Visiting teams were winners Friday night as the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s best-of-seven semifinals got underway in Winkler and La Broquerie. Eric Reid made 21 saves as Virden blanked the Flyers 4-0. Nolan Chastko, Evan Groening, Grady Lane and Layton Veitch did the goal scoring for the Oil Capitals. Game two goes Sunday in Virden. Riley See scored with 57 seconds left to lift the OCN Blizzard past the Steinbach Pistons 2-1. Game two goes tonight at the HyLife Centre.


The preliminary round ends today at the Telus Cup West Regional Championship at Hockey for All Centre in Winnipeg. The Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League champion Brandon Wheat Kings meet the Thunder Bay Kings at 12 p.m. and the host Winnipeg Wild face the Saskatoon Blazers at 3 p.m. Burke Hood made 25 saves as the Wheat Kings beat the Wild 3-1 on Friday and improved to 2-0. Saskatoon and the Wild have 1-1 records. The Blazers shutout Thunder Bay 6-0. The Kings are 0-2. The winner of the Wild-Saskatoon game will face Brandon in the championship game Sunday afternoon.


The Regina Rebels shaded the Winnipeg Ice 4-3 in overtime in game one of the Esso Cup West Regional Hockey Championship. Game two in the best-of-three series goes tonight at Hockey for All Centre in Winnipeg.


The Tiger Hills Hockey League champion Miniota/Elkhorn C-Hawks face the South Eastern Manitoba Hockey League champion Ste. Anne Aces tonight in Virden in game one of Hockey Manitoba’s best-of-three Provincial Senior “A” Championship for the Manitoba Cup.


Canada has a 2-0 preliminary round record at the World Women’s Hockey Championship in Utica, New York. Emerance Maschmeyer made 17 saves and Emma Maltais, Sarah Nurse and Sarah Fillier did the goal scoring as Canada blanked Switzerland 3-0.


Canada’s Brad Gushue and Niklas Edin of Sweden earned a bye to the semifinals at the 2024 World Men’s Curling Championship in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The two qualification round games feature Bruce Mouat of Scotland against John Shuster of the United States and Joel Retornaz of Italy will face Marc Muskatewitz of Germany.