Weather pending, the Winkler Flyers and Steinbach Pistons meet tonight (7:30 p.m.) at the T.G. Smith Centre in the deciding seventh game of their East Division semifinal. The winner will join the Portage Terriers and Virden Oil Capitals in round two of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League playoffs. The Flyers, who have rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to force game seven, have beaten the Pistons twice in Steinbach. The Terriers are scheduled to start the second round of the playoffs Friday night on home ice against either Virden or Dauphin. The team defeated Niverville 4 games to 1 in the opening round.
The South Eastern Manitoba Hockey League champion Ste. Anne Aces will face the Tiger Hills Hockey League champion Miniota/Elkhorn C-Hawks Saturday night at the East End Arena in Winnipeg in game one of Hockey Manitoba's best-of-three Provincial Senior "A" Championship. Game two is scheduled for Sunday, April 16th at Tundra Oil & Gas Place in Virden.
Daniel Hauser has been named the Western Hockey League Goaltender of the Month for March. The Winnipeg Ice netminder recorded a 6-1-0-0 record over his seven regular season and playoff appearances last month to go along with a 2.01 goals-against average and .929 save percentage as the Ice secured the club’s second consecutive Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy as WHL regular season champions. The 19-year-old Chestermere, Alberta native set the Ice franchise record for wins during a single regular season in March, finishing the 2022-23 WHL Regular Season with 37 victories. Originally selected by Winnipeg in the sixth round of the 2019 WHL Draft, Hauser holds a career 88-9-3-0 record, 2.23 goals-against average, .913 save percentage and 11 shutouts over his 104 career regular season and playoff contests.
The Winnipeg Jets are idle until Wednesday when they host the Calgary Flames. The Jets are two points ahead of Calgary for the second wildcard in the NHL's Western Conference and both teams have five games remaining. The Flames host the Chicago Blackhawks tonight. Winnipeg is three points back of the Seattle Kraken for the first wildcard. The Kraken, who have six games left, defeated the Arizona Coyotes 8-1 Monday night. Strathclair's Morgan Geekie scored his eighth of the season on the power play in Seattle's four goal third period.
Canada's Brad Gushue has a 3-2 round robin record heading into day four of the 2023 World Men's Curling Championship in Ottawa. Gushue, Mark Nichols, E.J. Harnden and Geoff Walker defeated Riku Yanagisawa of Japan 6-3 Monday. Gushue's next game is at 1 p.m. against Lukas Klima of the Czech Republic.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers announced the signing of American linebacker Joe Beckett. The Lexington, South Carolina native played eleven games for the Wofford Terriers in the 2021 season. He led the team with 80 tackles and had 4.0 tackles for loss and a sack. He was the team leader in tackles in five of the eleven games and also returned a fumble 55 yards for a touchdown. For his career at Wofford, Beckett played in 53 games with 28 starts at linebacker. He recorded 183 career tackles with 14.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks. He was part of Southern Conference Championship teams in 2017, 2018 and 2019, playing in the NCAA FCS playoffs three seasons as well. After going undrafted, Beckett attended New York Giants minicamp.