D Valtteri Kakkonen (Kootenay, 2018-19) has signed a two-year contract with JYP Jyväskylä (Finland, Liiga). This season, with the Kootenay Ice (WHL), he had one goal and nine assists in 52 games. . . .
G Riku Helenius (Seattle, 2007-08) has signed a contract through the November international break with JYP Jyväskylä (Finland, Liiga). This season, with Ilves Tampere (Finland, SM-Liiga), he made 32 appearances, going 12-11-8, 2.69,.885, with two shutouts and two assists. . . .
F Ryon Moser (Lethbridge, Swift Current, 2008-13) has signed a one-year contract with the Kassel Huskies (Germany, DEL2). This season, with Freiburg (Germany, DEL2), he had 18 goals and 19 assists in 47 games. He was second on the team in goals and points.
F Peyton Krebs of the Winnipeg Ice, who is expected to be a first-round selection in this 
month’s NHL draft, has undergone surgery to repair a partially torn Achilles tendon.
Krebs, an 18-year-old from Okotoks, Alta., was injured on Tuesday when another player’s skate cut him during a workout. He had surgery in Calgary on Friday and now is in a walking boot.
A timeline hasn’t been established for his return to the ice.
The Kootenay Ice selected Krebs with the first overall pick in the WHL’s 2016 bantam draft. Two seasons ago, he had 17 goals and 37 assists in 67 games as a freshman. This season, he finished with 19 goals and 49 assists in 64 games.
With the Ice missing the playoffs, Krebs played for Canada at the IIHF U-18 World Championship, putting up six goals and four assists in seven games.
The Ice moved from Cranbrook, B.C., to Winnipeg after the season ended.
NHL Central Scouting has Krebs ranked No. 10 among North American skaters eligible for the NHL’s 2019 draft, which is scheduled to be held in Vancouver, June 21 and 22. TSN’s Craig Button had Krebs at No. 8, with TSN’s Bob McKenzie putting him at No. 9.
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Manny Viveiros is out of work at the moment, but he has told Jim Matheson of Postmedia that he doesn’t want to go back to the WHL. Viveiros, who guided the Swift Current Broncos to the Ed Chynoweth Cup a year ago, lasted one season as an assistant coach with the Edmonton Oilers before being fired shortly after Dave Tippett was signed as head coach. . . . Viveiros told Matheson that the WHL isn’t “really a place for me to go back to and no disrespect to that league. I’ve won in Europe (in Austria) multiple times, I’ve won in the Western League. I had choices last year but this is home, my family, my wife’s parents are here.” . . . Viveiros, who has two years left on his Edmonton contract, is from St. Albert, Alta.
D Valtteri Kakkonen won’t be returning to the WHL for a second season. From Finland, Kakkonen, now 19, had one goal and nine assists in 52 games as a freshman with the Kootenay Ice. . . . As you will have noticed in The MacBeth Report, Kakkonen has signed a two-year contract with JYP Jyväskylä of Finland’s Liiga. . . . Slovakian D Martin Bodak played this season as a 20-year-old so isn’t eligible to return to the Ice. . . . The Ice also had Swiss F Gillian Kohler on its roster when the season started. However, Kohler, now 19, was released as the Ice got down to the mandated limit of two imports. He returned home and played for Biel-Bienne’s U-20 team, scoring five goals and adding 23 assists in 26 games. . . . The Ice holds the fourth-overall selection in the CHL import draft that is scheduled for June 27.
Hockey Canada announced on Friday that Michael Dyck, the head coach of the 
Vancouver Giants, has taken over as head coach of the U-18 team that will play in the 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup. . . . Dyck replaces Dan Lambert, who left his position as the head coach of the Spokane Chiefs to join the NHL’s Nashville Predators as an assistant coach. . . . Dyck’s assistant coaches are Mario Duhamel of the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s and Dennis Williams, the head coach of the Everett Silvertips. . . . In his first season as the Giants’ head coach, Dyck guided his club to Game 7 of the WHL’s championship final where they lost to the host Prince Albert Raiders. . . . The 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup is set for Breclav, Czech Republic, and Piestany, Slovakia, Aug. 5-10. . . . Earlier, Dyck had been named head coach of Team Canada White at the U-17 World Hockey Challenge that is to be played in Medicine Hat and Swift Current, Nov. 2-9. With Dyck now involved with the U-18 program, Hockey Canada is looking for a replacement for Team Canada White.
Might there be a hockey team anchored in Cranbrook’s Western Financial Place in time for the 2019-20 season? According to a news release placed on the City’s website on Friday, “The City expects a significant announcement around the future of hockey in Cranbrook and Western Financial Place over the coming weeks.” . . . According to the news release: “An official tender was issued by the City of Cranbrook inviting submissions from potential hockey teams to locate in the community, which officially closed on Wednesday, June 5, 2019, at 4:30 p.m. The tender garnered substantial interest from many hockey organizations from a variety of leagues at a variety of playing levels. The tender process was designed to qualify various interested parties and assess whether any groups bidding had a cohesive plan that met the expectations of the City to be a strong, long-term tenant at Western Financial Place. As of the tender closing, the local ownership group working to bring a KIJHL hockey club to Cranbrook was not able to provide all the necessary details around their proposal needed to set up a team in Western Financial Place. Additionally, the sublease proposal through the Kootenay ICE would have expired in 2023. The City is looking for a longer-term lease than four years.”
The Charlotte Checkers won the AHL championship — the Calder Cup — on Saturday, beating the visiting Chicago Wolves, 5-3. The Checkers won the best-of-seven final, 4-1, winning the last four games. . . . F Morgan Geekie, who played last season with the WHL’s Tri-City Americans, scored his eighth goal of the playoffs and added an assist for the winners. Geekie, who finished his first pro regular season with 46 points, including 19 goals, in 73 games, had 18 points in 19 playoff games. . . . The Charlotte roster included a number of other former WHLers — D Jake Bean, F Stelio Mattheos, D Haydn Fleury and G Dustin Tokarski. . . . Included on the Wolves roster were seven former WHLers — F Cody Glass, D Griffin Reinhart, F Tyler Wong, F Gage Quinney, F Dylan Coghlan, F Brooks Macek and F Keegan Kolesar. Rocky Thompson, another former WHLer, is the Wolves’ head coach.
Dave Hnatiuk is the new head coach of the Selkirk College Saints of the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League. Hnatiuk has spent the past three seasons as an assistant coach with the U of Regina Cougars of Canada West. . . . The Saints, who play out of Castlegar, B.C., needed a new head coach after Brent Heaven left after four seasons. Heaven left with a 62-25-0-10 record and one championship, that in 2016. . . . A complete news release is right here.
agreement for the CN Centre. The lease is retroactive to July 31, so it covers the recently completed season, and will run through the 2023-24 WHL season. . . . With the Kootenay Ice having left Cranbrook for Winnipeg, there had been whispers that perhaps the Cougars, who have struggled to draw fans in recent seasons, might at least contemplate a move. . . . Here’s Andy Beesley, the Cougars’ vice-president of business: “We’ve never wavered once, behind closed doors or out in public, we’ve never talked about moving, we’re all in it for the long haul, from our owners on down, we’re committed to Prince George and we don’t just talk about being committed, we’ve proven it.” . . . Ted Clarke of the Prince George Citizen has more 
March. You are free to wonder if they soon also will be looking for a general manager. . . . Ted Clarke of the Prince George Citizen took a look at the situation in a story for Wednesday’s paper. . . . Mark Lamb, the Cougars’ general manager, is friends with, and has worked with, Dave Tippett, the new head coach of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. . . . “Now entering the second year of a four-year contract with the Cougars,” Clarke writes, “Lamb would neither confirm nor deny whether he’s about to be hired by the NHL team, but the stars appear to be aligned in that direction.” . . . Clarke’s complete story is 
contracts. Both were taken in the 2019 bantam draft. . . . Jason, a defenceman, was selected in the first round. Last season, with the bantam prep team at the Yale Hockey Academy in Abbotsford, B.C., he had two goals and 23 assists in 28 games. . . . Ryan, also a defenceman, was taken in the seventh round. He also played at Yale Hockey Academy, putting up eight goals and 12 assists in 28 games. . . . 
to be two years in length.
— D Hunter Mayo, D Jace Weir and F Carter Anderson. . . . Mayo, from Martensville, Sask., was selected in the second round. He had 15 goals and 27 assists in 28 games with a bantam AA team in Martensville this season. . . . Weir, from Coldstream, B.C., also was taken in the second round. This season, he had eight goals and 24 assists in 18 games with the North Zone bantams in Coldstream. . . . Anderson, from Thompson, Man., was a third-round pick. This season, with the bantam prep team at the Winnipeg-based Rink Hockey Academy, he had 17 goals and 11 assists in 29 games.
the new head coach of the QMJHL’s Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. . . . Grimes and George Burnett, the Storm’s general manager and head coach, had been together for 13 years in Belleville and Guelph. . . . Grimes, who is from Dartmouth, N.S., had been the Storm’s associate coach for two seasons. . . . The Screaming Eagles fired Marc-Andre Dumont, their GM and head coach, on April 16. . . . Last month, they named Jacques Carrier as general manager, hockey operations, and John Hanna as assistant GM, hockey operations.
Bardsley about the team’s search for a head coach to replace one-and-done Serge Lajoie.
head coach Marc Habscheid to what a news release says are “multi-year extensions.” . . . The news release adds: “Further terms of the contracts were not disclosed.” . . . Hunt took over as GM prior to the 2015-16 season and is the reigning WHL executive of the year. . . . Habscheid took over as the Raiders’ head coach during the 2014-15 season. The Raiders are 168-134-36 in his time as head coach. . . . This season, he became the eighth head coach in WHL history to get to 500 regular-season victories. . . . Habscheid was name the WHL’s coach of the year for 2018-19, the second time he has been so honoured.
both of us, Buster, so why don’t you get on your horse and ride out while you still can!”
who held their rights. . . . Nine of those players were selected in the NHL’s 2017 draft . . .
shop in Cranbrook, at least not in time for the 2019-20 season. . . . Taking Note was told on Thursday that a group of 10 investors had reached a deal in principle to purchase the junior B Kelowna Chiefs and move the franchise to Cranbrook. . . . The team would have played out of Western Financial Place, which had been home to the WHL’s Kootenay Ice until that franchise moved to Winnipeg after its 2018-19 season ended. . . . The Ice’s lease with the City of Cranbrook runs through the 2022-23 season and a settlement hasn’t yet been negotiated. So the group had cut a deal with the Ice to sublease and, according to a source, the deal “guaranteed the city WHL rent for the next four years.” . . . However, the city rejected the sublease proposal late Thursday night, meaning the arena is one step close to not having a primary tenant for the 2019-20 season. . . .
they had parted company with Shaun Clouston. . . . Clouston, 51, had been with the Tigers since 2003-04, working as an assistant coach and associate coach before succeeding Desjardins as head coach prior to the 2010-11 season. Clouston had been GM and head coach since 2012-13. . . . Desjardins’ contract terms weren’t revealed but you get the feeling that he has the job for as long as he wants. . . .
by-play voice and primary sponsorship salesperson, roles he held for 25 years. He left the organization briefly in 2007 to work in the banking industry. He returned to the Winterhawks in 2012 as the director of corporate sponsorships. . . . As the voice of the Winterhawks, Vrooman handled more than 2,000 games, including the 1982-83 and 1997-98 Memorial Cup championship seasons. . . . Of course, retirement doesn’t mean Vrooman won’t be somewhere near the Winterhawks at times. As he put it in a news release: “Overall, I have been a part of the organization for 32 years and I am going to be 66 years old in December so I thought this was the right time to move out of the realm of working full time in corporate sponsorships. I absolutely love the team and the WHL and will still be coming to a lot of games, perhaps helping out with some broadcasting occasionally, and working with the Winterhawks alumni and other isolated projects as they arise. I am so fortunate to have worked with so many great people, players, sponsors and fans for so many years. It has been a lot of work, but it has also been a lot of fun.”
after working for two seasons as the Swift Current Broncos director of player personnel and head coach. He helped lead the Broncos the WHL championship a year ago. Viveiros played four seasons (1982-86) with the Prince Albert Raiders. . . . Trent Yawney, a veteran coach, also spent just one season with the Oilers, after working as an assistant coach with the Anaheim Ducks for four seasons. There is speculation that he could be joining the Los Angeles Kings as an assistant coach. Todd McLellan, who was fired by the Oilers early this season, is the Kings’ new head coach. . . . Yawney played three seasons (1982-85) with the Saskatoon Blades. . . . Glen Gulutzan will be staying with the Oilers as an assistant under new head coach Dave Tippett. Gulutzan has completed one season with the Oilers and working as the Calgary Flames’ head coach for two seasons. As a player, he skated for two seasons (1989-91) with the Brandon Wheat Kings and one (1991-92) with the Saskatoon Blades. . . . There is speculation that Jim Playfair will be joining the Oilers’ staff as an assistant coach. Playfair worked with Tippett for six seasons (2011-17) when the latter was the head coach of the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes.
comprised of 10 local investors has an agreement in principle to purchase the Kelowna Chiefs of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League from owner Grant Sheridan, who also is the team’s president and general manager.
TAKING NOTE 