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Next time, it’s for real – sort of. On the weekend, the Prince George Gnats rugby team was in Jasper for a 7s tournament. “We’re normally a 15s team,” Per Dodenberg of the Gnats said, “but this was a warm-up for the season.” With only seven players per side, the 7s game is a lot faster, which is not the usual style for the Gnats, he says. “We like to play on the ground, keep it tight.” The good news for the Gnats was there were two divisions at the tournament – social and competitive. They...

Watch out for Rascals on the track on Saturday. The members of the Track Rascals, the 6 to 8 year olds in the Prince George Track and Field Club, will be taking part in the annual Sub Zero meet, which goes Saturday at Masich Place Stadium. There could be a lot of Rascals on the track for their one event, the 60-metre run. “The Rascals had been growing slowly,” coach Bill Masich said, “about three per cent a year. This season, it’s gone up by about 10 per cent.” That growth is reflected...

It started off small. “This was a family room,” Dan Gallo says, standing in a basement room in his house. “Then I started to get equipment to put in here. “I was lucky to have a wife who would put up with that.” Now, the room has one small couch, and is otherwise filled with training equipment, equipment with one purpose – arm wrestling. “I first started putting the room together 10 or 11 years ago. It’s really nice now, having the second (arm wrestling) table in here.” On this Tuesday...

They were playing for a different team, based in a different city, playing on a different continent, under different rules. But for three local lacrosse players, those differences didn’t mean much when they came home with gold medals. Jamie Bellamy, Andrew Schwab and Pierce Watson all play for the Devils in the Prince George Senior Men’s Lacrosse League, but last week they were playing for the Vancouver Pioneers in a tournament in Prague, Czech Republic. “I played junior lacrosse with their...

Kenny Lally will have a familiar face in his corner for his next boxing match. “I’ll be fighting in May in Regina,” the local boxer said, “and (coach) Bob (Pegues) has his daughter and grandkids there, so he’s making the trip with me, and will be in my corner.” The event in May is a doubleheader, with members of the Canadian team squaring off against American fighters. “We fight at the Ken Goff Memorial the first night, which is a big dinner show, and then I face the same guy a couple of...

The Wheelin’ Warriors of the North are getting ready to roll, but first they have to eat. The local cycling team, which will take part in the Ride to Conquer Cancer in August, is hosting its annual Free Wheelin’ dinner and dance tomorrow, May 2 at the Treasure Cove. “It’s been a hectic week,” team captain Karen Piche says. “The tickets for the dinner are pretty well sold out.” The dinner features a silent auction, with items such as a family...

The Best Damn Little Art Auction Ever has gotten too big for its original home. After being held the past two years at the Groop Gallery, the auction will be held tonight (May 1) in the Keith Gordon Room at the Prince George Public Library. “It wasn’t so much there was too much art,” Groop Gallery owner Melanie Desjardines said, “as there were too many people for safety. There was only one exit from the room we were holding it in.” So the Community Arts Council started looking for a new...

Right now, there are 15 secondary-school classes in School District 57 which are over the 30-student limit established by the School Act. Superintendent Brian Pepper says that number is higher than it has been recently, but not out of line. “It’s higher than we’ve had the past couple of semesters, but I would call it the high side of usual.” He says in some cases the class is designed so the instructor actually prefers more students. “It may be a peer helping class, or a leadership class,...

Children at the University Hospital of Northern B.C. will find their stay there a little easier, thanks to some students from the University of Northern B.C. Students in the latest Masters Certificate in Project Management group were required to plan and execute a project as part of the course, and the latest cohort decided to do something that would benefit the community. “We had the opportunity to take on a real project,” says Fiona MacPherson, one of the students involved. “We raised...

Lynne Rozenboom knows the exact time her world changed. “At approximately 1 p.m. on May 13, 2008,” she told a crowd of about 50 at the Day of Mourning ceremony in Prince George on Tuesday, “my life changed, my children, my grandchildren, parents, friends.” That was when she was told her husband Dirk, a worker with BC Hydro, had been killed in a helicopter crash in Cranbrook. “It was a day like any other one,” she said. “He ate his oatmeal for...