The Foothills Falcons proved they can play with the one of the best 4A senior boy’s basketball teams in the province.
However, now Foothills has to beat the Bert Church Chargers on Friday night or else they won’t be playing against anybody for the rest of the season.
Foothills traded punches with the Chargers in the first half of Game 1 of the best-of-three 4A South Central final Wednesday in Airdrie but they could not hold on in the second half losing 75-52.
“We stayed with them for the first half we …

The Okotoks Oilers have regained home ice advantage in the Alberta Junior Hockey League quarterfinal series.
The Oilers tied their best-of-seven games series at 2-2 when they downed the Canmore Eagles 4-1 Thursday in Canmore.
“I thought we played with a little more consistency tonight than we have in the first few games of the series,” Oilers coach Garry VanHereweghe said.
The line of Nolan Huysmans, Ben Gamache and Chris Korpach led the Oilers.
“They don’t have a lot of size but they have a great work ethic,” VanHereweghe said. “They have a lot …

Taking the gold medal at the high school curling provincials was a first for Okotoks, a first for the Foothills Falcons’ mixed curling team and icing on the cake for the school as hosts of the competition.
The Falcons won the provincial mixed championship by downing Holy Rosary High School from Lloydminster 9-2 Saturday in the final at the Okotoks Curling Club.
The Falcons said they worked hard for the win, despite the wide margin, and the tension was evident on the ice.
After landing one particularly tense shot in the fifth end, …

For a Bragg Creek actress, the exhilaration of performing onstage is about figuring out how to truthfully portray a fake situation.
Kendra Hutchinson is refining her ability to create an authentic performance, as authentic as possible given she steps into the life of a different person.
And there is lies the excitement.
“Doing a play is when I’m the happiest, for sure,” said Hutchinson. “To be able to enter into new worlds and lives of these characters and experience it and recreate it – it’s exhilarating.”
Hutchinson, 21, is in her fourth year of …

There’s nothing like losing the first game of the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) playoffs to clear the cobwebs from young men’s minds.
The Okotoks Oilers lost their opening game of the AJHL playoffs when they dropped a 5-4 decision to the Canmore Eagles Sunday at the Centennial Arena in Okotoks. However, they rebounded to tie the best-of-seven series at 1-1 when they beat the Eagles 4-2 Monday in Okotoks.

The Oilers received a bye in the opening round of the AJHL for winning the South Division. Sunday’s 5-4 loss was …

The Highwood and Foothills-Rocky View ridings could be carved up in a proposed shuffle of Alberta’s election boundaries.
Local politicians are not pleased with the proposal which would have the Town of High River removed from the Highwood riding and included in a new riding, High River-Crowsnest Pass, that would stretch from High River’s north boundary to Waterton National Park.
Highwood MLA George Groeneveld said High River should remain in his riding.
“To me, it’s just ridiculous,” he said. “It just appears population is the only thing they looked at.”
The proposals are included …

An Okotoks school will be playing in the Foothills Athletic Council (FAC) Senior boys basketball final this weekend.
Now it’s up to the Holy Trinity Academy (HTA) Knights and the Foothills Composite Falcons to decide on March 5 which of those Okotoks schools will vie for the championship.
The Knights earned a trip to the semi-finals after beating the Oilfields Drillers 87-55 March 3 at HTA in the FAC quarterfinal.
“I thought we played our most complete game of the season,” Knights coach Sam Aiello said. “We played a full 40 minutes which …

With any luck, an award-winning blues musician, will have his guitar face on for the audience in the Flare ‘n’ Derrick on Saturday.

The guitar face is a signal of reaching another plane, a pocket of emotion triggered by the blues, according to Nanaimo rocker David Gogo.
The blues is all about emotion, Gogo said. Judging by the recognition he has earned, Gogo knows his way around a guitar.
Gogo was named Musician of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards in 2000, was twice named Guitarist of the Year at the …

Okotoks has caught a case of ring fever – the kind that is associated with the Olympics.
Staff and students from local schools held mini-Olympic events indoors and out to get into the spirit. Local pubs have seen an increase in business as Canada’s medal total climbed.
Tony Nicastro, owner of The George Traditional House in Okotoks, said he has noticed a five to 10 per cent increase in business since the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games’ Feb. 12 start date.
“The opening ceremonies was obviously big and when Canada plays in men’s hockey,” …

The second court appearance for the former bookkeeper of Oilfields High School charged with sexually exploiting students was as uneventful as the first.
Neither the accused woman nor her lawyer appeared in Okotoks Provincial Court last Friday. Another lawyer spoke on behalf of defence lawyer Lisa Burgis and asked that the case return to court on March 30. During her first two scheduled appearances the woman did not appear in court and has not entered a plea to any of the charges.
Burgis will be reviewing a large amount of documents that …