There's nothing quite like watching a 100-to-1 longshot come out of nowhere to win at the racetrack, or a nearly dead dot-com stock awaken from its slumber to make a gallant run for the roses.

No, we're not making this up. Believe it or not, we have actually unearthed a dashing dot-com that has been outpacing many of those gushing oil stocks this year.

And, as stock market comebacks go, it'd be hard to find a bigger comeback story in the Canadian markets than that of Axia NetMedia.

If the name rings a bell, Axia was one of those upstart Calgary dot-coms of a few years ago that quickly fizzled into dot-bombs.

But Axia is alive and well and back in play. It's the scrawny horse basking in the limelight of the winners circle. It's the Seabiscuit of the TSX this year.

In a year in which the easy money has been made in energy and mining stocks and the tech sector has been stuck in the penalty box, Axia, a builder and manager of Alberta's SuperNet broadband Internet network, has bucked the trend. It has managed to match strides with the leaders on the TSX against the longest of odds.

Stock in Axia boasts a return of 161 per cent this year - what you'd expect from an oilsands play, not one of those casualties of the dot-com crash that you had pegged for the dot-com graveyard.

The irony in this story is that Axia's CEO, Art Price, left the oilpatch as CEO of Husky Energy to start Axia in 1995 at a time when dot-coms were becoming trendy and oil stocks were out of vogue.

Price's patience and perseverance with Axia has paid off in spades.

The company is enjoying a banner year in which it was finally able to show shareholders the money by moving into profitability and reached a major milestone when the province's Alberta SuperNet - which Axia will manage through a 10-year contract with the provincial government - was finally up and running.

The company has also benefited from patching up strained relations with one-time adversary Bell Canada, its partner on the SuperNet and now a major Axia shareholder.

Axia has made a dramatic turnaround with its financials. It recently reported earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2006 of $5.2 million (10 cents per share) compared to a loss of $1.2 million (three cents per share) for the year-ago period.

The company, which derives most of its income from managing the SuperNet for the province, hopes to expand its horizons with other networks like the SuperNet in other countries or jurisdictions.

Just over a year ago, Axia shares that vaulted the $18 mark in the height of the dot-com go-go days were languishing in the 50-cent range and Price, who was appointed Husky's CEO in 1984 at age 32, must have been wondering why he'd left the oil and gas sector.

Yet, in an ugly environment for tech stocks, Axia shares have tripled since March.

To put Axia's remarkable resurgence in perspective, one only needs to scan the grim tech landscape and peruse the eyesores that are the charts of some of Calgary's other high-flying dot-coms of five years ago, when tech stocks rose on hot air and companies in Warren Buffett's rock-solid portfolio languished.

Wi-Lan (TSX:WIN), which hit $90 five years ago when it was being compared to wireless heavyweights such as Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO), recently traded at 84 cents, down from a 52-week high of $1.50, and some shareholders must be wondering why it hasn't changed their symbol to LOSE. Wi-Lan's losses recently widened to $3.5 million from $2.2 million in the year-ago period.

Wi-Lan's wireless twin used to be Cell-Loc, which now doesn't even exist.

That company's shares, which had peaked at $80 in 2000, were trading at under $1 earlier this year when the company transformed itself into an oil and gas play.

The new company, Capitol Energy Resources (TSXV:CPU), recently traded at $4.95 while a spinoff of the old Cell-Loc operations, Cell Location Technologies (TSXV:LT), recently traded at 25 cents.

Zi Corp. (TSX:ZIG), a software company specializing in text messaging, ranks as one of the worst performers on the TSX this year with its shares down from $8 to $1.86 year to date.

That 79-per-cent drop ranks Zi as the worst-performing tech stock on the TSX this year. The stock hit $58 during the tech mania days.

Zi stock took another dive recently on third-quarter financials that showed a loss of $1.5 million on the heels of $700,000 profit in the year-ago period.

Somewhere in that carnage that is the tech sector lurks the next longshot with a chance of gracing the winners circle.

If you don't believe it, just ask Art Price.

* DELIVERING THE GOODS: Axia isn't the only non-resource play that has been on fire this year.

Check out an obscure Toronto company named Century IJ Holdings Inc. (TSX:CHI) that has quietly delivered a 242-per-cent return year to date and a phenomenal triple since August.

Century IJ operates ICT Courier, a Canadian business-to-business courier that has rapidly moved into profitability this year.

The company recently reported quarterly earnings of $1 million or nine cents per share compared to a loss of $446,000 or four cents per share in the year-ago period.

In July of 2004, you could have backed up the truck and loaded up Century IJ shares for a dime.

* MAD MONEY: Here's spitting proof that a salivating, wild-eyed, two-fisted American stock tout on network TV can kickstart a stock on a Canadian junior exchange.

When Jim Cramer, the bombastic host of CNBC's Mad Money, gave a thumbs up to Birch Mountain Resources (TSXV:BMD) recently, the shares surged almost 10 per cent in an intraday move against the grain of weak oilsands stocks.

Calgary-based Birch Mountain is an indirect play on the oilsands that had done just fine without Cramer. The stock boasts an 800-per-cent return year-to-date based on its limestone deposits for use in the oilsands industry.

* SAGE WORDS: "Markets work, if you let them."

- Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon, in his address to the U.S. Congress in interviews over big oil's controversial windfall of profits.

Hot Stock

Miramar Mining

TSX:MAE $2.16

Up 55 cents (+34.2 per cent) on 3.8 million shares (based on weekly stats through Nov. 17 for Canadian stocks over $1)

After an extended hiatus that had the gold bugs shopping for oil stocks of all things, the gold juniors have begun to stir on the back of a gold price that charged within striking distance of the $500 US plateau (per ounce). Miramar mustered the most compelling high-volume breakout, thanks to gold-mining giant Newmont Mining. Newmont gave Miramar a vote of confidence by taking a 9.9-per-cent stake in the North Vancouver company at $2.35 per share. Miramar operates the Hope Bay property in Nunavut, Canada's largest undeveloped gold project.

Cold Stock

SMTC Manufacturing

TSX:SMX $2

Down $1.75 (-46.1 per cent) on 277,900 shares (based on weekly stats through Nov. 17 for Canadian stocks over $1)

Apparently, SMTC was quite pleased with a third-quarter performance in which the electronics manufacturing outfit booked a profit of $800,000 (five cents per share) compared to $2.8 million (20 cents per share) in the year-ago period. "This was a quarter of significant financial improvement ... " stated chief financial officer Jane Todd in the quarterly press release. Gosh, it seems Todd's words rang a bit hollow with the market that punished the stock, virtually cutting the price in half in one fell swoop.

(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)