was a participant, but he only managed to put up a disappointing 16 points. Six-foot-11 Minnesota Timberwolves centre Karl-Anthony Towns ended up winning the long-distance shooting contest. The New York Knicks’ Obi Toppin won what proved to be a tepid dunk competition.
OLYMPICS
Justin Kripps won Canada’s 26th and final medal of the Beijing Olympics. Kripps and his crew won bronze in the four-man bobsled to cap off the Games for Canada. The Canadian sled was sitting in third place after two heats. That position held through heats three and four. Teams from Germany won gold and silver.
At the closing ceremonies, speedskater Isabelle Weidemann (WY’-dih-muhn) will be leading the Canadian athlete delegation into the National Stadium, proudly waving the flag. Weidemann was named Canada’s flag-bearer for the closing ceremonies. She was a triple medallist at the Games, winning a bronze in the 3,000 metres, a silver in the 5,000 metres and was a member of the gold-medal winning team pursuit squad.
Curling gold is going back to Britain. Skip Eve Muirhead led the British to a 10-3 victory over Japan in the gold-medal game. It was the most lopsided women’s final in Olympic curling history. It was also Britain’s first Olympic championship in curling since 2002. The British men took silver a day earlier.
A golden finish in men’s hockey. Finland beat the defending champion Russians 2-1 in the gold-medal game. It’s the first Olympic men’s hockey gold in Finland’s history. The favoured Russians led 1-0 before Finland equalized in the second period, and scored the winner in the third. Slovakia defeated Sweden 4-0 to win bronze.
Saturday’s Games
NHL
Colorado 5 Buffalo 3
Edmonton 4 Winnipeg 2
Boston 3 Ottawa 2 (OT)
St. Louis 6 Toronto 3
Los Angeles 5 Arizona 3
Anaheim 7 Vancouver 4
Calgary 2 Seattle 1
Sunday’s Games (All Times Eastern)
NHL
Carolina at Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
Montreal at N.Y. Islanders, 2 p.m.
Florida at Chicago, 3 p.m.
N.Y. Rangers at Ottawa, 5 p.m.
Buffalo at Columbus, 6 p.m.
Dallas at Arizona, 7 p.m.
Minnesota at Edmonton, 8 p.m.
Vegas at San Jose, 8 p.m.
NBA – 2022 All-Star Game
Team LeBron vs Team Durant, 8 p.m., at Cleveland
