Tag: Brian Skrudland

WCPHSF adds five more to Hot Stove roster for Wall of Honour dinner

The Western Canada Professional Hockey Scouts Foundation has added five more Hot Stove participants to the roster for its inaugural Wall of Honour induction dinner — Tales From The Road — in Okotoks, Alta., on July 30.

The latest group is led by John Davidson, president of hockey operations, alternate governor and interim general manager of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets, and also features Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser, a seven-time World champion who is an assistant general manager with the Toronto Maple Leafs and a practising physician.

Rounding out those taking part in the Hot Stove sessions are Mike Penny, who has scouted for more than 50 years; Brian Skrudland, a former NHL player who turned to scouting; and Al Tuer, who got into scouting in 2000.

Earlier, it was announced that Ken Holland, the Edmonton Oilers’ president of hockey operations and general manager; Craig Button, a former NHL executive who now is TSN’s director of scouting; long-time scout Archie Henderson, who retired in 2022; and former NHL player, coach and general manager Craig MacTavish would be involved in Hot Stove conversations.

The inaugural dinner also will include the induction of 45 past and present scouts into the Wall of Honour, which will feature three video screens and is to be unveiled in its permanent home in the the foyer of the Okotoks Centennial Arena.

Individual tickets and tables of eight will go on sale off the Foundation’s website (hockeyscoutsfoundation.com) on May 1.

JOHN DAVIDSON

A goaltender in his playing days, Davidson played eight-plus seasons in the NHL, split between the St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers. The Blues selected him fifth overall in the NHL’s 1973 draft, from the WCHL’s Calgary Centennials, and he became the first goaltender in NHL history to make the jump directly from major junior hockey to the NHL. After his playing career, he turned to broadcasting, a career that included a 30-year stint with the MSG Network as the analyst on Rangers’ telecasts. He was awarded the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for his contributions in 2009.

Davidson is in his second stint in the Blue Jackets’ front office, and also has been president of the Blues and Rangers.

DR. HAYLEY WICKENHEISER

As a player, Dr. Wickenheiser, a native of Shaunavon, Sask., won seven World titles with Canada’s national women’s hockey team. She also played in five Olympic Winter Games, winning four golds and a silver, and twice was named the tournament’s most valuable player. In 2019, she was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and the IIHF Hall of Fame.

After retiring in 2017, Dr. Wickenheiser earned a degree in kinesiology from the U of Calgary and then went to medical school there. She has done a residency in the department of family and community medicine at the U of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. She continues her career in medicine, while working for the Maple Leafs.

A native of Montreal, Penny is one of the true legends in the scouting game. He got his start in 1969 by working for the NHL’s New York Rangers and their junior affiliate, the Kitchener Rangers, at the same time. He moved to the Vancouver Canucks in 1980 — he was responsible for their drafting Pavel Bure 113th overall in 1989 — before signing on with the Maple Leafs as their director of player personnel in 2000. He still is with the Maple Leafs, now as a pro scout.

Skrudland, a native of Peace River, Alta., who holds the NHL record for the fastest playoff overtime goal, retired as a player after the 1999-2000 season. He later spent six seasons with the Florida Panthers, five as director of player development and one as an assistant coach. He won two Stanley Cups as a player, with the 1985-86 Montreal Canadiens and the 1998-99 Dallas Stars.

Tuer, who was born in North Battleford, Sask., has been scouting since 2001, following a lengthy career as a player, coach and general manager. As a scout, he has worked with the Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers and New York Rangers. He is in his third season as a pro scout with the Rangers. His late father, Graham, will be inducted into the Foundation’s Wall of Honour on July 30.

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The Western Canada Professional Hockey Scouts Foundation is a non-profit organization comprising NHL scouts from Western Canada and a group of committed individuals from the hockey community. It feels a strong obligation to honour scouts, past and present, and a commitment to give back to charities, communities and individuals who could benefit from the support and financial assistance.

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Gregg Drinnan, WCPHSF editor and historian

greggdrinnan@gmail.com

Scattershooting after dozing through Stupor Bowl . . . Brodsky family gets Hall call . . . Seattle’s O’Dette voices some displeasure

Scattershooting

Greg Cote, in the Miami Herald: “Tiger opens season at Torrey Pines: Justin Rose carries a three-shot lead into Sunday’s final round of the Farmers Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. Tiger Woods, in his first event of the new season, made the cut but is 13 off the lead. Except on the attention leaderboard, where he remains on top.”

Prior to this season, the WHL cut its regular-season from 72 to 68 games, and there still are far too many instances of teams having to play three games in fewer than 48 hours. Maybe it’s time to cut back to 64 games, or even 60, and get rid of even more of those dastardly mid-week games.

Itch

How excited was Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, to see the Super Bowl halftime show? “This year’s performance will feature Maroon 5 as the headliner,” he wrote, “In the event that Maroon 5 were to pull out of the performance at the last minute and be replaced by Chartreuse 7.5, I would not know the difference.”

Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “There’s rumblings out of L.A. that the Lakers are itching to swing a three-city trade to land Pelicans big man Anthony Davis. In return, the Lakers would send Lonzo Ball to New Orleans, and LaVar Ball to Flin Flon.”

——

Perry, again: “Whacky ex-slugger Jose Canseco tweeted that aliens have been trying to teach mankind the fine art of time travel but, alas, our species has just been too reluctant ‘to change our body composition.’ Which raises the question: Is there a concussion-protocol statute of limitations for home-run balls off the top of the noggin?

chicken

The group that owns the Victoria HarbourCats of baseball’s West Coast League has announced that if all goes well it will field a team in Nanaimo’s Serauxmen Stadium in time for the 2020 or 2021 season. It would be the third Canadian team in a league that also includes the Kelowna Falcons. The 12-team WCL has expressed interest in Kamloops and NorBrock Stadium in the past but hasn’t been able to find anyone interested in bankrolling the project.

The NBA has fined Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans the grand sum of $50,000 because his agent went public with a trade request. As RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com points out: “Tsk. There’s seven minutes salary he’ll never get back.”

When it came to watching the NFL Pro Bowl on TV, Hampton Roads, Va., was third in the ratings, behind only Kansas City and Pittsburgh. “Hey, neighbors,” wrote Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, “maybe it’s time we got out of the house more often.”

olddays

The best part of that Super Bowl game is that it’s over, which means it’s now baseball season. . . . Although I have to admit that the NFL’s showcase game did one thing good — it put me to sleep. Not once, but twice.

“Perhaps the highlight of the Super Bowl for most average Americans,” notes Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com, “was the realization that 70,000 members of 1% paid thousands of dollars to be inside where they couldn’t change the channel.”

Former UCLA star Bill Walton, now a TV analyst, has suggested that Barack Obama should replace the fired Steve Alford as the men’s basketball coach at UCLA. To which Brad Rock of Salt Lake City’s Desert News asked: “What? Gene Hackman was busy?”

ThisThat

The Brodsky family, a major contributor to the WHL over the years, is among the Saskatchewan Hockey Hall of Fame’s 2019 inductees. The announcement was made on Saturday, with the saskhallinduction ceremony scheduled for July 6 at Saskatoon’s Prairieland Park.

“As probably everybody in the room will tell you, you come into these things and you just go to work every day and you do the things you want to be doing and enjoy doing,” Jack Brodsky said. “To be recognized, I’m especially appreciative of the fact that it’s the entire family going in. My dad (Nate) and my brothers (Rick and Bob) and sister (Debbie) were so supportive. To be here, for us to be recognized for this, is a wonderful thing. It’s humbling.”

Nate was a long-time owner of the Saskatoon Blades, which stayed in the Brodsky family until the franchise was sold to Mike Priestner of Edmonton after the 2012-13 season. . . . Rick Brodsky purchased the Victoria Cougars, moved them to Prince George in 1994 and and was involved until selling the franchise to local interests after the 2013-14 season. . . . Jack and Rick Brodsky both were heavily involved in the WHL at the administrative level, as well.

Also in the class of 2019 — Players: Bert Olmstead, Fernie Flaman, Keith Magnuson, Curtis Leschyshyn, Brian Skrudland and Ed Van Impe; Grassroots: Jim McIntyre and Joe Bloski; Builders: Murray Armstrong, Max McNab, Bill Thon and the Brodsky family; Official: Brad Watson; Teams: 2004-05 Saskatoon Contacts and 1966-67 Saskatoon Centennials. . . . The SHHOF is located at the Credit Union I-Plex, the Swift Current Broncos’ home arena.

Darren Zary of the SaskatoonStarPhoenix has more right here.

Officials of WHL teams and the folks who run their home arenas need to read this piece right here from CBS News. It details how the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons cut their concession prices, some by as much as 50 per cent, and had revenues rise by 16 per cent. Other teams have since followed suit and have experienced similar results. . . . “We talk about lifetime value of customers … and the lifetime value of the customer, for the Atlanta sports fan is, I think, quite higher now because people want to go there,” Scott Rosner, director of Columbia University’s sports management program, told CBS. “They don’t feel like they’re being taken advantage of. It’s an affordable experience.”

You are free to wonder if Matt O’Dette, the head coach of the Seattle Thunderbirds, will Seattlebe hearing from Kevin Acheson, the WHL’s sheriff, after expressing some disgruntlement after a 7-2 loss to the host Everett Silvertips on Saturday night.

For starters, O’Dette wasn’t happy with the fact that Everett F Connor Dewar, who finished with four goals and two assists, wasn’t given a kneeing penalty for a hit on Seattle F Matthew Wedman.

“They saw everything that we did obviously,” O’Dette told Andy Eide, who covers the Thunderbirds of 710 ESPN in Seattle. “We know what knees can do and we’re pretty sensitive about that. They continue not to call them. I don’t know why, but they continue to not call them.”

The Thunderbirds are sensitive because F Dillon Hamaliuk had his season ended by a knee-on-knee hit agains the visiting Portland Winterhawks on Dec. 29. D Matthew Quigley was suspended for four games after that hit.

On Saturday, Everett finished with nine power-play opportunities, while Seattle had two, none after the early part of the second period.

O’Dette was so frustrated that when referees Tyler Adair and Fraser Lawrence awarded Seattle a PP at 19:56 of the third period, he ended up with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“A typical referee move to give us a call with two seconds left,” O’Dette said. “No, no, no, no, we’re not taking that. We’re not making it look good on the boxscore. Typical cowardly ref move to do that. We didn’t want that power play.”

Eide’s complete story is right here.

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