Front Page - March 12, 2010

Vol. 128 No.1 Friday, March 12, 2010 Minnedosa, Manitoba Canada R0J 1E0 90 cents + taxPM# 40049987

THE OLDEST WEEKLY NEWSPAPER IN THE CANADIAN WEST

Get ready, get set... loppet!

Photo by Amanda Boyd

Adults and youth partake in the fourth annual loppet race at Riding Mountain National Park. See story on Page 6.

By DARRYL HOLYK

Christopher Ryan Rol-lins, 20, of Rapid City

was sentenced to two years less a day in prison for the fatal rollover which claimed the life of 17-year-old Jodie Vandenberghe last June. Rollins was also handed a fi ve-year driving ban in Minnedosa Court on Tuesday. Th e accident oc-curred June 19th on Bethany Road, just off Highway #262 north of Minnedosa. Investigation and cell phone video evi-dence determined Rollins was driving in a dangerous manner when the accident occurred. In an attempt to soak his female passen-gers, by carelessly driving a pickup truck through a par-tially water covered portion of the gravel road, Rollins lost control and rolled the vehicle. Th is caused Van-denberghe, who was in the front passenger seat, to be ejected from the vehicle. At the time of the ac-cident, Rollins was prohib-ited from driving as a result of an earlier impaired driv-ing conviction. He pleaded guilty in December.

Two years

jail time for

fatal crash

By AMANDA BOYD

Minnedosa Collegiate (MCI) Grade 11

student, Th omas Roche, managed to survive the Rugby Canada U17 selec-tion camp without be-ing cut, and will be one of 26 players representing Canada in the Welling-ton Festival this spring. Roche was astound-ed that he’d made Team

Canada. “It’s amazing,” he exclaimed. “It’s some-thing I’ve always dreamed about doing. I went to the second try-outs not think-ing I was going to make it.” He described the growing pains of playing on a new team when he went to the BC tryouts in February. “I had tried out as a back and then they shifted me to the forwards and found out I played better there. I

had been in the worst po-sition on the team when I was playing back, so when they were down a for-ward during one practice I thought, ‘this is my golden opportunity to show them what I can do.’ I was able to get noticed and played forward for the rest of the tryouts.” He had to try out a few diff erent positions before he found where he was comfortable and could

really excel. “I was strug-gling to begin with,” Roche admitted. “I felt like I was one of the worst players on the team because these guys were fast and strong. I have the strength, I just didn’t have the speed they did. So it was good when I went to forwards because you don’t need speed as much as you need the strength.” Tryouts forced Roche out of his comfort

zone and pushed him to be able to play any posi-tion; especially when he was promoted to primary jumper, a postion he’s never played before. “If you have the core skills, such as being able to tackle and being able to scrum, if you’re a utility player, you’re going to get no-ticed,” he agreed.

Continued on Page 6

Thomas Roche selected for national rugby team

Photo submitted