Pennie shines at the Nationals!
Brodie Pennie of Bidwell just had an amazing race weekend at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa. Acting as an on-location-correspondent, Gerry Holliday was just the man to do it, too! Gerry was Brodie’s coach through secondary school and beyond before Brodie was drafted to be part of the University of New Brunswick Reds team and, of course, Gerry himself was a nationally ranked competitor who knows the scene very well.
Gerry just spent three days at the championships watching Brodie run. In the 1500m, Brodie already had a qualifying time so he didn’t have to run the qualifying round however in the semi final on Friday he ran well enough to make the final which took place on Saturday. In the final he found himself in a tactical race which started out very slowly with no one wanting to set the pace. This set up for a very fast final two laps where Brodie ended up fourth overall with a time of just under 3:55! A great time to be sure but slower than he has run this year! This is where race situations can handcuff a runner and not let them run to their full potential!
In the 3000m, the final was run in two heats with Brodie finding himself in the slow heat due to not having a seed time. The last time he ran a 3000 was in high school at OFSSAA. In the race, he and a teammate from the University of New Brunswick took it out strong, setting a consistent pace with Brodie breaking away from the field with about three laps remaining and winning this race by about 14 seconds with a time of 8:30. In the faster, second heat there were four athletes that would, however, beat his time putting Brodie overall in fifth place overall. The winning time was 8:19 and Coach Gerry strongly believes that, “if Brodie would have been in that second heat that his time would have been much closer to the winning result. A great meet, overall!”
Mountain Bikers Race!
The Summer Epic, 8 Hour Relay took place at Hardwood Hills on Saturday, July 26th. In a relay mountain bike event, riders race to complete as many laps as possible in the time allotted.
Manitoulin riders Nathan Quackenbush and Bradley Slaght paired up with two riders from AWI Cycling in Simcoe County (Ellamarie Belcourt and Rebecca Dief) to win the Under 20 category! They competed 14 laps of the 10km course in 7:52:27, beating their nearest rivals by one minute and seven seconds after nearly eight hours of racing!
Local racers are looking forward to a home-course-advantage with Breakaway Sports’ own 6 hour relay event coming up at McLeans Park on Sunday, August 31st. Information and registration at breakawaymanitoulinevents.com.
Kohyn at Hlinka Gretzky, Team Canada Selection Camp
Kohyn Eshkawkogan was one of 40 players to be considered for the fiercely contested, 25-player roster to represent Team Canada and attend the Hlinka Gretzky to take place in Brno, Czechia, and Trencin, Slovakia next week.
Every NHL team and several NCAA D1 schools were present to see a strong 2008 born group of future NHL hopefuls at the Oakville camp. Many were commenting that they loved what they seen out of Kohyn including a “Top 10 Standout” article by Dailyfaceoff.com, “#8 Kohyn Eshkawkogan, D (2027 NHL Draft): I wanted to see more out of Eshkawkogan at the U-17s last fall but he made up for it with a great showing this week. He blasted a shot to make it 1-0 in the second game, and I’m surprised he didn’t have another goal or two. He’s smart, skilled, and works hard to win every battle despite being a bit smaller.”
After a strong showing in a set of practices and in the first of two Red/White games, Kohyn started the second game by wiring a shot top corner from the point for the first goal of the game. However, the 1st team OHL All Star Rookie was not selected to represent Canada this time around.
With the camp loaded with right-handed projected first round NHL picks like Keaton Verhoeff, Landon Dupont, and Ryan Lin, the Team Canada Selection Committee was seemingly looking for left-handed D to balance the backend.
Despite not making Team Canada this time, Kohyn is thankful for the experience and is looking forward to spending the next three weeks training with Gary Roberts Performance. He is also excited to be going back to Ottawa for his second season and the 67s main camp August 26-28.
With games in North Bay on September 3rd and 26th, supporters from around the north, will have a couple of great opportunities to get an early look at the 2027 NHL draft eligible prospect!
Haw-some event!
There was some Haw-some racing at the Haw Run 2025 and had a record-breaking 148 registered participants including 26 runners who completed the 10k, 70 runners in the 5k and 52 kids who took part in the 1k run!
Proceeds from the event go toward supporting youth sport on Manitoulin. In past years, this has included purchasing a small fleet of bikes for the high school mountain bike team—giving students without suitable bikes the chance to participate. They’re excited to see what this year’s funds will make possible!
In the 10K, hats off to Adam Ferguson, Alan Wilkin and Christian Kaiser-Fox who were top-three in the Open male division. Shannon Miller, Milenna Gigliotti and Laurel Leconte medaled in the female class. Brooke Simon was the lone brave U-16 girl as were the two boys, Sean Zembal and Simon Fessenden.
In the 5km event there were U-16 times under and over the Open times so here are all the medal winners in the race: Alice May, Vienna Black, Jude Kift, Nathan Quackenbush, Oliver Hall, David Joyce, Felix Perron, Lucas Gigliotti, Jedd Smith, Allanna Macaluso, Cassie Huck and Liz Van Every!
Breakaway issues huge thanks to their amazing volunteers, “this event truly couldn’t happen without you”. Special thanks to: Nelson Wood for his help with registration and timing, the Hall, Aelick, and Scott families for helping with registration, t-shirt sales, and keeping everyone on course, Steve Fessenden and the O’Hare family for keeping runners hydrated, and an extra-special thank you to Jessica Aelick, who took on the thankless job of entering all the results for us to share with you.
They’re also incredibly grateful to the local businesses who donated prizes. Please show your appreciation by shopping local whenever you can!
Baseball Camp nears capacity!
NEMI is sponsoring a baseball camp next week and spots are dwindling. The town, along with the Sudbury Baseball Academy, is looking for a few more youth (ages 4 – 14) for the August 12 and 13 camp. The subsidized cost is amazing at just $40 so send in your request, quick to lhallaert@townofnemi.on.ca
