Okotoks

From floods to Trump, otters with ice blocks to historic apologies in Saskatchewan, here's a look at some of this week's top news photos as selected by editors.

The Okotoks Dawgs finished their back-to-back games tonight against the Moose Jaw Miller Express with a dominating 16-3 victory.

With the win, the Dawgs swept the 2024 WCBL season series 2-0 with the Miller Express and outscored Moose Jaw 20-6 in the process.

Brock Townsend started on the mound for Okotoks. He would pitch for five full innings and punched out 4 Miller Express batters with K's to earn the win.

Cam Stephens, Ryan McFarland, Seth Thompson, and Preston Tocheniuk came into the game as relievers.

A global IT outage had little impact on healthcare services in Alberta. 

That’s coming from Alberta Health Services (AHS) in response to the major CrowdStrike outage that began Thursday night. 

High River's Tucker Zdunich has been a staple for the Okotoks Dawgs and the WCBL for four years. 

Zdunich first got his opportunity to play in the WCBL back in 2019 when he played a season with the Moose Jaw Miller Express. He would then play for the Okotoks Dawgs Red squad in 2021 and return in 2022 with the Dawgs. In 2023 Zdunich found himself in Kenosha with the Northwest Diamond Sports (NWDS) summer league but has returned once again and has been a staple for the Dawgs this season.

Zdunich explains what attracted him to the sport.

The Okotoks Dawgs announced in addition to the eight players selected for the All-Star game, Nash Crowell will be hitting dingers at the Home Run Derby on Saturday (July 20).

"Nash Bash" has hit six home runs with the Dawgs this season. For Reinhardt University this past year Crowell smacked home 23 home runs in 60 games.

Crowell was also a part of the Home Run Derby last summer when he was with the Dawgs, this will be his second appearance in the event in back-to-back years. He would finish the Derby with 10 home runs in the evening.

The Alberta government is seeking the rightful owners of a combined $154 million in unclaimed money and property.

Alberta’s unclaimed property registry holds money that is lost, abandoned or forgotten. The registry currently contains millions in cash, cheques, money orders and other unclaimed items belonging to people who may be entitled to an unexpected payout.

The layout for the planned skate park and inclusive playground in Okotoks' Howard Park has been decided on.

While council already chose Howard Park as the location in September, they narrowed down the layout at the July 15 council meeting.

Following the approval of Howard Park, the town received a $100,000 Enabling Accessibility grant through the federal government to replace the park's current playground with an inclusive one

The Municipal District of Willow Creek moved to a Fire Ban.

A post on their Facebook page from July 19 states that despite recent isolated showers, the continued hot, dry conditions that are expected to continue into next week.

Due to the ban, all active burn and fire permits have been cancelled, and all active burns must be extinguished.

The Okotoks Marauders are looking to get back on their feet after a tough, nail-biting defeat in Game One of their first-round playoff series.

The Marauders and Jr. B Mounties went back and forth at the Murray Arena, but it was the visiting team that came through in the end, winning 10-9.

Despite the loss, Marauders forward Drew Dunbar was on fire scoring four goals and three assists. On the other end, Cohen Fluet had three goals, including the game-winner for the Mounties.

Amid a prolonged heat wave across the province, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said that earlier this week another record was broken.

"We hit a new summer peak record yesterday of 12,219 megawatts (MW). The previous summer record was 12,122 MW set on July 10," AESO tweeted on Thursday.

AESO is encouraging residents to try and reduce their electrical usage between 5 and 9:30 p.m. to reduce strain on the grid. Some electricity conservation tips include: