Tag: Jake Toporowski

Silvertips add Struch to staff . . . Cote replaces Babcock with Huskies . . . Shockey back in coaching game

David Struch has joined the WHL’s Everett Silvertips as an associate coach. Struch, 51, has been involved in the WHL coaching ranks for 16 seasons, most recently as head coach of the Regina Pats. . . . He joined the Pats as an assistant coach for 2014-15 and took over as head coach for 2018-19. He was fired early last season. . . . Struch also was assistant GM for five of his seasons in Regina. . . . He also spent eight seasons with the Saskatoon Blades, working as assistant coach, associate coach and, finally, as head coach. . . . As a player, Struch played four seasons with the Blades and then 14 seasons as a professional before retiring after 2004-05. . . . With Everett, he fills a spot created when Louis Mass joined the San Jose Barracuda, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, as an assistant coach. . . . Struch will be working with Dennis Williams, the GM and head coach, assistant coach Dean DeSilva and goaltending coach James Jensen.

The Mike Babcock era at the U of Saskatchewan is over, having lasted one season. Brandin Cote was promoted from associate head coach to interim head Huskiescoach on Thursday, taking over from Babcock, who has moved into a mentorship role with the Huskies. . . . According to Kevin Mitchell of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Babcock will “serve as a mentor and will also work on program recruiting and fundraising.” . . . Babcock worked as a volunteer head coach last season and was expected to coach one more season before stepping aside. . . . The NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs still owe him for one more season after having fired him on Nov. 20, 2019, with three-plus years remaining on an eight-year, $50-million deal. . . . Babcock’s son, Mike Jr., will remain on the Huskies’ staff as an assistant coach. . . . Cote, 41, a former WHL player from Swift Current, has been on the coaching staffs of the Prince Albert Raiders (2016-17) and Swift Current Broncos (2018-21). . . . Cote played five season (1997-2002) with the Spokane Chiefs and was the team captain for the last two of those seasons while Babcock was the head coach there. . . . The Huskies were 13-7 under Babcock last season, then lost a best-of-three first-round series, 2-1, to the Calgary Dinos.

Biscuits

QB Nathan Rourke of the B.C. Lions says he hopes to return before the end of this CFLlogoCFL season, but he knows that might be asking too much. He is to have surgery to repair the Lisfranc injury he suffered to his right foot in a 28-10 victory over the host Saskatchewan Roughriders on Aug. 19. . . . Interestingly, QB Matt Corral of the Carolina Panthers suffered the same injury on the same night and the NFL team has said he won’t play this season. . . . And then Chet Holmgren, a 7-footer who was the No. 2 selection in the NBA’s 2022 draft, suffered a Lisfranc injury to his right foot on Saturday in Seattle and the Oklahoma City Thunder has said he will miss the 2022-23 season. . . . Hands up if you had heard of Lisfranc injuries before Aug. 19.

Birdseed

THINKING OUT LOUD — Tennis star Novak Djokovic said on Thursday that he won’t be playing in the U.S. Open. Why not? He isn’t vaccinated so isn’t allowed into the U.S. So maybe all those people who are critical of the Canadian government for its restrictions that won’t allow unvaccinated MLB players into the country finally will realize that it’s the same for unvaccinated foreigners wanting to enter the U.S. . . . And the next MLB team scheduled to visit Toronto will be the Chicago Cubs. They’ll be there — minus three or four unvaccinated players — for a three-game series next week, Monday through Wednesday. We will learn the names of those players at some point during the weekend with the Cubs in Milwaukee. . . . ICYMI, Pete Carroll, the head coach of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, said his club “may have” two No. 1 quarterbacks, in Geno Smith and Drew Lock. And when is the last time that having two No. 1s worked, be it with quarterbacks or goaltenders? For what it’s worth, Smith is to start Seattle’s final exhibition game, tonight (Friday) against the host Dallas Cowboys, with Lock coming off the bench. . . . Did you know: The NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, who will play three seasons in the 5,000-seat Mullett Arena on the Arizona State U campus in Tempe, have entered into an affiliation with the ECHL’s Atlanta Gladiators. Uhh, the Gladiators play in the 13,000-seat Gas South Arena.

Colonel

THE COACHING GAME:

The Brandon Wheat Kings have added Del Pedrick to their organization as an assistant coach. He replaces Dan Johnston, who now is with the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers. . . . Pedrick, who is from Melita, Man., was the head coach of the Notre Dame Hounds U18AAA men’s team for the past two seasons. He also has been the head coach of the MJHL’s Waywayseecappo Wolverines (2000-02) and Swan Valley Stampeders (2002-06). . . . From a news release: “Over his career, Pedrick was an MJHL coach-of-the-year finalist three times, coached in the Under-16 Challenge Cup in 2012 and 2013, and coached in the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in 2004 and 2006. More recently, he led his Notre Dame Hounds in 2021-22 to a SMAAAHL U-18 league championship.” . . . In Brandon, Pedrick will work with head coach Don MacGillivray, assistant coach Mark Derlago and goaltending coach Tyler Plante. . . . The Wheat Kings open camp on Wednesday. . . .

The BCHL’s Wenatchee Wild has signed Chris Clark, its assistant general manager and head coach, to a two-year contract extension that will run through the 2023-24 season. Clark, 40, has been with the Wild since joining the organization as its goaltender coach in 2008-09, the franchise’s inaugural season. He has been the head coach since the middle of the 2019-20 season. . . .

Jake Toporowski has signed with the USHL’s Des Moines Buccaneers as assistant coach and director of hockey operations. . . . Toporowski, 24, was an assistant coach with the Southern Professional Hockey League’s Quad City Storm for 2019-20 and 2021-22. . . . Toporowski, his brother, Luke, and their father, Kerry, all played for the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs.

Yearbook

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.

Healthy

Scattershooting on a Thursday night after noticing the Vees went Ho-Ho-Ho in Game 1 . . .

Scattershooting

By now you’ve likely seen the ugly video of the fight in which F Kale Kessy, a former WHL scrapper now with the AHL’s Hershey Bears, was KO’d. . . . If you haven’t seen it, find it, watch it and then tell me why fighting needs to be a part of hockey. . . . If you’re wondering, Kessy spent Tuesday night in hospital and was released on Wednesday. . . . According to the Bears, Kessy now is sidelined with an “upper-body injury.” Yeah, I bet.

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Headline at The Onion: Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Horrified To Learn Madison Bumgarner Risking Health as Baseball Pitcher.

You don’t see something like this happen every day in the world of hockey. . . . Jeff Dubois, the general manager and head coach of the junior B Comox Valley Glacier Kings of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League, is leaving to take over as commissioner of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. The KIJHL is a 22-team junior B circuit in the interior of B.C. . . . Dubois stepped in as the Glacier Kings’ head coach during an October shuffle. . . . He will move into the commissioner’s chair, replacing Larry Martel, on May 1. . . . Dubois spent three seasons as GM/head coach the KIJHL’s Creston Valley Thunder Cats, and was the league’s coach of the year for 2016-17. . . . Martel had been commissioner since June 2018 when he took over on an interim basis from longtime president Bill Ohlhausen. . . . The KIJHL’s news release is right here.

Former WHLer Jake Toporowski is to make his head-coaching debut tonight (Friday) with the Quad City Storm meeting the host Evansville Thunderbolts in a Southern Professional Hockey League game. . . . Head coach Dave Pszenyczny, the Storm’s head coach, drew a one-game suspension for the actions of his players late in a game against the Fayetteville Marksmen on Feb. 16. . . . BTW, Toporowski is to turn 22 on Friday. . . . “I always wanted to have a head coaching job,” Toporowski told Bobby Metcalf of the Quad-City Times,”so there’s got to be a first game at some point.” . . . Toporowski played three seasons (2014-17) with the Chiefs, then retired after playing one game in 2017-18. Injuries had limited him to 36 games in 2016-17,

The New York Yankees owe OF Giancarlo Stanton more than US$200 million through 2027. Stanton, who rooms with the injury bug, has been on the injury list six times in his career. In nine seasons, he has played fewer than 125 games five times. That includes last season when he got into 17 regular-season games. . . . You guessed it. He’s hurt again, this time with a Grade 1 calf strain that likely will have him on the shelf when this season starts.

Fishing

The SJHL’s Melville Millionaires didn’t waste any time putting this season behind them as they fired Kyle Adams, the general manager and head coach, on Tuesday. . . . Jarett Waldbauer, the assistant coach and assistant GM, now is the interim GM and head coach. . . . With three games remaining in the regular season, the Millionaires are 15-34-6, good for fourth in the four-team Viterra Division. . . . Adams was in his first full season as GM/head coach after signing a two-year contract in April. He had joined the club as an assistant coach early in 2018-19, then moved up to interim GM/head coach in December 2018.

In a column suggesting that it’s time for a “de-escalation of in-game technology” in Major League Baseball, Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle writes:

“The aim of my campaign is not to stop analytics. That ship has sailed and it can’t be squeezed back into the toothpaste tube. Let the numbers jockeys have their fun, but once the game starts, let’s mix in a little baseball with our video-gamery, shall we?”

Ostler says he is on a crusade “to inject some baseball back into baseball.”

Ostler also took time to add this:

“While I’m at it, I also advocate a ban on cell-phone use by fans seated in the first five rows behind home plate. Hello, you rich, cool people! Many of us watching the game on TV cling to a romantic fantasy that a fan blessed with amazing seats that the rest of us would kill to sit in is actually, you know, watching the freaking baseball game.”

Bingo!

Parrot

JUST NOTES: Craig MacTavish is back in the coaching game, this time has head coach of Lausanne HC, which dumped Ville Peltonen. MacTavish began this season as the head coach of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the KHL, but was fired eight games into the season. Lausanne HC plays in the National League, Switzerland’s top pro league. . . . Brantt Myhres, a former WHL enforcer who totalled 137 points and 1,025 penalty minutes in 241 games, has a book in the works, and that’s one I will be sure to read. He has battled alcohol and drug addiction, and now has been sober for more than 11 years. . . . The BCHL’s Penticton Vees opened the playoffs Thursday night with a 7-1 victory over the visiting West Kelowna Warriors. What was different about this one? F Tyler Ho, who had 13 goals in 42 regular-season games, scored three times, each one of them with his side shorthanded. . . .

I have access to six TSN channels. On Thursday evening, five of them were blacked out because Canadian NHL teams were playing and only folks in each region are permitted to watch. One Sportsnet channel, featuring the Calgary Flames, also was blacked out. But, hey, we could watch the Dallas Stars and the Bruins play in Boston. . . . I need someone to explain to me how keeping Canadian teams off Canadian TV screens helps grow the game. . . . On Wednesday night, the Edmonton Oilers played the host Vegas Golden Knights. You will be aware that Edmonton’s lineup includes Connor McDavid, perhaps the best player in the game today, and Leon Draisaitl, who is right up there, too. But — you guessed it! — the game was blacked out too.