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A respectable effort by New Brunswick
That's the final tally for Team New Brunswick at the Canada Winter Games. Not its best effort, surely, but still respectable when facing the likes of perennial powerhouses Ontario, Quebec and B.C. event after event.
Our two silver and 12 bronze put us in ninth place, with only Prince Edward Island and the two territories faring worse.
But it was still a competition filled with outstanding performances by our athletes, some medal worthy, all noteworthy.
Our judo team collected six bronze medals to highlight the first week of competition.
The first came thanks to Shannon Barry (Saint John), Cynthia Blanchette (Saint Quentin), Pascale Castonguay (Saint Quentin), Renee Collin (Edmundston), Pamela Lamarche (Saint Quentin), Marie Claude Michaud (Edmundston), Vicky Nadeau (Clair) and Lisa Ouellette (Caron Brook), who battled back from a three-match deficit to finish third in the girls' team competition.
Nadeau, Piers Doiron (Saint John), Yan Martin (Clair), Peter Montague (Saint John) and Dale Lemon (Hanwell) each earned bronze in individual competition.
Lemon took the hardest route to the podium. The Hanwell native was tied with two other fighters vying for the medal round and only advanced after a weigh-off determined he was the lightest of the three.
Week 2 saw Miramichi's Amanda Sullivan shoot her way to a silver medal in the air pistol competition, adding a sixth-place finish with her partner, Amanda Wood, in the team competition.
Short track speed skater Peter Walker of Fredericton took third place in the 1,000-metre event at the Stephenville Dome and was fifth in the 3,000m.
Speed skating also yielded a second bronze medal to Saint John's Katie Reynolds, Norton's Jessica Steele, and Fredericton's Vicki Scholten and Lindsay Walker in the 3,000-m relay - N.B.'s last medal of the Games on Friday.
Saint John's fighting cousins, Ian Gardner and Gordon McKinnon, picked up two more bronze at the boxing venue.
Meanwhile, figure skating proved to be a mine of its own as Petitcodiac's Meaghan McGibbon and Edmundston's Shawn Sawyer each took home bronze.
Blackville's Bonard Muck and partner Carolyn Forest of Lasalle, Que., also skated to silver, theirs coming in the dance competition.
Muck, who was one of N.B.'s biggest cheerleaders in Corner Brook (he instigated The Wave at a women's hockey game, for example) was selected as our flag-bearer at Saturday's closing ceremonies.
Strong performances without medals included cross country skier Chastity DeGroot of Eels River Crossing, who finished seventh, Kathy Welock of Fredericton, who was fifth in the synchronized swimming solo competition, freestyle skier Matthew Parker of Campbellton, who was ninth in the aerials, the the entire wheelchair basketball team - Joey Boudreau (Shediac), Martin Bourque (Dieppe), Robbie Cameron (Moncton), Genevieve Fournier (Granby, Que.), Christine Henderson (Saint John), Jordan Hunter (Boiestown), Gary Kingsley (Saint John), Daniel Melanson (Moncton), Andrew Miller (Saint John), Sean Simpson (Welsford), Bob Stultz (Dorchester), Jamie Thibault (Moncton) - which finished fifth, a best-ever finish for N.B.