About James Shewaga:

James Shewaga is the Brandon Sun’s sports editor.

• Bauman basks in CFL spotlight

  Brandon’s Chris Bauman will be part of CFL history this weekend. The 28-year-old Calgary Stampeders receiver is preparing for the biggest game of his career when the Stampeders face the Toronto Argonauts at Rogers Centre in Toronto in the 100th Grey Cup game.

  View Full Column | 11/23/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Penalty killing not Brandon's specialty

  The statistical story never tells the whole story, but there certainly are some telling numbers when you look at this year’s edition of the Brandon Wheat Kings. Sporting a 9-9-2-1 record heading into tonight’s first of back-to-back games against the Kootenay Ice in Cranbrook, B.C., the Wheat Kings have fallen out of a playoff position — keeping in mind it is only November — and into ninth place in the WHL’s Eastern Conference. When you break down the numbers, it’s easy to see the areas that need the most work for the Wheat Kings.

  View Full Column | 11/16/2012 12:50 PM | 0

• Perfect season 'surreal' for Thornborough

  It’s only November, but Christmas clearly came early for Brandon’s Amanda Thornborough this month. The 22-year-old Canadian sevens women’s rugby team member helped the St. Francis Xavier University X-Women cap a perfect season by winning the national championship last weekend in Antigonish, N.S., and now turns her attention to representing the country halfway around the world. In the final game of her university career, Thornborough scored a try and was named player of the game — and a tournament all-star — as she led No.1-ranked St.FX to a 37-0 triumph over Guelph to finish the season with a perfect 12-0 record.

  View Full Column | 11/9/2012 2:58 PM | 0

• Historic night for Bobcats

  It’s opening night for Brandon University’s new Healthy Living Centre and Brandonite Kellie Baker can’t wait to be a part of history. “We are pretty excited because it will be our first weekend in the new facility and it’s obviously going to be a pretty hyped-up weekend,” said Baker, the starting setter for the Bobcats women’s volleyball team that will officially play the first Canada West conference match in the new $20-million, 80,000-square-foot facility tonight against the Thompson Rivers WolfPack.

  View Full Column | 11/2/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Volleyball team in good hands with Wilson

  From Bobcats to Olympic hopefuls to a bad case of Perimeteritis, we’re all over the map today. But with the Canada West conference season opening tonight, let’s start on campus at Brandon University. In seven short seasons, Russ Paddock has taken the Bobcats from expansion team to national contender, with silver and bronze medals to the program’s credit. Paddock has passed the torch to longtime assistant Grant Wilson to serve as head coach this season while Paddock concentrates on his athletic director duties including overseeing the Bobcats’ move into the new Healthy Living Centre.

  View Full Column | 10/26/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Olympic qualifying a slippery slope

  It’s 475 days until the 2014 Winter Olympics open in Sochi, Russia, but the first big step begins tomorrow for Cassie Hawrysh of Brandon and 2010 gold medallist Jon Montgomery of Russell. Hawrysh and Montgomery will compete in the national team trials Saturday in Calgary and a week later in Whistler, B.C., and the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Sliders will need to make either the World Cup team or the Intercontinental Cup team in order to remain in consideration for Canada’s 2014 Olympic squad.

  View Full Column | 10/19/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Hockey heavyweights court local stars

  Growing up in the town of Neepawa, Halli Krzyzaniak never dreamed that one day she would be standing on the sidelines of an Ohio State Buckeyes football game with 104,745 fans in the stands. But that’s just one of the perks when you are one of the most hotly recruited female hockey players in the country.

  View Full Column | 10/12/2012 12:36 PM | 0

• Wheaties need work to build on start

  First off this week, it’s time to give a little credit where credit is due. Dwayne Gylywoychuk has had a dynamite debut as Brandon Wheat Kings head coach, guiding what was projected to be a rebuilding team to an impressive 4-1-0-0 start — including winning two of three road games — for a share of second place overall in the Western Hockey League. The Wheat Kings even earned a little recognition nationally, receiving an honourable mention in this week’s CHL rankings.

  View Full Column | 10/5/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Champ changed Bonhomme's life

  Longtime television journalist Henry Champ was well known for his work with the CBC, CTV and NBC and carved out a storied career as one of Canada’s most respected international correspondents. But for Ilarion Bonhomme of the Brandon University Bobcats men’s basketball team, Champ will always be known as the man who changed his life.

  View Full Column | 09/28/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Gylywoychuk gears up for regular-season debut

  In a season of firsts, tonight will be a big one for Dwayne Gylywoychuk. The new head coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings makes his official debut as the man calling the shots behind the bench tonight when the Wheat Kings begin the 2012-13 WHL season by battling the rival Regina Pats at Westman Place in the Brandon Sun Home Opener. For Gylywoychuk, it’s a night he has been anxiously awaiting since replacing Cory Clouston as head coach back on July 18.

  View Full Column | 09/21/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Wheat Kings 'concerned' by ticket sales

  The impending NHL lockout could result in a big boost in attendance for WHL clubs. But Brandon Wheat Kings owner/general manager Kelly McCrimmon doesn’t want to have to count on that to balance the books this season.

  View Full Column | 09/14/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Pre-season performance paramount for Wheat King rookies

  They have survived training camp, but for the 17 rookie players still with the Brandon Wheat Kings, this could be the most important 10 days of their young careers. The Wheat Kings began a stretch of four pre-season games over 10 days last night in Regina — Game 2 is tonight at Westman Place — with pre-season performances crucial to clinching roster spots.

  View Full Column | 09/7/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Training camp questions abound for Wheat Kings

  As the Brandon Wheat Kings open main camp today, there are more questions than answers at this point. So let’s start with what we can be fairly certain about.

  View Full Column | 09/1/2012 1:08 AM | 0

• Olympic dream within reach for Brandon rugby star

  Like most of us, Brandon’s Amanda Thornborough tuned in this month to watch the sports spectacle that is the Summer Olympic Games. Unlike most of us, she actually has a chance to compete in them one day.

  View Full Column | 08/24/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Calder Brandon's Olympic connection

  This is David Calder’s story of Olympic glory and a heartwarming chapter about his return to Brandon where it all began. When Calder competes in men’s pairs rowing in his fourth Summer Olympic Games next week in London, he will have some proud members of a once-lost family cheering him on from southwestern Manitoba.

  View Full Column | 07/29/2012 3:08 AM | 0

• SHEW'S VIEWS: Wheat Kings job brings big expectations

  Dwayne Gylywoychuk says he knows exactly what he’s walking into. With the prestige of being named the new head coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings comes new responsibility and the type of pressure that he has never experienced before during his nine seasons serving as a WHL assistant coach.

  View Full Column | 07/19/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Next Wheat King coach could be a familiar face

  It’s just over six weeks until the Brandon Wheat Kings open training camp and the question remains: Who will be the WHL club’s head coach? If you read between the lines, it appears the Wheat Kings may go with a familiar face.

  View Full Column | 07/13/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• SHEW'S VIEWS: Wheat City on course to finally open nine holes

  It’s hard to look at damage on the front nine at the Wheat City Golf Course and wonder if it will ever be the same again. But course manager Bryce Wilson says they are indeed making significant progress in the recovery from the devastating effects of last year’s flood of the century — or centuries, if you prefer.

  View Full Column | 07/6/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Canada Day tourney draws cream of the crop

  If you’re not up at the lake or out on the golf course this weekend, Simplot Millennium Park will be the place to be. Some of the most talented young baseball players on the Prairies will be in Brandon to compete in the annual UCT Canada Day Classic, a veritable smorgasbord of baseball featuring 25 teams from Manitoba and Saskatchewan playing a total of 50 games, starting this evening.

  View Full Column | 06/29/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Clouston to Kootenay possible, but no sure thing

  Cory Clouston is heading home to Cranbrook, B.C., in a couple of weeks. The million dollar question is, will he be staying there? After being fired by the Brandon Wheat Kings last month, Clouston’s name has been bandied about as a natural fit to return to his former WHL team, the Cranbrook-based Kootenay Ice.

  View Full Column | 06/15/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Salvador stealing playoff spotlight

  Brandon’s Bryce Salvador has done it again. The 36-year-old New Jersey Devil continued his remarkable post-season run with his fourth two-point performance of these NHL playoffs, helping to open and close the scoring with assists in a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night to stay alive in the Stanley Cup final.

  View Full Column | 06/8/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Wheaties, Winter Fair willing to talk

  The Brandon Wheat Kings have been forced to stickhandle around the issue for years, the only team in the WHL forced to play money-losing playoff games away from home. There may be no easy solution to the problem, but at long last the Wheat Kings and the Provincial Exhibition are actually going to sit down and at least discuss the possibility and ramifications of moving the dates for the annual Royal Manitoba Winter Fair up just two weeks to allow first-round playoff games to be played here.

  View Full Column | 06/1/2012 1:00 AM | 2

• Keystone Centre upgrades key to deal

  It’s a rare deal that’s viewed as a win-win-win by all parties involved, but the Brandon Wheat Kings’ new five-year lease agreement with the Keystone Centre has the potential to be just that. Emphasis on the word potential. It will be up to local MLA Drew Caldwell and his provincial NDP government to make this deal really work. But more on that later.

  View Full Column | 05/25/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Clouston's out, who's in?

  Coach Cory Clouston said that he understood Kelly McCrimmon’s rationale for firing him Tuesday. In the post-mortem of this season, that in itself is a little ironic considering they didn’t see eye-to-eye on much else when it comes to evaluating the Brandon Wheat Kings’ 2011-12 WHL campaign.

  View Full Column | 05/16/2012 1:00 AM | 0

• Clouston, McCrimmon don't see eye-to-eye

  (EDITOR’S NOTE: A week after this column was written, McCrimmon fired Clouston on May 15.) The difference in opinion couldn’t be more striking for Cory Clouston and Kelly McCrimmon.

  View Full Column | 05/15/2012 2:36 PM | 0

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