F Curtis Hamilton (Saskatoon, 2006-11) signed a one-year contract with the Graz 99ers (Austria, Erste Bank Liga). Last season, he was pointless in five games Tappara Tampere (Finland, Liiga), and had three goals and five assists in 16 games with SaiPa Lappeenranta (Finland, Liiga).
Slightly more than a month after F Jordy Bellerive of the Lethbridge Hurricanes was in hospital with burns, he has returned to the ice. Steve Ewen of Postmedia reports that Bellerive, the Hurricanes’ captain, skated at Canlan Ice Sports in North Vancouver this week. . . . Ewen’s story is right here.
The Swift Current Broncos added two players to their roster on Thursday, as they 
claimed D Ryan Pouliot, 20, off waivers from the Kootenay Ice and signed Finnish F Joona Kiviniemi. . . . Pouliot is preparing for his fourth WHL season, after playing with the Ice (135 games) and Red Deer Rebels (14 games). Last season, he had two goals and eight assists in 64 games with the Ice. . . . In 169 career games, he had three goals and 27 assists. . . . Kiviniemi, who will turn 17 on Dec. 17, played most of last season with Karpat’s U-18 team in the Jr. B SM-Sarja. He had one goal and two assists in 12 games.
The Kamloops Blazers have signed their two selections from the CHL’s 2018 import draft 
— Czech F Martin Lang, who will turn 17 on Sept. 15, and D Joonas Sillanpää, 17. . . . Lang had 32 goals and 22 assists in 35 games with HC Plzen’s U-18 team last season. He is expected to play Czech Republic at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in Edmonton and Red Deer, Aug. 6-11. . . . The 6-foot-5 Sillanpää had two goals and six assists in 43 games split between HIFK’s U-18 and U-20 teams. . . . Last season, the Blazers’ imports were Czech D Ondrej Vala, who was traded to the Everett Silvertips in January, and Swiss F Justin Sigrist, who won’t be back for a second season.
The Kootenay Ice has signed D Valtteri Kakkonen of Finland, who was its only selection in the CHL’s 2018 import draft. Last season, Kakkonen, 18, had five goals and seven assists in 47 games with JYP’s U-20 team that played in the Jr. A SM-Liiga.
Peter Schaefer, the WHL’s player of the year for 1996-97 while with the Brandon Wheat Kings, has returned to the BCHL’s Surrey Eagles as an assistant coach. . . . Schaefer, 41, was the Eagles’ general manager and head coach in 2013-14. This time, he will work alongside head coach Brandon West and assistant coach Linden Saip.
F Branden Klatt won’t be returning to the WHL for his 20-year-old season. He has cleared WHL waivers and chosen to sign with the SJHL’s Yorkton Terriers. . . . Klatt, who is from Moose Jaw, was a sixth-round pick by the Edmonton Oil Kings in the WHL’s 2013 bantam draft. . . . In 184 regular-season WHL games, 85 of them with Edmonton and 99 with the Moose Jaw Warriors, he had 15 goals and 30 assists. . . . Last season, with the Warriors, he had seven goals and eight assists in 69 games.
Nathan Oystrick is the new general manager and head coach of the SJHL’s Humboldt Broncos. He reported to work on Wednesday and Kevin Mitchell of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix spent some time with him. . . . That piece is right here.
The Texas-based USA-Central Hockey League, which bills itself as a “non-tuition” junior A league, announced Thursday that Tory Mick is its first president. . . . Mick is a former WHL coach and player, who spent the past five seasons in the front office of the BCHL’s Salmon Arm Silverbacks. . . . Kevin Mitchell of Black Press has more right here.
According to a news release from the Raiders, “Terms of the trade were not disclosed.”
from the Edmonton Oil Kings for a conditional fifth-round selection in the 2019 bantam draft.
import draft — Swiss G Akira Schmid and D Danila Palivko of Belarus. . . . Schmid, 18, was a fifth-round pick by the New Jersey Devils in the NHL’s 2018 draft. Last season, he put up a 2.60 GAA in 32 games with the U-20 Langnau club. Schmid will get a chance at being the Hurricanes’ starter in 2018-19 as they have to replace Logan Flodell, who played out his eligibility last season. . . . Palivko, who turns 17 on Nov. 30, played 40 games with Belarus’s U-17 team, putting up six goals and 20 assists. In 12 games with the U-18 team, he had six assists. The Hurricanes saw him at the Mac’s tournament in Calgary, where he had two assists in four games. . . . 
because of an undisclosed injury. F Justin Almeida of the Moose Jaw Warriors has been replaced by F Serron Noel of the OHL’s Oshawa Generals. . . . Noel was a second-round pick by the Florida Panthers in the NHL’s 2018 draft. . . . Earlier, D Josh Brook of the Warriors and F Jordy Bellerive of the Lethbridge Hurricanes were scratched because of injuries. Brook apparently has a wrist injury, while Bellerive continues to recover from burns suffered in an accident involving a bonfire. . . . There now are eight WHLers on Canada’s roster — D Cale Addison of Lethbridge, D Ty Smith of the Spokane Chiefs, D Jett Woo of Moose Jaw, F Jaret Anderson-Dolan of Spokane, F Connor Dewar of the Everett Silvertips, F Cody Glass of the Portland Winterhawks, F Stelio Mattheos of the Brandon Wheat Kings and F Michael Rasmussen of the Tri-City Americans. . . . The Showcase opens Saturday in Kamloops and runs through Aug. 4. It features teams from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the U.S.
make 58 trades that involved 110 players, 77 bantam draft picks and 12 conditional bantam draft picks. (I started counting on Nov. 13 because that was when the Regina Pats, the host team for the 2018 Memorial Cup, made the first big deal, acquiring D Cale Fleury from the Kootenay Ice.)
eighth-round selection in the 2019 WHL bantam draft. . . . Sidaway, who is from Victoria, split last season between the Kootenay Ice and Regina. He had a goal and an assist in five games with Kootenay, then recorded three assists in 58 games with the Pats. In 2016-17, he had two goals and six assists in 65 games with the Ice. An undrafted player, he originally was listed by the Red Deer Rebels. . . . On Jan. 3, 2016, the Ice acquired Sidaway, F Presten Kopeck, 20, D Ryan Pouliot, 17, and second- and third-round picks in the 2016 bantam draft from Red Deer for F Luke Philp, 20. . . . On Oct. 10, the Ice dealt Sidaway and a seventh-round pick in the 2018 bantam draft to Regina for F Jeff de Wit, 19.
. . He replaces Dean Chynoweth, who left after one season and has signed as an assistant coach with the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes. . . . As a player, Heward spent parts of nine seasons in the NHL, after playing four seasons (1987-91) with his hometown Regina Pats. . . . Heward, 47, spent the past six seasons with the Swift Current Broncos, as an assistant coach and the director of player development. . . . This means that the Broncos, the WHL’s reigning champions, have lost three coaches since the season ended. Head coach Manny Viveiros now is an assistant with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers, while assistant coach Ryan Smith has joined the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Hurricanes and the City of Lethbridge for the 2020 Memorial Cup. . . . Terry Huisman, the Hurricanes’ general manager of business operations, will be the co-chair. . . . Reddick is a partner with Mercer Wilde Group Chartered Accountants in Lethbridge and has long been involved with minor hockey in that city. . . . Huisman has been the general manager of business operations since 2012 and has played an integral role in leading the franchise out of the financial mess it was in not that long ago. . . . The Hurricanes, Kamloops Blazers, Kelowna Rockets and Victoria Royals all are preparing bids for the 2020 Memorial Cup. They are scheduled to present those bids at a meeting of the WHL’s board of governors in Calgary on Oct. 3. A host city is expected to be named at the conclusion of that meeting.
neighborhood, right?
2001-02, their first season in the WHL. . . . The Giants announced on Friday morning that Brown has been hired to fill the new position of senior advisor. . . . Brown has spent the past 16 seasons as a scout with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. . . . Before that, he was the general manager of the Kamloops Blazers for 10 seasons (1986-95) and is generally recognized as the man who built the Kamloops teams that won the Memorial Cup three times in four years (1992, 1994, 1995). He was unceremoniously fired two weeks after the Blazers won the third of those championships. . . . In his time in Kamloops, the Blazers won 435 games, seven division titles and five WHL championships. . . . Brown then went on to work for five seasons (1995-2000) as the vice-president and general manager of the Tri-City Americans. . . . Brown was inducted into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame in Penticton as a builder in 2009. In 2013, Brown also was part of the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame proceedings as the 1993-94 and 1994-95 Blazers were inducted. . . . Barclay Parneta, the Giants’ recently hired GM, worked as a scout under Brown with the Americans, who were owned at the time by Ron Toigo, who is the Giants’ majority owner.
for a conditional sixth-round selection in the WHL’s 2019 bantam draft. . . . Wegleitner, from Vancouver, B.C., had 10 goals and nine assists in 57 regular-season games last season. In 2014-15, he had one goal in 43 games with the Everett Silvertips. In 2016-17, he was pointless in 12 games with the Victoria Royals. . . . The Ice now has five 1998-born players on its roster, as Wegleitner joins Slovakian D Martin Bodak, who would be a two-spotter, D Dallas Hines, a veteran of three seasons in Cranbrook, D Ryan Pouliot, who has played two-plus seasons with Kootenay, and G Matt Berlin, who was acquired from the Seattle Thunderbirds on Jan. 8. . . . Taking Note has been told that Bodak, who will turn 20 on Nov. 28, hasn’t yet made a decision as to whether to return for a second season with the Ice. It could be that he and his agent are hoping to land a contract with a team in Europe. . . . The trade leaves Brandon with three 20-year-olds on its roster — D School Higson, F Linden McCorrister, and F Ty Lewis, who has signed with the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and may open the season with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles.
Jennifer Gilligan as their goaltending coach. Gilligan has worked with Next Level Goaltending in Abbotsford, B.C., and The Advantage Hockey Development in Vancouver for eight years. According to the Panthers’ website, she also “is the manager and senior instructor at Pro Formance Goalie School and the female varsity assistant coach at the Delta Hockey Academy.” . . . Gilligan also has worked as an assistant coach with Team BC at the National Aboriginal championship and is an apprentice coach with the U-18 Team BC that will play in the 2019 Canada Winter Games.
all-sports radio station . . . will broadcast all Vancouver Giants games live . . .” The length of the agreement wasn’t revealed. . . . Sportsnet 650 also holds the radio broadcast rights to the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks. . . . Dan O’Connor will return for a second season as the radio voice of the Giants. Before joining the Giants, he was the voice of the Prince George Cougars. . . . Last season, the Giants’ rights belonged to TSN 1040. . . . Steve Ewen of Postmedia takes a look 
this morning (Thursday) at 8 o’clock.
OHL champions — to sign on as an assistant coach with the NHL’s New York Islanders. Gruden spent two seasons as the Bulldogs’ head coach. . . . His departure means that each of the four teams that competed in the 2018 Memorial Cup will have a new head coach when the new season arrives. . . . The QMJHL’s Acadie-Bathurst Titan, who won the tournament, had to replace Mario Pouliot after he left to take over as general manager and head coach of the Rouyn-Norana Huskies. The Titan has since signed Bryan Lizotte to a three-year deal as head coach. . . . In Regina, the host Pats promoted Dave Struch from assistant coach to head coach. He takes over from John Paddock, who remains as general manager. . . . In Swift Current, the WHL-champion Broncos lost head coach Manny Viveiros to the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers when he joined them as an assistant coach. The Broncos later named Dean Brockman as director of hockey operations and head coach. . . .
TAKING NOTE 