Tag: Clayton Beddoes

Fire season reaches Kamloops . . . Former WHL enforcer gets into coaching game . . . Everett, Red Deer add assistants

We had visitors in our home for the past week and had occasion to make two trips over the Coquihalla. The lack of respect some drivers show towards construction workers is impossible to understand. Is there any reason for someone to drive 100 km-h in a construction zone that is clearly posted as 70?

On our way back from Hell’s Gate on Wednesday, we took Highway 5A from Merritt to Kamloops. On Thursday, a lightning storm moved through the area and now the city is experiencing its first really nasty skies (smoke, ash, embers, etc.) of the summer. Yes, we had been lucky to get this far into summer with mostly smoke-less skies. But we knew it couldn’t last, especially when the temperature reached 35 C for an extended period.

And now there is a fire — the Ross Moore Lake fire — that is 11 or 13 km (depending on what you’re reading) from Kamloops’ southern border. It is between 5A and the Coquihalla (No. 5) and burning aggressively, and people have been evacuated. There is a lot of grassland between the fire and the city, so only time will tell how it will react with less forest to devour.

In the meantime, cooler temperatures are in the forecast — 29 C for Monday and 23 C with showers (ahh, please!) for Tuesday.

As for our visitors, well, they quite enjoyed their stay. Until Saturday when WestJet dumped on their vacation. The flight to Calgary was to have left at 11 a.m., and was listed as ‘on time’ at 8:30 a.m. But it ended up being an hour late leaving Kamloops and the airline chose not to hold the connecting flight to Brandon. (A  hold of about 15 minutes is all that was needed.) So, after spending a night in the Calgary airport, our guests arrived home Sunday morning.

By coincidence, a WestJet ad showed up on my Facebook page Saturday night. I noted that it had more than 1,000 responses. A quick check showed that about 99 per cent of them were critical of the airline. Should I have been surprised?

FakeDinos

James McEwan, a former WHL enforcer who was one of the original signees of a proposed class-action lawsuit against the CHL, including the WHL, is getting into the coaching racket. McEwan has taken over as general manager and head coach of the junior B Summerland Steam of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League.

McEwan, 36, replaces Mark MacMillan, who spent two seasons with the Steam and now is preparing for his first season as an assistant coach with the BCHL’s Penticton Vees.

A Kelowna native, McEwan played four seasons (2004-08) in the WHL, spending two seasons with the Seattle Thunderbirds and two with his hometown Rockets. A forward, he put up seven goals and 10 assists in 208 regular-season games. He also totalled 540 penalty minutes.

He went on to play five seasons in the ECHL, retiring after spending 2014-15 with the Gwinnett Gladiators. In 150 regular-season games, he had seven goals, six assists and 557 penalty minutes.

McEwan doesn’t have any coaching experience, although he is the president of Infinite Ice, which, according to his LinkedIn page, focuses on “providing players with an inspiring, healthy environment (in which) to develop the skills and qualities to thrive long term in the game of hockey and life. Our mission is to elevate the consciousness of players and unite them with their inner power to be connected, balanced, strong, healthy leaders on and off the ice.”

He also lists himself as a meditation and yoga teacher.

In 2019, McEwan and a number of other former players launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against the CHL, including the WHL, and Hockey Canada, alleging that they were negligent by “perpetuating an environment that permitted, condoned and encourage fighting and violence in the game among the underage players they they are obliged to protect.”

Rick Westhead of TSN reported in May that a judge “has set a date for lawyers to argue whether the case should proceed as a class action: Oct. 25-27 in Vancouver.”

McEwan, according to an affidavit filed as part of the proposed lawsuit, had more than 70 fights during his four WHL seasons. He has said that he believes he now is showing symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease associated with brain injuries, including concussions.

Headline at The Beaverton (@TheBeaverton) — BC Parks to improve campsite reservation system by partnering with Ticketmaster.

Blinker2

JUNIOR JOTTINGS:

The BCHL, which you will be aware now is operating outside of Hockey Canada’s jurisdiction, has revealed its on-ice officiating staff for 2023-24. In total, the officiating department features four development coaches and mentors, five managers, 26 referees and 24 linespeople. . . . Because the BCHL now operates independently, if any of these officials work in the BCHL after Sept. 30, they won’t be allowed to work in any events that are sanctioned by BC Hockey or Hockey Canada for 2023-24. . . . The BCHL news release, including the names off all on-ice officials, is right here. . . .

Taylor Curry has joined the WHL’s Tri-City Americans as their athletic therapist. From Tacoma, she has been a volunteer assistant athletic therapist with the Seattle Thunderbirds, working with veteran Phil Varney. Curry has a bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Washington State and a master’s in sports medicine and injury studies from Cal State Long Beach. . . . With the Americans, Curry takes over from Midge Pearson, who worked with them for one season. . . .

The Vancouver Giants have hired Cord Ivanco as their new equipment manager. Ivanco, 28, spent the past five seasons with the U of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey team. . . . In Vancouver, he takes over from Brodie St. Jacques, who joined the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks in June. . . .

F Blake Eastman has joined the Summerside Western Capitals of the junior A Maritime Hockey League after spending four seasons (2019-23) in the WHL. Eastman, from Androssan, Alta., cleared 20-year-old waivers in the WHL after playing with the Prince George Cougars. In 180 regular-season games, he put up 19 goals and 25 assists.

Nonprofit

THE COACHING GAME:

The Everett Silvertips have added Mike Field to their staff as an assistant coach. Field, 39, had been associate head coach with the Arizona State U Sun Devils for eight seasons. He is from Marquette, Mich., and will work alongside head coach Dennis Williams and assistant Dean DeSilva in Everett. . . .

Clayton Beddoes, who is from Bentley, Alta., has joined the Red Deer Rebels as an assistant coach. Beddoes actually is returning to the Rebels, whom he served as skills coach in 2014-15. . . . He played with the Red Deer Optimist Chiefs and the AJHL’s Rustlers before going on to school at Lake Superior State. He played two seasons (1995-97) with the Boston Bruins, then went on to play in the IHL and Europe before retiring in 2002. . . . Beddoes has coaching experience in Germany and Italy, and most recently was with the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star (2021-22) and the Chinese national team program. . . . In Red Deer, he will be working with first-year head coach Derrick Walser and assistant Mike Egener. . . .

Andy Moog won’t be back for an eighth season as the Portland Winterhawks’ goaltending coach. Moog, 63, has chosen to retire. He joined the Winterhawks in time for the 2016-17 season. . . . Brendan Burke, a former Portland goaltender, has been promoted to replace Moog. Burke joined the Winterhawks as assistant goaltending coach prior to the 2022-23 season. Burke, 28, played three-plus seasons (2011-15) with Portland, then finished his WHL career with the Calgary Hitmen. He also got into 19 games with the OHL’s London Knights in 2015-16. After junior, Burke played four seasons with the U of Alberta Golden Bears. . . .

JoĂ«l Perrault is the new head coach of the QMJHL’s Rimouski Oceanic. Earlier, Perrault, 40, had signed on as an assistant coach with the Victoriaville Tigres. But that was before the opportunity arose with Rimouski. . . . Perreault ended a 13-season pro career after playing in France in 2015-16. His career included 96 games in the NHL, split among the Phoenix Coyotes, St. Louis Blues and Vancouver Canucks. . . . He spent the past three seasons as head coach of the U18 AAA Saint-Eustache Vikings. . . . In Rimouski, he takes over from Serge Beausoleil, who had been with the organization for 12 years. . . .

Ryan Marsh is the new head coach of the AJHL’s Spruce Grove Saints. Marsh, 48, has been coaching since 2003-04 when he was an assistant with the AJHL’s Fort Saskatchewan Traders. He was an assistant with the Saints for four seasons (2006-10). He also has coaching experience with NAIT and the U of Alberta Golden Bears. For four seasons, he was an assistant coach with the Edmonton Oil Kings, and also spent four seasons as associate coach with the Saskatoon Blades. Last season, he worked with the DEL’s Schwenninger Wild Wings. . . . Marsh takes over from Bram Stephens with the Saints. They had announced on July 5 that Stephens wouldn’t be returning after six seasons as head coach. . . .

The AJHL’s Brooks Bandits are looking for an assistant coach after Nick Prkusic revealed that he is leaving the organization in order to return to playing. Prkusic played three seasons with the Bandits, winning two AJHL titles, then won another in 2022-23 in his only season as an assistant coach. . . . In between, he played four seasons at Robert Morris U in Carnot-Moon, Penn. . . . The Bandits’ news release didn’t indicate where Prkusic would be playing in 2023-24.

Mike Hammond, who won the BCHL’s 2010-11 scoring title, was killed in a single-vehicle car accident near Shawnigan Lake, B.C., on Wednesday. RCMP were on scene at 5:30 a.m., and said the driver of the Porsche Boxter apparently lost control of the vehicle, left the road and hit a tree. . . . Hammond was 33. . . . He played one game with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets in 2006-07. . . . He led the BCHL with 93 points in 2010-11, splitting the season between the Cowichan Valley Capitals and Salmon Arm Silverbacks. . . . After four seasons in the BCHL, Hammond spent four seasons at Lakehead U and one in the ECHL before going to Europe. He played last season with the EIHL’s Nottingham Panthers. . . . Born in Brighton, he also represented Great Britain in a number of international competitions, including the 2023 IIHF Division 1A championship, where he had two goals and three assists in five games.

THINKING OUT LOUD: How come I don’t see the ubiquitous Burger King butter chicken or Hyundai ‘We Make Wah’ commercials when I’m watching American TV channels? . . . It’s time for Subway to ditch the hungry momma, too. Give her the No. 12 and send her on her way. Please. . . . And don’t get me started on that family in the Save-On-Foods commercials. Stop paying them and maybe the price of groceries would drop a bit. Or maybe not. . . . Meanwhile, there was another thrilling finish in the CFL as the Ottawa Rough, er, Redblacks went into Calgary and beat the Stampeders, 43-41, in overtime. Yes, that was a fun one. . . . There were at least 1,070 new COVID-19 cases in Canada for the period July 2-8. However, only Ontario (450) and Quebec (620) are bothering to report these days. There were at least nine deaths, with Quebec reporting six and Ontario three. Gee, why would Canadian politicians want to keep their heads in the sand and not pass the numbers along to their constituents?

Wolf

If you are interested in being a living kidney donor, more information is available here:

Living Kidney Donor Program

St. Paul’s Hospital

6A Providence Building

1081 Burrard Street

Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6

Tel: 604-806-9027

Toll free: 1-877-922-9822

Fax: 604-806-9873

Email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca

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Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney 

Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre

Level 5, 2775 Laurel Street

Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9

604-875-5182 or 1-855-875-5182

kidneydonornurse@vch.ca

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Or, for more information, visit right here.

Grounds

Scattershooting on a Wednesday night while wondering if COVID-19 will impact WHL teams . . .

Scattershooting

With a number of sporting events having been postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19, you have to wonder how much impact, if any, this might have on the WHL and its 22 teams.

Late Tuesday, Chicago State University revealed that its men’s basketball team wouldn’t whlbe travelling to Seattle University and Utah Valley for Western Athletic Conference games that were scheduled for today (Thursday) and Saturday.

The university cited the spread of COVID-19 in announcing at the same time that its women’s team wouldn’t play host to games Thursday (against Seattle) and Saturday (Utah Valley).weekend games.

On Wednesday, the U of Missouri-Kansas City announced that its men’s team wouldn’t travel to Seattle U for a Saturday game.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 31 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Seattle area — 21 in King County and 10 more in Snohomish County, with a total of 10 deaths.

Later Wednesday, Facebook revealed that one of its Seattle employees had been diagnosed with coronavirus. The company also said it was closing its Seattle office until March 9, while encouraging employees to work from home at least through the end of the month.

The WHL has four teams based in Washington state, with two of those in the Seattle area. While the WHL has yet to issue a statement on any preparations that might be underway or any plans it may be considering, one has to think that officials are keeping a close eye on things.

The Everett Silvertips have three home games remaining in the regular season, with two of them this weekend, and will have home-ice advantage in a first-round best-of-seven series that will open later this month.

The Silvertips are at home to the Tri-City Americans on Friday, and then will play home-and-home with the Seattle Thunderbirds on Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday game is scheduled for Everett, with Sunday’s game in Kent, Wash., the home of the Thunderbirds.

Everett drew 6,633 fans to its last home game — it beat the Portland Winterhawks 4-1 on Sunday to move into first place in the U.S. Division. The Thunderbirds announced attendance for their last home game — a 6-3 loss to Portland on Feb. 29 — at 5,264. They have four home games remaining in the regular season.

On Wednesday afternoon, TSN’s Rick Westhead tweeted this statement from Dr. John Swartzberg, who is an infectious disease specialist at the U of California-Berkeley’s School of Public Health, on the risks of staging NHL and NBA games in Los Angeles after the county declared a public health emergency:

“We don’t know that much about this (respiratory virus). We know it’s (a) very contagious virus and fast spreading and we know the worst thing you can do to fan a pandemic is to bring people from disparate areas together in a crowded situation. There’s no question about that for respiratory viral infections.

“It would make sense if you have a serious problem to cancel events at venues where people are brought together in crowds, which is a great way to spread disease. It’s not what anybody wants to hear but if you take off the economics hat and just think about the transmission of an infectious agent, it makes sense to cancel events where people are brought together. From a public health standpoint, the less people congregate together, the less disease you’re going to have. The cases that we see are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. There’s probably many, many, many cases walking around that we don’t see.”

The last time the WHL had to deal with anything like this was in February 2017 when it was faced with an outbreak of the mumps virus. At that time, it severely limited contact between players and fans, and placed a lot of emphasizing on sanitizing and disinfecting dressing rooms and equipment.

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The time is coming when major junior hockey is going to lose some of its best 19-year-old players to the AHL. Right now, the agreement between the NHL and the Canadian NHLHockey League calls for 19-year-old signed players to be offered back to their junior teams if they don’t stick with the big club.

For example, F Kirby Dach would have had to be returned to the Saskatoon Blades had he not earned a roster spot with the Chicago Blackhawks prior to this season.

The fact that a 19-year-old who has starred at the major junior level can’t move up to the AHL to further his development, rather than return for another season of junior, has been a sore spot with NHL teams for a while now. On the other side of the coin, junior operators understandably don’t want to lose their star attractions any sooner than absolutely necessary.

This all has been up for discussion for a few years now, and here it is again.

Here’s Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman with a note from his latest 31 Thoughts, following an interview with Marc Bergevin, the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens:
“Bergevin talked a bit about player development — that span between when someone is drafted and they join your organization. How important it is and how much (or how little) control the NHL team really has. The timing was interesting. The league’s agreement with the Canadian Hockey League expires soon, and, once again, there is a conversation about sending players to the AHL. It’s not unusual for this to be a debate. This time, however, there appears to be momentum. We’ll see where it goes.”

What is wrong with this picture? On Tuesday morning, TSN had the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees on one channel, using the ESPN telecast. Meanwhile, Sportsnet had the same game on five channels, using the feed from the YES Network. . . . Anyone else find it interesting that Rogers, which owns the Toronto Blue Jays and Sportsnet, has yet to send its play-by-play crew to spring training?

ICYMI: Old friend Lorne Molleken, the sartorially splendiferous one, will be honoured by the Saskatoon Blades prior to a game with the visiting Prince Albert Raiders on March 21. Molleken spent 13 seasons over three stints as the Blades’ head coach, and will have his named added to the club’s Builders Banner in the SaskTel Centre rafters. His coaching record with the Blades is 539-325-58. Oh, he also has 23 ties in. I’m not about to tell you how old he is, but, yes, he coached in the WHL when ties were a thing. . . . You can bet that somewhere on high Muzz MacPherson, in his gravelly voice, is laughing and nodding his head in agreement.

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Clayton Beddoes has resigned as the head coach of Italy’s national men’s hockey team. . . . “In recent weeks,” said Italian Ice Sports Federation president Andrea Gios in a news release, “some differences of views have emerged on technical and organizational aspects that have led both sides to opt for an interruption of the employment relationship.” . . . Beddoes, 49, is from Bentley, Alta. He had been on the Italian national team’s coaching staff since 2015, and had been the head coach since 2018. . . . Beddoes took over as the head coach of HC Bolzano of the EBEL on March 11, 2019. He was replaced by Greg Ireland on Jan. 2.