Morgan Kropelnicki won the Dauphin Ladies Bonspiel, Sunday at the Parkland Recreation Complex curling rink.

Kropelnicki and her team of Leanne Urbanovitch, Tamara Kolida and Andrea Smelski beat Avery Scott in the final of the first event.

In the second event, Bev Hess and her team of Linda Kitching, Gail Tycholiz and Joan McKinnon needed an extra end to beat Therese Deah in the final.

Heather Bartmanovich and her team of Nadine Soloway, Wendy McDonald and Carmen Rodgerson beat Courtney Van Alstyne to win the third event.

Only 13 teams took part in this year’s bonspiel.

Morley Bourns, with Dwight Bottrell throwing skip rocks, won the Dauphin Men’s Bonspiel, Sunday.

Bourns and his team, which also includes Steve Soloway and Nick Ogryzlo, beat Rob Rempel in the final of the first event, sponsored by Embroidery by Design.

Chad Sahulka was third and Barrett Procyshyn placed fourth.

Jeff Campbell and his team of Seth Gares, Blaine Johnson and Bart Michaleski won the second event, sponsored by McMunn and Yates Building Supplies, beating Jared Nimegeers in the final. Third place went to Cory Toews and in fourth place was Greg Thompson.

The third event, sponsored by Parkland Source for Sports, was won by the team of Kyle Forsyth, Jarvis Whyte, Trent Hill and Cody Hill. They beat Chris Belhumeur in the final. Mark Hadway was third and Brian Freiheit was fourth.

Rob Fisher and his team of Dave Campbell, Danny Scott and Brent Stykalo won the fourth event, sponsored by Baker Computers, beating Logan Devos in the final. Third place went to Luke Michaleski and in fourth place was Terron Stykalo.

Next up is the Dauphin Ladies Bonspiel, Mar. 8 to 10, which will feature a 1990s theme.

Julien Lopez battles for the puck behind the Killarney/Wawanesa net in game one of their best-of-three quarterfinal series, Feb. 27 in Dauphin.

Lopez scored twice and added an assist to lead the Clippers to a 4-2 victory, with Josh Yakielashek and Ronin Mouck adding singles.

Owen Chubka made 37 saves in picking up the win in goal. Tyron Sweetman scored four times to lead Dauphin to a 5-2 win in game two, Feb. 29, in Killarney.

Liam Chartrand had the other goal for the Clippers, which scored in the first minute of each period. Chubka made 31 saves in the win.

The Clippers will now face the regular-season champion Neepawa Tigers in the semifinals, with game one, Mar. 6, in Neepawa at 7:30 p.m.

Game two will be back in Dauphin, Mar. 13, at 7 p.m.

The Parkland Rangers ended their season with three straight losses, last week, all on the road.

Ethan Stewart scored twice and added a pair of assists and Jaxon Jacobson had a goal and three assists to lead the Brandon Wheat Kings to a 7-0 win, Wednesday in Brandon.

Easton Odut also scored twice and added an assist for the victors, while Cole Lobreau and Owen Wallace had singles. Burke Hood made 26 saves to record the shutout.

Chase Glover got the start for Parkland and made eight stops before giving way to Ethan Myhre, who stopped 23 shots in the final 47 minutes.

On Saturday in Beausejour, the Eastman Selects scored four times in the final 13 minutes to skate to a 9-5 win.

Nathan Forster led the way with two goals and an assist, while Luc De Gagné and Jeremiah Warkentine had a goal and two assists each.

Finley Titterson, Malachi Thiessen, Mario Gagnon, Eric Cote and Hayden Kochen also scored for Eastman. Samuel Fontaine had 39 saves to record the win in goal.

Hayden Seib with two, Cam Sarna, Ethan Carnegie and Ryder Gardner scored for Parkland. Myhre made 34 saves in a losing cause.

Parkland’s season came to an end, Sunday, with a 5-2 loss to the playoff-bound Selects.

Calyb Moore, Warkentine, Cameron Sylvester, Cote and Kochen had the goals for Eastman, while Quentin Fisk and Ryzlie Nepinak replied for Parkland.

Daniel Banman earned the win with 32 saves, while Glover took the loss after stopping 42 shots.

Parkland ends the season in 11th place with a 13-28-2-1 record for 29 points, finishing 12 points out of a playoff spot.

Eastman will now play Brandon in the first round of the playoffs, while the Pembina Valley Hawks will face the Southwest Cougars.

The other series will pit the Interlake Lightning against the Winnipeg Wild and the Winnipeg Thrashers will have home ice advantage in their series with the Winnipeg Bruins.

The Dauphin Clippers hockey team won its final game of the regular season, clinching fourth place and home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs in the process.

Owen Chubka made 55 saves in leading the Clippers to a 3-2 win over the Crocus Plains Plainsmen, Friday in Dauphin.

Jesse Hockridge, Ronin Mouck and Norman Lacquette scored for Dauphin, while Nick Kaczmar and Will Galatiuk replied for Crocus Plains.

Kelsey Dell made 43 saves in the loss.

The win came on the heels of the team’s trip to Las Vegas, where they finished third in the Vegas Jr. Knights Presidents’ Day Tournament.

Clippers head coach Josh Yaschyshyn said the team was a bit shorthanded in the tournament due to injuries.

Get the full recap in this week's Dauphin Herald!

A five-game winning streak has propelled the Dauphin Kings into the playoffs.

Dauphin scored a 7-1 win over the Swan Valley Stampeders, Feb. 20 in Dauphin, before blanking the Portage Terriers, 2-0, Friday in Portage.

On Saturday, back in Dauphin, the Kings beat the Niverville Nighthawks, 4-1 clinching a playoff spot.

At 32-14-1-1 for 66 points, the Kings remain in third place, two points back of the Blizzard Jr. A Hockey Club, with two games in hand.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said the team has had a busy stretch lately, which resulted in the players being a bit mentally tired against Niverville, Saturday.

“We found a way to win. That’s the biggest thing. We got patient. We got tough on pucks when we had to,” he said. “And what can you say about Sheff (goalie Cole Sheffield). He’s been rock solid for us. He’s been the guy, that’s for sure. No doubt.”

Hedley felt the Kings played a great road game, Friday in Portage, where Sheffield made 25 saves to record his fourth shutout of the season.

“We were more on our toes (Friday) night. We had some good speed. We were relentless on pucks. Hunted pucks, hunted rebounds. We had a good road game,” he said. “But Sheff made some big saves when he had to toward the end of the game to keep that a 1-0 game.”

After taking an early lead, the Kings took a couple of penalties which put them back on their heels.

“And we weren’t really jumping. They were beating us to pucks. But at the same time, we did keep them to the outside a lot of the times. Didn’t give them a lot of quality chances. But we killed some big penalties and the only goal they got was a turnover,” Hedley said. “We had a lot more than we wanted to tonight and if they had taken advantage of them, we would have been in trouble. But we found a way to get it done.”

In just their second season in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, Niverville has been struggling since the start of the new year, resulting in the firing of their head coach and general manager Kelvin Cech.

With Dwight Hirst taking over as head coach and Mike McAulay the interim general manager, the Nighthawks are hoping the change will turn things around.

Hedley has seen a difference in their play from earlier in the season.

“I think they were a hungry hockey club. They were working hard. They’re in a fight for their life in a playoff spot,” he said. “I thought they might come in with a little bit more urgency. I think they had a pretty good second period. We weren’t very good in the second period and they definitely out worked us. But in the third period, we got better.”

The Kings will have a busy week, beginning tonight when they travel north to face the Blizzard in The Pas at 7 p.m.

On Wednesday, they will be in Swan River for a game at 12:30 p.m.

On Friday, the Winnipeg Freeze are in town for a 7:30 p.m. date, and on Sunday, Dauphin travels back to The Pas to play the Blizzard at 7 p.m.

The Parkland Humane Society was recently forced to take care of six kittens that were in a box that fell off a truck within the city limits.

Denise Penrose, PHS statistics director, explained a female resident was on her way to the city’s waste disposal site and was following a white truck filled with garbage bags, when a box fell out of the truck. When she stopped to pick up the crate to take it to the disposal site, she found six kittens inside.

The resident contacted the city and was told they could not take custody of the animals because the city’s pound is closed.

“She went to Dauphin Vet Clinic, too, and they said they couldn’t help her. And then she came here (to the Parkland Humane Society),” Penrose said. “We really had no foster homes or no room left. But it just so happens that our quarantine room was empty. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to bring them in.”

Of the six kittens, there were four which were about three months old, while the other two were a bit older form a different litter.

Taking in the six kittens put a great strain on PHS’s resources, Penrose said.

“We do have a budget. So for every cat that we take in, or kitten, we have to do everything for them. We have to get them vaccinated. We have to get them spayed and neutered, of course. But it’s just finding space for them, because now we have six cats,” she said. “It’s finding the space, but we did take them in.”

Stories such as this are becoming more and more common, because, as Penrose explains, people think they can just dispose of the animals in their care when they become too much to handle.

The day this happened was a chilly day and, because the kittens were so small, Penrose said they likely would have died if they had not been found.

Penrose advises people who have pets to keep an eye on them and have them spayed or neutered, keeping the population under control so things like this do not happen again.

“It’s so important. Actually with dogs now, we cannot find any shelters to take dogs. So if we take any dogs from the pound, or any dog period, we can’t find a place for them to go to keep on taking more dogs. So once we have dogs in our program, we can’t find anywhere for them to go,” she said. “And it’s getting really bad, because before, we could always find places for them to go and now we can’t. And we have about 30 dogs right now, between puppies and dogs.”

So the question now, Penrose said, is what do people do with the strays that are found when the city pound is closed and PHS cannot take them in because they simply don’t have the space?

“It’s pretty sad. And it seems to be getting worse. People just don’t care,” she said.

The kittens are now ready for adoption.

After losing two of their previous three games, the Dauphin Kings rebounded in a big way.

After killing off a four-minute power-play early, the Kings came back with a solid effort in scoring a 3-2 victory over the league-leading Steinbach Pistons, Friday in Dauphin.

The next night, six different players found the back of the net, including Alex Senf scoring what has become known as a Michigan goal, in a 6-1 win over the Swan Valley Stampeders, in Swan River.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley liked the team’s work ethic against the Pistons.

“We were hard on pucks. We were relentless in the D zone. Our battles in the corners, they got better as the game went on and we started winning stick battles,” he said, adding the Kings limited Steinbach’s opportunities in front of the net. “They’re a team that really goes to the net and funnels and makes short plays. In fact the play they got to tie the game was a small play in front of the net that they go to hard,” he said. “So I thought overall, our game was good. And then we found a way to rebound, get a goal and really shut it down.”

Just seven seconds into the game, defenceman Karson Raymond was assessed a double minor for high sticking, but the Kings were able to kill off Steinbach’s four-minute power play.

“It’s always tough on a team at the start of a game because you’re not into your rhythm and timing. So if you’re going to be down four minutes, I guess that’s one of the better times to be shorthanded,” Hedley said. “But that was a big kill by our penalty kill units. They did a great job all weekend.”

It took the offence a while to get going on Saturday in Swan River.

After skating to a 1-1 tie after the first period, Dauphin’s offence exploded for four goals in the middle frame, including a highlight reel “Michigan” goal by Alex Senf.

With the Stampeders out of playoff contention, Hedley said it is always tough when playing a team that is loose.

“They want to go out and play for next year. So they’re playing loose, their sticks are loose and they’re working hard. In the first period, we started okay, we just didn’t finish real strong in the first and then got better in the second,” he said, adding the team’s work ethic took over in the latter stages of the game. According to Hedley, the players were all jumping up and down when Senf scored his goal.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen it live. But good for Senfy. It’s a tough thing to do and definitely not easy or a lot more people would do it,” he said. “But he had time. There wasn’t a lot of pressure behind the net, so he had some time and kind of surprised everybody.”

The Kings are home to the Stampeders, tonight, before heading out on the road, Friday, to play the Terriers in Portage.

On Saturday, the Kings are back home to host the Niverville Nighthawks, who recently fired their first-ever head coach and general manager Kelvin Cech.

All three games begin at 7:30 p.m.

Hedley is looking for more of the same kind of effort in the three contests.

“We’ve just got to focus on what we do and our good habits and stay consistent and try to keep that work ethic, that compete level and be hard on pucks up. It doesn’t matter regardless of who we’re playing, we’re focusing on what we do and where we’re going. That’s the key to our success, is the consistency and the work ethic,” he said.