D Chase Harrison (Regina, 2013-17) has signed a one-year contract with Corona Brașov (Romania, Erste Liga). Last season, with the Norfolk Admirals (ECHL), he had one goal and 12 assists in 51 games. He also had one assist in nine games with the South Carolina Stingrays (ECHL). . . .
F Yannik Valenti (Vancouver, 2018-19) has been assigned by Adler Mannheim (Germany, DEL) to Heilbronner Falken (Germany, DEL2) for the 2019-20 season. Last season, with the Vancouver Giants (WHL), he had four goals and five assists in 52 games. . . . According to Mannheim’s website, Valenti signed a four-year contract with Mannheim in April 2018 and was on a loan assignment to Vancouver for last season. . . .
F Vince Loschiavo (Kootenay, Moose Jaw, Edmonton, 2014-19) has signed a one-year contract with Asiago (Italy, Alps HL). Last season, with the Edmonton Oil Kings (WHL), he had 37 goals and 25 assists in 63 games. He was tied for the team lead in goals and was second in points. . . .
F Jaroslav Kristek (Tri-City, 1998-2000) has signed a one-year contract extension with Courchevel-Méribel-Pralognan (France, Division 1). In 18 games in Division 2, he had 24 goals and 32 assists. He led Division 2 in goals, assists and points. The club won promotion from Division 2 for 2019-20.
The Vancouver Giants may have openings for two imports with the news that German F 
Yannik Valenti won’t be back for another season. . . . As you will have read in The MacBeth Report, Valenti was with the Giants last season on loan from Adler Mannheim of the DEL, and now has been assigned to Heilbronner Falken (Germany, DEL2). . . . Valenti had four goals and five assists in 52 regular-season games, then turned into something of a power-play force in the playoffs, scoring three times, each one with the man advantage, in 22 games as the Giants got to Game 7 of the WHL’s championship final. . . . Slovakian F Milos Roman, the Giants’ other import last season, could return for a third season. However, he would be a two-spotter as a 20-year-old import. He put up 27 goals and 33 assists in 59 games last season. . . . A fourth-round pick by the Calgary Flames in the NHL’s 2018 draft, Roman has yet to sign a pro contract. . . . The 2019 CHL import draft is scheduled for Thursday.
F Baron Thompson, who played the past three seasons with the Brandon Wheat Kings, 
has signed to play with the MJHL’s Dauphin Kings in 2019-20. . . . Thompson, who is heading into his 20-year-old season, had eight goals and nine assists in 65 games with the Wheat Kings last season. In 172 career regular-season games, the 6-foot-5, 250-pounder put up 24 goals and 26 assists. . . . From Lakeville, Minn., Thompson was selected by the Victoria Royals in the third round of the WHL’s 2014 bantam draft and later traded to the Wheat Kings. . . . Without Thompson, the Wheat Kings have three 20-year-olds on their roster — F Connor Gutenberg, D Zach Wytinck and Czech G Jiri Patera.
Craig Beauchemin has joined the Swift Current Broncos as their play-by-play man. 
Unable to reach a broadcast agreement with Golden West Broadcasting, which had carried games on the Eagle 94.1, the Broncos are going it alone, with their games to be available via the Internet. . . . Beauchemin will handle the Living Sky Casino Broncos Hockey game broadcasts, and also will prepare podcasts and serve as the manager of community relations. . . . He spent the past two seasons as the director of communications and broadcasting with the BCHL’s Penticton Vees. . . . Beauchemin replaces Shawn Mullin, who is headed east where he will be the radio voice of the OHL’s Peterborough Petes.
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The BCHL’s Penticton Vees have traded F Massimo Rizzo, their captain, to the Coquitlam 
Express to complete a June transaction in which the Vees got F Alex DiPaolo, 19. . . . Rizzo, 18, is from Burnaby, B.C., and has committed to the U of North Dakota Fighting Hawks for 2020-21. . . . Last season, he had 11 goals and 29 assists in 37 regular-season games. In 2017-18, He had 13 goals and 26 assists in 39 games. . . . The Carolina Hurricanes selected him in the seventh round of the NHL draft in Vancouver on Saturday. . . . Rizzo was selected by the Kamloops Blazers with the 15th-overall pick of the WHL’s 2016 bantam draft. He was beset with injury problems over his two seasons in Penticton. . . . “The past two seasons have been trying for Massimo, dealing with significant injuries which forced him to start the seasons late and miss substantial stretches of games,” Fred Harbinson, the Vees’ president, general manager and head coach, said in a news release. “We felt that with Massimo’s recent surgery, it would be best for him to rehab at home next season. Fortunately, we were able to make a hockey trade with Coquitlam that helped our team in the process.”
More undrafted WHLers who are either in or soon to attend NHL development camps:
F Logan Barlage, 18, of the Lethbridge Hurricanes, to the Colorado Avalanche;
D Nolan Kneen, 20, of the Saskatoon Blades, to Colorado;
D Wyatt McLeod, 19, of the Edmonton Oil Kings, to Colorado;
G Taylor Gauthier, 18, of the Prince George Cougars, to the Boston Bruins;
D Scott Walford, 20, of the Victoria Royals, to the Winnipeg Jets;
F Noah Philp, who completed his junior eligibility with the Seattle Thunderbirds, to Winnipeg;
F Luke Toporowski, 18, of the Spokane Chiefs, to WInnipeg;
D Clay Hanus, 18, of the Portland Winterhawks, to the Ottawa Senators;
D Conner McDonald, 20, of the Edmonton Oil Kings, to Ottawa;
D Dylan MacPherson, who played out his junior eligibility with the Medicine Hat Tigers, to the Florida Panthers;
F Jaydon Dureau, 18, of the Portland Winterhawks, to Florida;
F Ben McCartney, 18, of the Brandon Wheat Kings, to Philadelphia;
F Eli Zummack, 19, of the Spokane Chiefs, to the Tampa Bay Lightning;
F Vladimir Alistrov, 18, of the Edmonton Oil Kings, to the Toronto Maple Leafs;
F James Hamblin, 20, of the Medicine Hat Tigers, to Toronto;
F Riley Woods, who completed his junior eligibility with the Spokane Chiefs, to Toronto;
D Sergei Sapego, who is to turn 20 on Oct. 8, of the Prince Albert Raiders, to Toronto;
F Josh Williams, 18, of the Edmonton Oil Kings, to the Pittsburgh Penguins;
F Jake Gricius, who will turn 20 on Oct. 13, of the Portland Winterhawks, to the San Jose Sharks;
D Jake Lee, 18, of the Kelowna Rockets, to San Jose; and,
G Beck Warm, 20, of the Tri-City Americans, to the Washington Capitals.
Rockets, the host team for the 2020 Memorial Cup.
due to broken panes of glass.
tournament, beat the visiting Quebec Remparts, 3-1, on Tuesday night in Game 7 of a first-round series. . . . The Remparts went into Game 6 in Halifax on Monday with a 3-2 lead in the series. The Mooseheads tied the series with a 6-1 victory. . . . The Mooseheads (49-15-4) had finished first in the Eastern Conference; the Remparts (27-28-13) were eighth. . . . Next up for the Mooseheads will be the Moncton Wildcats, who beat the Baie-Comeau Drakkars, 3-2, in Game 7 last night.
Focht, en route to a 4-2 victory over the Lethbridge Hurricanes. . . . Calgary won the series, 4-3. It was the only one of the eight first-round series to go the distance. . . . The Hitmen will move on to play the Edmonton Oil Kings in the second round. That series is to open in Edmonton on Saturday. . . . Focht (3) got the Hitmen on the scoreboard, on a PP, at 3:30. . . . F Riley Fiddler-Schultz (1) made it 2-0 at 15:23. . . . Focht (4) upped it to 3-0 at 16:19. . . . The Hurricanes cut into the deficit at 2:49 of the second period as F Zachary Cox (2) scored, then got to within a goal at 12:52 on a goal from D Alex Cotton (1). . . . Calgary wasn’t able to put it away until F Mark Kastelic (5) scored an empty-netter at 19:41 of the third period. . . . Calgary was 1-4 on the PP; Lethbridge was 0-2. . . . G Jack McNaughton stopped 25 shots for the Hitmen, two more than Lethbridge’s Carl Tetachuk. . . . Lethbridge F Logan Barlage was given a slashing major and game misconduct after he hacked Focht off a game-ending faceoff. Should Barlage be suspended, he will serve it at the beginning of the 2019-20 regular season. . . . 
put on a tremendous show, icing the cake by winning the whole thing. . . . Who wouldn’t want to spend 10 days in May in Kelowna? . . . Bruce Hamilton, the Rockets’ president and general manager, is the chairman of the WHL’s board of governors. He is the most-powerful person in the WHL and don’t discount that as a factor. . . . Including standing room, Prospera Place, which opened in 1999, has room for 6,286 fans. . . . The Rockets are off to a slow start (1-4-0) but history shows that they are more likely to be a contender than a pretender come next season. . . . Odds: 1-1.
The Hurricanes, under general manager Peter Anholt and Terry Huisman, the general manager of business operations, have made a remarkable turnaround. After the 2014-15 season, the Hurricanes had missed the playoffs for six straight seasons and lost more than $1.25 million. Ron Robison, the WHL commissioner, was urging shareholders to sell the franchise to private interests. Today, the Hurricanes have reached two straight Eastern Conference finals and shown more than $1 million in profits over those two seasons. . . . On the ice, the future looks bright, led by forwards Dylan Cozens and Logan Barlage, two of the WHL’s best young players. . . . The ENMAX Centre, which opened in 1974 but has undergone recent upgrades, has a capacity of 5,479. . . . Odds: 2-1.
again on Wednesday in Calgary. When the WHL’s board of governors votes on a host team/city for the 2020 Memorial Cup, it could easily decide to go with the bid that includes the highest guaranteed profit — teams all get a cut of the profit. If it comes to that, Kamloops may have an edge because the Gaglardi family has more chips than the Kelowna or Lethbridge owners. . . . Earlier this year, Canadian Business estimated the net worth of the Gaglardi family, through Northland Properties, at $3.92 billion, up 10.4 per cent from 2017. . . . Tom Gaglardi owns the NHL’s Dallas Stars and is the majority owner of the Blazers. Might he be interested in attempting to buy the hosting rights for the 2020 Memorial Cup?
Monday that they will be getting back defencemen Dylan MacPherson and Linus Nassen. Both players had been in camp with the NHL’s Florida Panthers before being assigned to the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds. . . . MacPherson, from Redcliff, Alta., has played two seasons with the Tigers, putting up four goals and 18 assists in 124 regular-season games. . . . Nassen, from Sweden, was a third-round pick by the Panthers in the NHL’s 2016 draft. Last season, his first in the WHL, had had one goal and 25 assists in 44 games. . . . With those two in town, the Tigers have four 20-year-olds on their roster, the other two being F Ryan Jevne and D Dalton Gally. . . . As an import, Nassen would be a two-spotter should the Tigers keep him. His arrival won’t affect the Tigers’ import situation as freshmen G Mads Sogaard is their only other European player.
Barberis and D Joel Sexsmith to undisclosed injuries, have acquired D Ty Ettinger from the Brandon Wheat Kings for a seventh-round selection in the WHL’s 2020 bantam draft. . . . Steve Ewen of Postmedia reports that Dhaliwal, 19, who has a history of shoulder problems, could be out for six weeks. . . . Ettinger, 18, is from Ardrossan, Alta. He was dropped from Brandon’s roster late last week. The Wheat Kings selected him in the fifth round of the 2015 bantam draft. . . . Last season, as a freshman, he had two goals and five assists in 45 games with Brandon. This season, he was pointless in one game. . . . As Ewen tweeted: “You’d think the Giants would have good intel on Ettinger, since scouting director Daryl Anning is the father of Wheat Kings head coach David Anning.” . . . Ettinger skated with the Giants on Monday afternoon and could make his debut with Vancouver on Wednesday against the Rockets in Kelowna.
decision to the host Oshawa Generals on Sunday night. According to the North Bay Nugget, Butler, the Battalion’s director of hockey operations and head coach since 1998-99, said before the game that he plans to take time “to try to get some things sorted out.” Butler, 62, apparently met with Oshawa’s club doctor before deciding not to go behind the bench on Sunday. . . . Butler was behind the bench on Saturday night for a 6-1 loss to the Niagara IceDogs in St. Catharines. . . . In Butler’s absence, assistant coaches Scott Wray and Adam Dennis ran the bench. . . . Butler is the fourth-winningest head coaching OHL history, his 703 victories trailing Brian Kilrea (1,194), Bert Templeton (907) and Dale Hunter (728). . . . Butler spent one season (1996-97) in the WHL, as the head coach of the Prince George Cougars.
TAKING NOTE 