Steve Milton: Panwar headlines another good weekend for Bulldogs

The Bulldogs' Sahil Panwar was named the OHL's player of the week for notching four goals and five assists in Hamilton's three games (two wins and a loss), which moved the Dogs into sixth place the East Division. The 21-year-old, obtained in the Avery Hayes trade with Peterborough, had two goals and three assists against those very Petes in Sunday's 7-4 comeback victory. They'd trailed 3-0 after 27 minutes of play, but dominated thereafter. Cole Brown, who had the overtime winner in Saturday's 5-4 upset of Ottawa 5-4 at FirstOntario Centre, scored two more on Sunday while singles went to Lawson Sherk, Nick Lardis and Artem Grushnikov. Donovan Jorian had four assists.

Hamilton sits two points back of Mississauga, one ahead of Kingston and four up on eighth-place Sudbury.

Hot Rocks

The Rock are only a game out of first place in the National Lacrosse League's East division as they return to FirstOntario Centre on Saturday (7 p.m., TSN) for their combined Kidz Night and Steel City jersey auction game against the New York Riptide. The Hamilton-based Rock beat the Roughnecks 11-10 in overtime in Calgary on Saturday for their fourth consecutive victory, to hoist their record to 5-2. Calgary scored three times in the final 163 seconds to force a sudden-death period, but TD Irelan won the opening faceoff. After an immediate timeout, Stephen Keogh pounced on the rebound of Dan Craig's shot and fired it into the Roughnecks' net for the winner, and his third goal of the game. Corey Small had four goals and three assists for the Rock, while Craig also had seven points, with a goal and six helpers.

Attendance for Saturday - with ticket deals for kids and the Steel City jerseys being worn for the last time this year and being auctioned online for charity - are trending to surpass 9,000.

International win for Nexxice

Fresh off their 2023 national championship, synchronized skating team Nexxice won the Mozart Cup in Salzburg, Austria, on Jan. 21, with a nearly-four-point margin over the runner-up Haydenettes, who've won the last 12 U.S. titles. From Feb. 17 to 19, the Hamilton-Burlington team will be in Sesto San Giavanni, Italy, to compete in the Spring Cup, which will also include Nexxice's longtime rivals Les Supremes, from Saint-Leonard, Que. Nexxice will be joined at the Spring Cup by their junior squad, which also recently won the Canadian title. The week before the Spring Cup, the juniors are skating at the Hevelius Cup in Gdansk, Poland.

CFL's Women in Football

Applications are now open for KPMG's Women in Football Program, a four-week development initiative which provides an opportunity for one woman to join the football operations department in each of the nine CFL cities leading up to - and including two weeks of - training camp. Last year, two of the program participants went on to be hired for their respective clubs, including Paige Ottaviano, now the Ticats' manager of Grey Cup festival and events.

The application deadline is Feb. 12 at CFL.ca/women-in-football-presented-by-kpmg.

Girls invited to try field lacrosse for free

The Hamilton Lacrosse Association (HLA) is running its first free Try Lacrosse" event for females aged six to 18 who think they might be interested in playing field lacrosse. The introductory event will be held at Soccer World, 104 Frid St., on Saturday, Feb. 18, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Hamilton Lacrosse will provide a stick for participants to use during the session. Girls need to bring their own gym attire and mouth guard. The HLA has both house league and rep team programming for girls field lacrosse, which is played outside during the spring and summer months.

Pre-registration is required, at HamiltonLacrosse.com.

Corbeanu striking in Germany

Now that his foot injury has healed, soccer club Wolverhampton Wanderers of the Premier League have loaned Hamilton native Theo Corbeanu to German second division team Armenia Bielefeld. He played his first game over the weekend, coming in at striker in the 47th minute of a 2-1 loss. Armenia, which played in the top German league last year but was relegated, is struggling to avoid further relegation this season. The 20-year-old signed a four-year contract extension with Wolves and had earlier been loaned to Sheffield Wednesday, MK Dons and Blackpool in England. The infrastructure in Bundesliga 2 is excellent, Armenia are a big club and get big crowds," Wolverhampton executive Matt Jackson said on the team's website. They're not in the greatest of league positions and I like the fact that Theo's willing to embrace that challenge and pressure."

And also: Every female playing hockey in Ontario owes a lot to former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, who died Sunday at the age of 101. She had her faults, but Hurricane Hazel was integral to the growth of the women's game, relentlessly promoted girls in hockey for decades, advising numerous teams and leagues, and was a well-known star herself in Quebec during the 1940s. She was a close friend of the Ontario Women's Hockey Association's Fran Rider, another pioneer organizer ... Colgate, ranked No. 4 in U.S. women's NCAA hockey and challenging Yale and Quinnipiac for the Eastern College Athletic Conference lead, has two Bishop Tonnos grads and former Stoney Creek Sabres. Jenna Duarte and Tess Holik, both freshmen forwards, are each plus-5 for Colgate located in, appropriately, Hamilton, N.Y. ... the Hamilton Kilty B's junior hockey club split a pair of road games on the weekend, losing 4-3 in Caledonia on Saturday and blanking Pelham 3-0 on Sunday. They play in Niagara Falls on Friday and Welland on Sunday before returning to Mountain Arena on Thursday, Feb. 9, against Fort Erie ... Former Sir Allan MacNab Lion football player Isaiah Guzylak-Messam has signed a two-year extension with the CFL's BC Lions. The linebacker was a key special teams player for the Lions last year and was a defensive starter in the second half of the 2019 season.

Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com