Monday, August 2, 2010

Festa makes its mark

There's nothing like a spaghetti eating contest at an event that celebrates Italian culture. In this case it's the Festa Italia which was held at the Italian Cultural Centre on Algoma Street over the weekend. Hundreds showed up to have some food along with enjoying music and entertainment.

Early morning robbery

Thunder Bay police say a robbery took place in the area of Dease and Mackienze this morning.

A 50 year old man—who suffered a bloody nose from the incident— told police he was approached by two young males. They starting punching him and then took his wallet.

Police searched the area but no suspects were found.

The World Junior Baseball Championships a complete success

The Medals were handed out and the final speeches were said and as the dust settled, Thunder Bay can stand proud after a very successful tournament.  Organizer Warren Philp says ticket sales went well beyond what was expected and all the teams and International officials had nothing but good things to say about the tournament and Thunder Bay.  Philp says the volunteers did a tremendous job and all the fans should give themselves a pat on the back for showing the world how great Thunder Bay is.  Jeff Halverson says he was hoping to sell between 20 to 25 thousand tickets and ended up selling over 45 thousand which was a very pleasant surprise.

Chinese Taipei takes the gold

It was a story book ending for Chinese Taipei at the World Junior Baseball Championships. They managed to literally weather the storm in rain delayed 8-4 win over Australia to take their country's second Gold medal. Rain forced the start of the game to be pushed back by an hour and a half and Australia came out of the gates scoring 4 runs, including a 3 run homer after 4 innings to take a 4-2 lead but then mother nature stopped the game again for over an hour. When play resumed Taipei regrouped and scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 5th and never looked back capturing the gold.

Australia takes the Silver, which is their country's best ever showing at this event. Prior to this year, they had won 5 Bronze medals. Team Manager Tony Harris says they wanted the Gold but he's very proud of his team.