Border Cats come out swinging for start of 2024 Northwoods League season
CBC
Thunder Bay's baseball fans are in for a big weekend.
The Thunder Bay Border Cats are scheduled to play their home opener on Friday at Port Arthur Stadium, hosting the Minnesota Mud Puppies.
Not only will the game be the first chance for Thunder Bay fans to see this year's Cats roster in person, but it's also the start of a six-game homestand that will also see the Cats face the Eau Claire Express and Duluth Huskies.
Field manager J.M. Kelly is back for his second season with the Border Cats and has high hopes for this year's team.
"I know that we'll be more talented than last year," he said. "If we don't win this year, it's not going to be because we weren't talented.
"It's going to be hard to sit there and say, when you look at us on paper, that we're not going to be successful," Kelly said. "I think we've got the team put together to win a lot of games this year."
Kelly said he wanted to see more offense out of this year's team when compared to last year's.
"I think the arms were really, really good last year," Kelly said. "They gave us a chance to win every game we were in, almost. I mean, probably 95 per cent of the games, our arms kept us in it."
"We just didn't score enough, and so we really tried to go after some experience," Kelly said. "We had a lot of young guys last year. We had a lot of guys that didn't play a lot where they were at."
"The majority of these guys you're going to see this year played almost every day at the schools they were at. So we'll have a lot more experience offensively, and I think that's going to show when we start playing."
One of this year's returning players is Thunder Bay-born pitcher Jack Pineau, who plays college baseball at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
"We have a lot more Canadians this year, a lot more familiar faces," Pineau said. "I think the fans will like that."
"I know quite a few of these guys and we've got some players here this year," he said. "I think we're going to be really good again, and hopefully we can stay healthy so guys don't have to leave, and be good the entire season."
The Cats finished the first half of the 2023 season in second place in the league's Great Plains East division, but fell off in the second half, finishing in last place.
Even from a few kilometres away, Dr. Vitor Mendes Pereira is able to perform a critical diagnostic procedure, thanks to an internet connection and a remote-controlled robot.
The side of an abandoned fish sauce plant in St. Mary's, N.L. was ripped open after high winds overnight Friday into Saturday.
A police officer shot a man on Quinpool Road after he allegedly threatened them with a knife, Halifax Regional Police said in a news release.
For nearly a month, Montrealers from African countries have been gathering in the city's cafés, restaurants, bars and the comfort of their own homes to support their respective teams in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations — the continent's preeminent soccer tournament.
The union that represents Manitoba nurses says the emergency department at the hospital in Swan River is running with half the nurses required, with some shifts having no nurses at all.
Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl is taking a brief leave of absence to attend to a family illness in Germany.
A fire tore through a school on Blueberry River First Nation north of Fort St. John early Saturday morning, destroying a building that has served the northeastern B.C. community for decades.
UPDATE | In an email Saturday, Air Canada passenger Heather Badenoch told CBC that CBSA officials had reached out, asked if she had anything to declare, and assured her she wouldn't have any future problems travelling.
With city crews still working away to clear the snow buildup from Thursday and more flurries in the forecast for this weekend, disability advocates in Toronto say there’s not enough support during winter weather events.
A Kamloops, B.C., woman says she’s worried someone could die as a result of hitting one of the large potholes on the Coquihalla Highway between the Lower Mainland and B.C.’s southern interior.
Yukon University staff voted in favour of a strike mandate earlier this month after the two parties failed to reach an agreement at the bargaining table.
The federal government has unveiled the next steps in its national gun buyback program — and Canadians will have about two months to declare their interest in participating in order to receive compensation for turning in outlawed firearms.