Wieters dropped from US Olympic qualifying roster

Original Sorrento's restaurant still flinging pizzas, pastas after 45 years

The original Sorrento's Italian restaurant is still flinging pizzas, pastas and parmigiana more than 45 years later.

Seven Oaks tour blends ghastly theatrics and local history

History buffs and ghostbusters will be exploring one of Winnipeg’s oldest homes and grounds by candlelight this weekend.

“Spirits of Seven Oaks brings together two things already woven into the place: history and haunting. You’re not just going to hear history, you get to walk through it,” says Tracey Turner, curator and manager of Seven Oaks House Museum.

For more than a decade the national historic site has hosted similar events during the early autumn lead up to Halloween. In the past, the first half, which takes place in rooms throughout Seven Oaks House — the oldest standing home in Winnipeg — were led by a museum interpreter, while the outside portion is led by Matthew Komus, author of Haunted Winnipeg and Haunted Manitoba.

“With ghost stories, I’ve always been interested in tying it to the place,” says Komus, whose book Haunted Winnipeg is now in its ninth printing. “It’s part of who we are. That’s something that we really focus on. Most of the stories we talk about, it’s about a rural settlement. We’re on the estate, though a lot of it is a neighbour.”

Canada goes young and old for Olympic men's hockey

Canada is turning to a mix of youthful exuberance and battle-scarred experience in its quest for Olympic men's hockey gold minus the country's NHL stars.

The 25-man roster announced Tuesday is bookended by 37-year-old Eric Staal and fellow centre Mason McTavish, who turns 19 this weekend, for the upcoming Beijing Games.

"We always talk about playing the Canadian way," head coach Claude Julien said on a video conference call with reporters. "We're a proud country of the way we play the game.

"We're going to be an aggressive team."

Winnipeg's civil war: The battles waged in the General Strike continue today

At about 2:20 p.m. on June 21, 1919, a lone streetcar rattled down Main Street toward Portage Avenue with a few passengers aboard.

There was nothing to suggest it would trigger events leading to monumental social and legal changes for generations to come in Winnipeg and well beyond its borders.

A horde descended to block the streetcar’s path. In their anger, they rocked it off its tracks and set it aflame.

A century later, the indelible image is a part of the city’s DNA; the defining moment of the Winnipeg General Strike, the greatest labour movement in Canadian history.

Slovakian Petra Vlhova wins skiing's World Cup overall title

LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland - Making history for her nation, Petra Vlhova won the women’s World Cup overall title on Saturday as the first Slovakian to be crowned the best all-around skier.

Vlhova needed only a top-14 finish in her specialist slalom event, and placed a distant sixth in a race that Katharina Liensberger won by 1.24 seconds.

“I won also for my country. It means a lot” Vlhova said in an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF. “I cannot believe it.”

The race win earned Liensberger the season-long discipline title, edging Mikaela Shiffrin who also placed second in Saturday’s race. Michelle Gisin was third, trailing Liensberger by 1.95.

Firefighter admits to conditional sentence breach

A Winnipeg firefighter previously jailed for criminally harassing two different women has been released from custody after admitting to breaching a conditional sentence order.

Christopher Goethals, 59, was arrested July 21 after an alert from his ankle monitor six days earlier showed he had driven within 400 metres of the workplace of a former girlfriend he had been ordered to have no contact with.

Goethals pleaded guilty Wednesday to not being in possession of a copy of his conditional sentence order, a requirement of his sentence.

Crown attorney Amanda Heslop withdrew a breach charge related to Goethals’ electronic monitoring conditions and stayed a third charge of disobeying a court order.