THUNDER BAY -- The beauty of sports is that no two games are ever the same. Each year brings new highs and new lows and plenty to look back and reflect upon.
This year was no different in Thunder Bay, where a new event took centre stage this past July, combining Thunder Bay’s love of hockey with a newfound love of the game of golf. The Staal Foundation Open was a success from start to finish, and tops our list of 2014 sports stories.
1 The Staal Foundation Open was a resounding success in its inaugural year, from the celebrity pro-am that kicked the event off, complete with appearances from all four hockey-playing Staal brothers to Wes Homan draining his final putt at Whitewater Golf Course to claim his first PGA Tour Canada win.
2 Every four years, like clockwork it seems, Thunder Bay manages to win Olympic hockey gold. For the second straight Games, the city captured the top medal in both the men’s and women’s competition. Patrick Sharp won his first Team Canada gold for the men, while Haley Irwin completed back-to-back championships on the women’s side.
3 Not everything in sports is great. In March the University of Ottawa hockey program was dragged into the spotlight after Thunder Bay Police announced they were investigating reports of a sexual assault involving Gee Gees players. Guillaume Donovan and David Foucher were both later charged in the Feb. 2 incident.
4 For the first time since 2003 Thunder Bay had a rink representing the city at the Tim Hortons Brier. Jeff Currie finished 2-9 at the Kamloops, B.C. event, knocking off New Brunswick and Nova Scotia along the way.
5 Scott Morrison surprised the basketball community when he announced he was leaving the Lakehead Thunderwolves for the head coaching job with the Maine Red Claws of the NBA’s Development League. Morrison joined the LU men’s program in 2003 and led them to nationals in four consecutive seasons from 2010 to 2013, including a berth in the 2013 gold-medal game. Carleton assistant Manny Furtado took over the reins.
6 Coach Jon Kreiner has been searching for the winning combination for more than a decade, and it appears he’s found it in Jylisa Williams. The Atlanta native, in her second and final season with the Lakehead Thunderwolves women’s basketball team, is leading the nation in scoring and has the Wolves on the brink of the CIS top 10 this season.
7 After seven straight seasons, the Thunder Bay Chill’s playoff run finally came to an end in 2014 with a 1-0 neutral-site loss to the St. Louis Lions in Faribault, Minn. The Chill, Premier Development League finalists in 2013, finished the campaign at 6-7-1.
8 The Thunder Bay International Baseball Association got great news, learning they’d won the bid to host the World Under-18 Baseball Championship in 2017. The city last successfully hosted the event in 2010.
9 To say 2014-15 has been a struggle for the Lakehead Thunderwolves men’s hockey team might be an understatement. The team hits the first half buried in the OUA West standings at 6-9-2, struggling to make the playoffs a season after coming within a win of nationals.
10 An injury during training didn’t stop Thunder Bay two-sport star Robbi Weldon from taking to the trails in Sochi, Russia and competing for Paralympics gold. Weldon finished out of the medal hunt.
