CFL greats open up about full effects of concussions

He remembers the four Grey Cup wins. He remembers his Hall of Fame teammates. He even remembers single plays he authored that changed the history of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers franchise and which fans still talk about more than 50 years later.

But what Canadian Football Hall of Fame quarterback Ken Ploen no longer remembers is what he did yesterday. The greatest Bombers player who ever lived has been diagnosed — like an alarming number of his aging CFL teammates — with dementia.

“He’s still in great health otherwise. We just had our checkups and the doctors say he has the heart of a 16-year-old,” says Janet Ploen, his wife of 55 years.

“He’s still able to get out and he’s still able to do things. It’s just that he doesn’t remember the experience the next day.”

Getting a boost: The Winnipeg Boldness Project's work in Point Douglas

If the Winnipeg Boldness Project has a poster girl, it’s Wendy Hallgrimson.

The 32-year-old Point Douglas resident has been involved with the project since before it even officially started. She was pregnant with her son, Lindal, when she heard about the initiative, which aims to improve outcomes for young children in the Point Douglas area by working with members of that community.

Hallgrimson was sobered by the statistics. Her neighbourhood — the neighbourhood she and her partner, James Zebrasky, grew up in and continue to call home today — has the dubious distinction of leading the country in terms of poverty, poor health and educational outcomes, violent crime, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. And many of the children in this neighbourhood are already at an unfair disadvantage the moment they are born.

Sixty per cent of children in Point Douglas are starting school at a point where they are ready to learn. The other 40 per cent, owing to a variety of interconnected socio-economic factors, are already behind. This can have lasting effects well into adulthood.

Glory days: Last Cup-winning Bombers team has lost none of its lustre

They were already legends in the moment, just as they remain so now. And they were absolutely, positively always bigger than life.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers of 1990 — the last from these parts to capture a Grey Cup, for those of you who might need reminding — gobbled up every minute of every day. They played hard on and off the field. And they won. A lot.

Playoff appearances were expected annually during that era and so, too, were championships.

This crew had bad boys and choirboys, superstars and foot soldiers. They had an icon as a general manager, a future icon in his first head-coaching gig walking the sidelines and just the right mix of whatever it takes to capture a title.

From the medical tent to the front line: women and war

The troops standing in formation in a farmer’s field in the century-old, black-and-white photograph look as if they’re ready to fight the enemy in the First World War.

They can’t, though — posing at a dairy farm in Headingley, they’re a good 6,500 kilometres from the front in Europe. And there’s another glaring obstacle even the strongest among them couldn’t overcome; an obstacle that would thwart even their daughters and granddaughters when it came to roles within the Canadian military.

They are women. And in 1915, and for several decades to come, that’s a problem.

The role of women in the Canadian military — and in Canada itself — has come a long way since the First World War. Women have gone from being relegated to serving only as nurses to being able to serve in any role, including (beginning in 2000) on Royal Canadian Navy submarines.

Retracing a Winnipeg grandfather’s journey from Guernsey to the Western Front

Lying on a stretcher in a dressing station, suffering from serious wounds to his elbow and abdomen, Arthur Stanley Blicq faced a life-or-death choice: stay behind and be taken prisoner by the advancing German army or attempt the walk to a field hospital four kilometres away.

Dizzy from blood loss, he moved from his stretcher, stood up “... and tottered to the entrance,” he recalled in an unflinching memoir of his First World War experiences.

“Here, kid,” a corporal advised. “You can’t do it.” |

Energy, engagement likely key to Trudeau’s governing style

OTTAWA — On the day after the election, the feeling of change was everywhere — in elevators, in coffee shops, at downtown bus stops. 

And people were repeatedly saying they expect big things of prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau. Ironic, after expectations of him were so low at the start of the election campaign. 

But Trudeau’s unlikely majority government win has symbolized not just a policy shift for Canada, but a personality shift. 

Trudeau himself has done everything in his power to paint the picture for Canadians that he is as different from Stephen Harper as you can get.

Building great roads poses great challenge

On a cool and cloudy September evening last year in Winnipeg, a basement meeting room of a Polo Park-area hotel became a showcase for the woeful, collective ignorance about road construction.

The room had been booked for a civic election debate on infrastructure. It was organized by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities and CAA Manitoba to put all the mayoral candidates on the record about what they would do to fix the province’s crumbling roads and bridges.

For about two hours, the seven candidates spoke about how worried they were about the state of the roads, how they would use innovative methods and materials to build better and smarter, drive higher standards with contractors and stretch each tax dollar to get the upper hand.

The candidates were impassioned. They were all deeply committed to finding solutions. But most of all, they were profoundly, hilariously ignorant about what goes into building a road.

How a proactive paramedic program helps frequent 911 callers

The sounds of Elvis Presley warbling a ballad greet paramedic Karen Martin as she enters a cluttered and modestly furnished apartment in the West Broadway area. Dozens of magazine photos of ‘the King’ and Marilyn Monroe plaster the walls, where Martin’s patient, Amber, lives with her dad, Michael.

Martin takes Amber’s blood pressure using a portable kit she’s hauled in from her truck. She asks her how she’s doing.

Amber once frequented hospital emergency rooms in the city eight or nine times per week.

It’s now been months since she has taken an ambulance to the hospital.

Colourful history of Neepawa's cemetery draws visitors from all over

NEEPAWA — Headstones can make for interesting reading.

Take this rhyme from the headstone of John James Black, b. Apr. 4, 1860; d. Dec. 9, 1934, in Neepawa’s Riverside Cemetery.

“Reader behold as you pass by,

As you are now, so once was I.

30 years later, Fred Penner’s career is still going strong

If you’re among the generation of Canadians who grew up with Fred Penner’s Place, the now-iconic opening montage is imprinted in your brain.

We remember Fred Penner, the warm, kind-eyed children’s entertainer who actually talked to us — never down at us — traversing the Canadian wilds with a rucksack on his back and a guitar in hand. We remember him delighting in discoveries along the way, be they a frog or a bird. We remember him crawling through the hollow log, the one that would magically transport him to his sanctuary — and into our living rooms.

Every weekday on CBC, from 1985 to 1997, Penner taught us about the importance of kindness, reminding us to take good care of each other. He taught us about the life-changing power of music. He taught us how to problem-solve. Along with Word Bird, he helped us with our spelling and expanded our vocabularies. His fondness for bright sweaters taught us a thing or two about confidence. For 15 minutes — or half an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays — we were part of the world’s most inclusive club. It didn’t matter if we lived in Winnipeg or Vancouver or Yellowknife or Halifax. Fred Penner’s Place was home to all of us.

Indeed, Penner loomed large in our childhoods. His lessons and songs stayed with us long after Fred Penner’s Place was unceremoniously cancelled in 1997 and that opening montage faded into nostalgia.

At 74, life-long gearhead still has need for speed

I’ve known Wally for 25 years but only learned last month his family name is Dyck.

I suspect the oversight is fairly common, that the hundreds of people who deal with him today and the thousands who have dealt with him over the past 50 years, know him only as Wally, too.

His last name never seemed to matter. Everyone knows Wally. They ask for Wally on the phone. Call “Hi, Wally” when they greet him. Like Prince or Madonna or Drake, he doesn’t seem to need a last name.

Wally is that nice old guy who has been behind the counter at the Sturgeon Creek Garage on Portage Avenue forever.

Refugees share stories of escape from their homelands and triumphs in their new land

Images of Syrian refugees desperate to get to a safe place have the rest of the world wondering what is going to happen to those people.

Where will they go? What will become of them? Decades later, what stories will they have to tell?

Six Winnipeggers who were forced to flee their home countries over the last 70 years share their personal stories — of tragedy and triumph — of coming to Canada. We asked them five questions:

What and why you were fleeing? What, if any, were the dangers of the journey? What has been your experience since coming to Canada? What does it mean to contribute to Canadian society? What are your thoughts on Canada’s immigration policies? They share their personal journeys and their thoughts on the dire situation in Syria. (Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.)

Take a trip down Manitoba's original superhighway

LA GRAND FOURCHE, Man. — On the lower reaches of the Hayes River, beige cliffs comprised of soft Hudson Bay Lowlands silt rise up 30 metres from the water to precariously perched stands of spruce.

The cliffs are constantly eroding, as evidenced by fresh mudslides and toppled trees along the water line. Every day, the Hayes River erases more of its history, arguably the most significant of any Manitoba waterway.

For centuries, the Cree used the highly navigable Hayes to travel between Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay, forgoing the more turbulent Nelson River to the northwest.

They showed the Hayes to European traders and explorers, who used it as their main route into the interior of the continent from 1670 to 1870.