2017 Shaw Charity Classic winner Scott McCarron, left, receives the Shaw Trophy from Brad Shaw, right and Clay Riddell, Tournament chairman, centre, Sunday afternoon at Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club.

Pro golfer Rod Spittle was one of two Canadians at the Shaw Open in Calgary in the final round September 3. Here he checks his yardage book while Australian Craig Perry hits his second shot.

Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie traditionally walks with his head down as he moves between the 9th green and the 10th tee.

mailphotos by O.R. Sheddy

There is an old adage that says “do you what you love and you won’t work a day in your life.” One Drumheller woman has taken her passions and turned them into her calling.

Last time “the Mail” caught up with Morgen Schinnour, she had established Schinny Designs in Lethbridge, specializing in custom goalie masks, had designed masks for the

National Ringette team, and saw her AJHL debut as the Drumheller Dragons’ Jonny Hogue donned one of her creations.

Moving forward a year and a half, she is taking more and more orders, in what has become her full-time job. This summer, in particular, has been busy.

“It kind of just happened in a frenzy in the last couple months,” she said.

She just completed three masks for the University of Saskatchewan, The Lethbridge Pronghorns and the University of PEI.

“I had five university masks all in one short period,” she said.

“I thought it was pretty awesome.”

She also had a mask debut in the WHL for Ryan Gilchrist of the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

These are the kinds of high profile masks that will help to build her reputation as a designer and artist in a very small, but competitive market.

To make her mark means designing unique masks, but also making contacts and sometimes just good luck.

“For the Saskatchewan Huskies ones, it was word of mouth. I did two last year for the Huskies; one was a returning goalie on the men’s team and the other two were for the women… the equipment manager for the women’s team saw my work for the men’s and said ‘oh, wow, let’s do this,’” she said

Others are finding her on the Internet or on social media.

She chuckles that she landed her WHL mask by doing a little “stalking.”

“I messaged him (Gilchrist) on Instagram personally because I noticed his mask was blank white,” she said.

She has found there is no off season in her line of work.

“This year it has been pretty steady year round. I changed the way I am doing orders, I am taking deposits and booking them in line,” she said. “Last year I had a little bit stressful situation because in August I had 11, and in June and July I had a total of four. So this year in January I started booking in advance, and now I’m fully booked until November.”

“I am averaging around 50-55 a year.”

Riverside Value Drug Mart is back in the winner’s circle after topping Drumheller United in the final of the Drumheller Coed Recreational Soccer league.

The championship match was played on Thursday night, June 22, and Riverside Value Drug Mart won 7-2 to end the season undefeated. This is the third time in four years that Riverside has won thehonour.

“This year was a different team, we only had a half dozen returning from last year. So it was a mixture of a lot of new players combined with the old,” said GavinMakse.

   While Riverside repeated as champion, it is not indicative of the real competition on the field.

“This is the first time the team that finished first in the regular season has actually won the league championship,” saidMakse.

   The score was also not indicative of the play on the field. Drumheller United put up a strong fight versus Riverside. Coach David Easter saw great improvement throughout the season. This team has students from both DVSS and St. Anthony’s.

“Honestly the growth we saw from them was awesome. The score tonight doesn’t fully reflect how much growth they have had,” said Easter.

 He said when they started this season, there was talent but no cohesions.

   “We grew into working as a team, moving as a unit, especially defensively,” he said.

League-wide, it was a great season.Yavis topped Recovery for the third place.

“We had over 60 players registered in four teams,” saidMakse, adding that drop-in over the summer will be at the new St. Anthony’s School field on Tuesday and Thursday night.

Riverside Value Drug Mart (first photo) took home the championship for the third time in four years, while Drumheller United (seen here) took home silver.

Garrett Holowath (20) of Rumsey, Alberta, will play baseball for the U21 Alberta team at the Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg from July 28 to August 13.

After one of the coaches in the same men’s league approached him to play for the team, Holowath made his way through try-outs to make the Alberta team.

“I’m left handed and that really helped me,” said Holowath. “I think it gave me a little advantage compared to the rest of the guys.”

After lots of experience and games, Holowath was ready to tackle something higher on the ladder.

“I’ve been playing ball for most of my life so it just kind of worked out and an opportunity presented itself to go and I took it and now we are in Manitoba,” Holowath said.

The team officially formed in October of last year and have been practicing ever since. They have competed at senior men’s tournaments for the last month and a half in order to prepare for the upcoming Summer Games.

For the next 17 days, Holowath will be playing at the John Blumberg Softball Complex in Winnipeg. Sure to be in the cheering section would be Holowath’s family as his grandparents reside in thecentre province.

“My grandparents live in Manitoba so I’ve been coming out here to Portage, Oakville area for my entire life every other summer,” said Holowath.

Holowath is excited and proud to be representing his home province of Alberta.

“It’s a great opportunity and I’m pretty pumped to be out here.”

The Senior Titans are sporting a 2-1 record after a convincing win at home versus Olds.

The Titans started the season rolling with a win over Pincher Creek but lost to Canmore 15-25. Last Saturday they hosted Olds and trampled the Spartans 41-6.

Coach Ken Fournier likes his team’s progression. In fact, he felt that the Canmore loss was in reach.

“We fumbled the ball five times and turned over three times at our own 30-yard line. So when you look at the score that makes all the difference,” said Fournier.

They cleaned up some of those mistakes versus Olds last Saturday night. Derrick Carrier led the team with three touchdowns. Despite this, Fournier says there is still room to improve.

“We still racked up penalties,” he said. “We had two touchdown plays called back and a few drives that were halted because of penalties.”

“We have the ability to score, we just have to be more disciplined on retaining position to be able to strike.”

One boost the team has had of late is a longer bench.

“We went into our first game with 18 dressed. At this game (Olds) we had 33. We have had a large jump in players and it helps improve the quality of practice,” said Fournier.

“With these type of practices that are more structured, we can move young players forward, and add depth to key positions.”

The Titans will have their work cut out for them this coming weekend as they travel to Taber to play W.R. Myers. They are currently ranked third in Tier IV.

“They are always a strong team and had a very strong running game last year. We are going to have to potentially look at eliminating their large runs,” said Fournier.

The Senior Titans looked tough on their first outing of the season shutting down Pincher Creek.

The Titans opened the season last Saturday at home versus the Mustangs. By halftime, the Titans were up 12-0 and didn’t look back as they cruised to a 32-0 win.

Coach Ken Fournier was happy with the team’s performance.

“We didn’t start that bad, everyone seemed to be playing pretty good,” said Coach Fournier. “Even with the low numbers, the guys held them pretty good.”

This year the Titans are struggling to get enough players out. Despite this, a number of players were on the field on offense and defense, they were resilient.

“We moved the ball really well, both on the ground and in the air, which was nice to see,” said Fournier.
He adds they have an effective new duo of quarterbacks in Dylan Baires and Michael Marshall.
One advantage of having lower numbers, according to Fournier is the players are engaged.

“The guys are picking up on it quite well. With the numbers we have right now, it is a little bit easier to work and refine the game in smaller areas,” he said. “Some of the guys are playing two ways and are effective on both sides, which is great.”

The Titans begin league play on September 2 as they head to Canmore.

“Canmore is an up and coming team. Last year was one of their biggest seasons and they are going to look to build on that.

They didn’t graduate many players so they will be a tough opponent,” said Fournier.

Alberta 55 Plus is sponsoring the Calgary 55 Plus Summer Provincial Games from August 10 - 12 at a variety of venues throughout Calgary. Individuals will participate in Track and Field, Slo-pitch, Tennis, Swimming, Ice Hockey, Cycling, Badminton, Pickleball, Golf, Horseshoes and 5 Pin Bowling.

Drumheller will be well represented with a total of 12 participants in 5 sports. Over 900 participants are expected to attend, with opening ceremonies and banquet on, Thursday, August 10.

Medallists from these games will qualify for the Alberta team going to the Canada Games in August 2018 in New Brunswick.

The last summer games were held in Strathmore, Alberta in 2015 and there were Drumheller participants in three sports.

This year, 9 of the 18 member bowling team are from Drumheller, Phil Wade is playing slow-pitch, Ron Bell is competing in golf and Jim Millman will compete in cycling - both the recreational 10 km and the 40 km road race.

Bowling members include Remie DeFoor in the men’s scratch division, a 55 plus team made up of Mike and Barb Barker,

Linda Traquair and Daryl Saboe and a 70 plus team - Wendy Sisson, Sandra Irwin, Ron Keats and Richard Nodder.

The Drumheller participants are part of Zone 2 - Big Country Seniors Sports Society which stretches from Banff to Hanna.

The Zone will send over 190 participants to the Games and will have representatives in all sports.

Following the Calgary Summer Provincial Games in August, members will focus on preparing for the fall games to be held in High Prairie on September 14 - 16.

Currently, four individuals have qualified for floor shuffleboard and two individuals will represent the Zone in cribbage. The Craft competition will occur on August 18 and 19.

Watch for the results of these competitions.

(Photo Submitted)

    The Drumheller Stingers boys peewee baseball team are one step closer to the provincial tournament after playing in atiering tournament in the Valley last weekend.
     In all, six teams including Drumheller, Clive, Olds, Red Deer, Trochu, and Stettler were in the competition. The teams will be playing in a round robin tournament that began last Saturday in Drumheller and will continue in Stettler this coming weekend.
    “It is basically atiering tournament,” said coach Lyle Cawiezel. He explains from these results, the top teams will be in tier 1 and the rest will betired versus similar competition levelscome to the provincials.
    “We are all going to provincials, it is just deciding which division we are playing in so provincials are competitive,” he said.
   In their firstgame, Saturday morning, they fell to Trochu 17-7.
  “It went alright and it should be good this coming weekend too,” said Cawiezel.
    Drumheller had two teams playing in league play this season but combined to go to the provincials this summer. The team is coached by Lyle Cawiezel, Jay Mulgrew, Jeff Paarup and Scoot Freilinger.

The Drumheller Stingers, peewee boys baseball team headed to provincials last weekend and came home with a silver medal.

The team qualified for the championship tournament and earned a spot in Tier 1 of like sized communities. They headed to Trochu for the playoffs.

Coach Lyle Cawiezel said the Stingers matched up in pool play versus Trochu, Clive and Dawson Creek. He said the competition was very well matched and they had to go to a tie breaking formula to determine the ranking. Drumheller made it to the semifinals.

There, they faced Westlock and cruised to a 14-12 win.

“It was a close game and towards the end we kind of held on and it went down to the final out,” said Cawiezel.

This win put them into the championship versus Trochu. The Stingers knew they were in tough as they faced them in the qualifying tournament.

“Trochu is a really good team, they are solid and went undefeated through the whole provincial tournament,” said Cawiezel. “We knew we were going to be in tough and the boys battled really hard, but in the end, it was over for us.”

Trochu won 15-6.

“Trochu is a really good hitting team and they have pitchers that are really tough to hit off,” He said. “We never gave up and we tried to keep up with them but they were just too tough.”

This was a great finish for the Stingers, and Cawiezel said it has been quite some time since they fielded a provincial team.

“It was their first kick at provincial ball, and they figured it out and did really well,” he said.

Two days of great golf weather led to a successful open tournament at the Dinosaur Trail Golf course this past weekend.

Both the Ladies and Men’s tournaments were held, and Kyle Wade emerged as the low gross winner and course superintendent Colin Mckenzie won low net honours.

On the Women’s side, Heather Swallow came out on top as low gross winner and Joanne Schinnour emerged as low net winner. Swallow was presented with the Barb Losoncy plaque as tournament winner once again, having won it for the eighth time.

Bink Losoncy presented Heather Swallow with the Barb Losoncy Memorial Plaque, as winner of the Ladies golf tournament at Dinosaur Trail this past weekend. This is the eighth time Heather has won the event, and the twentieth year the plaque has been presented since Barb’s passing.

mailphoto by O. R. Sheddy, Mail Editor

Four Badlands Rugby Football Club (RFC) players joined the Bow Valley Barbarians, also known as the ‘Ba-Baas’, for their game on Friday evening against the Calgary Saracens on July 14.

The game was held on field one at Calgary Rugby Park, the same field where just last month the Canadian national team hosted Georgia.

“Imagine centre court at Wimbledon, well this would be the Rugby equivalent in Calgary, not bad for our first game,” remarked April Harrison, a club member.

The weather was polar opposite to that game, with clear skies and temperatures soaring to 27 degrees for the 6:30 p.m. kick off.

The Ba-Baas, a developmental team out of Bow Valley RFC, welcome players from multiple teams that might be new and in need of some game experience.

Six Badlands players from both the Senior Men’s and Senior Women’s teams, attended training at Bow Valley on Thursday ahead of the Men’s game.

Short enough players for a full side, the Saracens agreed to a ‘friendly’ game of 10’s, playing 25 minutes each way.

For three of the four Badlands players, this was their first ever game of Rugby, but the training had clearly paid off as two of them scored Trys! You score a ‘try’ when you move the ball into the in-goal of the other team and “ground” the ball. That is the only place a try is scored.

The Ba-Baas put in a great effort and a last minute Try from Dustin Clark, one of the Badlands boys, brought the score to within one point.

“Despite our inexperience and a narrow loss, the Badlands players fit into the Barbarians side comfortably. The other three guys have never played rugby before and they performed well beyond my expectations,” said Andrew Beattie, Badlands RFC player/coach.

“The experience the four of us gained at the training session and in the game on Friday is immeasurable," he added.

The other Badlands Try came from ‘Left Wing’, Brady Kaiser, who showed his pace when he saw a gap in the Saracens’ defence and sprinted for the try line early in the first half.

“I was a little wary of joining the team at first because I literally didn’t know a thing about the sport but the guys and gals in Drumheller and Cochrane really make it fun,” he said. “It’s a great chance to get out for some exercise and forget about the weekly grind for a night. I’m super excited to keep playing rugby for years to come.”

Salen Prasad rounded off the Badlands cohort and put in a resounding effort at ‘Loosehead Prop’.

“I couldn’t be more proud of this group of rugby newcomers that left it all out on the field,” said Salen Prasad. “The Bow Valley squad welcomed us with open arms and even though we came up one point short, we won’t be hanging our heads anytime soon! There’s a big future for rugby here in the Badlands.” 

Badlands players are planning to join the Ba-Baas for more games in the coming weeks. Beattie encouraged people from Drumheller and the surrounding communities to think about joining in Canada’s fastest growing sport.

“We’ve already had a couple of clubs ask if we’d be interested in setting up an exhibition game. We get new players along to training most weeks and if we could get say, five more, we could for sure do that,” encouraged Beattie.

After eight years of playing football, Travis Dietrich has become team captain for the Chilliwack, B.C. Valley Huskers.

His love for the game started in Grade Eight at DVSS. He played two years of Bantam before quitting for another two years.

For both his grade 11 and 12 year, the Titans team won provincials in the tier four category.

“After that, I jumped right to junior and after graduation moved to Chilliwack,” said Dietrich.

His friend was able to get a foot in the door for Dietrich, leading to his now fourth-year participation with the B.C. team.
Drumheller’s active care, appreciation, and interest for the sport and its players has helped Dietrich through the years as well.

“The community in Drumheller is huge, we’ve got a great fan support. Everywhere I go now in Drum is ‘How is your football going?’ kind of thing so the community is huge,” Dietrich explained.

"School was becoming less and less of an option due to a lack of scholarship money and timing. His new head coach for the Chilliwack Valley Huskers had approached Dietrich, convincing him to join the team for another year instead.

“I just kind of looked at it more as a financial situation to make a decision,” said Dietrich.

As a defensive lineman, his position consists of either stopping the run or going to get the quarterback but what sets Dietrich apart stems from many reasons like his drive, age, and stature.

“I’m the oldest on the ‘O’ line at the moment, I’m the veteran, a team leader. I’m the team captain this year so what separates me is my size and I’m lengthy so that helps a lot compared to other people.”

The team appears to be growing after new leadership from both coach and captain.

“This year we are doing a lot more team bonding and stuff so it’s a lot closer, more of a family feel.”

In the future, Dietrich plans to go pro and play in the CFL, NFL, or even European football.

“I tried to play professionally in Europe, I’m on a website to get on that,” Dietrich said. “It’s actually developing really strong overseas. Doors are always open.”

Home games are always live streamed so if you can’t make it to the games check out the valley huskers Facebook page:

or https://www.bcfctv.com/en/upcoming-games