In case you haven’t yet seen/heard this Christmas tune . . .
Hockey Canada trimmed seven players from its national junior team selection camp in Red Deer on Thursday, and two of them were goaltenders.
That means Team Canada will go into the World Junior Championship in the 
Edmonton bubble with Dylan Garand (Kamloops Blazers), Taylor Gauthier (Prince George Cougars) and Devon Levi (Northeastern U) as its goaltenders when the tournament opens on Dec. 25.
The players cut on Thursday were G Brett Brochu (London Knights), G Tristan Lennox (Saginaw Spirit) and forwards Adam Beckman (Spokane Chiefs), Tyson Foerster (Barrie Colts), Hendrix Lapierre (Chicoutimi Sagueneens), Cole Schwindt (Mississauga Steelheads) and Shane Wright (Kingston Frontenacs). . . . Beckman, 19, led the WHL in goals (48) and points (107) in 63 games last season. . . . Wright, who will turn 17 on Jan. 5, already is seen as the probably No. 1 pick in the NHL’s 2022 draft. . . .
Levi, a freshman at Northeastern, stopped 36 shots on Thursday night to help Red to a 4-0 victory White in an intrasquad game. The goals came from D Justin Barron (Halifax Mooseheads), F Peyton Krebs (Winnipeg Ice), F Connor McMichael (London) and F Dylan Holloway (U of Wisconsin Badgers). In White’s goal, Garand allowed three goals on 21 shots in his half, with Gauthier giving up one goal on 15 shots. . . . White had posted a 6-4 victory on Wednesday night. . . .
All 10 teams are to get into the Edmonton bubble on Sunday. Teams will quarantine for five days and all participants will be tested daily. . . . There weren’t any reported positive tests on Thursday. . . . At this point, Sweden has lost four players and four coaches off its roster, while Germany has had four players test positive. . . . Canada had two unidentified players test positive, then cut five players, saying they were, according to Hockey Canada’s Scott Salmod “unfit to continue to play based on return-to-play protocols.” . . . Switzerland has had three players come up positive, while the U.S. lost three players who attend Boston U where the program was paused due to COVID-19. . . . Austria has had one positive test. . . . That leaves Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and Slovakia as the only competing teams not to have reported a positive test.
After reports on Wednesday that the United States had experienced what was 
then a single-day record of 3,055 deaths to COVID-19, a WHL fan from Portland emailed me what follows:
“I would urge everyone to give the following scenario/exercise some thought and perspective . . .
“It’s a Wednesday night and the Hawks are hosting an Eastern Division team (let’s say Moose Jaw) in the Memorial Coliseum.
“You are at the game — and because you are at the game and you have been to many weekday MC games before . . . you have a real good ‘feel’ for the size of the crowd.
“The ‘true’ attendance at the MC is 3,055 — a routine attendance figure for a Wednesday night home game at the Memorial Coliseum for an Eastern squad.
“Now . . . take a deep breath/close your eyes/and imagine what the size and feel of that crowd is — 3,055 spectators — try and take a good picture of just how many people that is.
“Thanks for reading and hopefully you got a picture in your mind of what 3,055 people looks like to you.”
Then he added . . .
“Damn . . . I was gonna try and equate it to Canada . . . but I see on the same day Canada had 116 deaths. . . . 3,000 people — that’s a half-full rink in many of the WHL rinks.
“That’s a standing room only crowd in Swift Current . . .”
COVID-19 CHRONICLES . . .
CBC News: Manitoba is reporting 293 new cases of COVID-19 and 13 additional deaths related to the virus. There are 298 COVID-19 patients in hospital in the province, including 43 in intensive care. Manitoba’s 5-day test positivity rate is 13.3%.
CBC News: COVID-19 in Sask.: 4 more deaths, 324 new cases, 345 recoveries reported Thursday. . . . The seven-day average of daily new cases in Saskatchewan is now 283, a record high.
CBC News: Alberta is reporting 1,566 new cases of COVID-19 and 13 new deaths related to the illness.
CBC News: As of Wednesday, there were 202 COVID patients in Calgary hospitals, including 36 in intensive care, pushing the facilities beyond 100 per cent capacity.
Mo Cranker, Medicine Hat News: Medicine Hat is up to 93 active cases of COVID-19. There are 10 new active cases and eight recoveries in the city. . . . Cypress County is at 12 active cases, Forty Mile is at six. . . . Lethbridge is at 229 active cases. Brooks is at 25 active cases.
Richard Zussman, Global BC: COVID-19 cases up in BC. There are 723 new cases in the province of the virus. There have been 40,060 total cases. . . . Tragic day in BC. Most deaths in 24-hour period in the province. There have been 28 deaths due to the virus. There have been 587 deaths due to the virus in BC. . . . There are 346 people in hospital, up 8. There are 83 people in ICU, a new record high. This is also up 8. There are 9,524 active cases and 11,947 people in self-isolation.
CBC News: B.C. has sent a rapid-response team of paramedics to Fort St. James, where at least 60 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the community of around 1,500.
CBC News: Ontario reports 1,983 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, a new single-day high for the province. The new cases come with a record-high 61,809 tests completed. 515 new cases in Peel, 496 in Toronto and 208 in York Region. . . . Ontario records 35 more deaths linked to COVID-19, and there are 829 people hospitalized with the virus; 228 in ICU and 132 are on ventilators.
CBC News: Quebec reports 1,842 new cases of COVID-19 and 33 additional deaths linked to the virus. Province also has 1,218 new recoveries. 848 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in QC, 113 in ICU.
CBC News: 1 new case of COVID-19 has been reported in N.L. The new case involves a man in his 60s in the central region.
CBC News: 4 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Nova Scotia, for a total of 64 known active cases in the province. 1 case is in the Eastern Zone and the other 3 are in the Central Zone. There are currently no COVID-19 patients in hospital in the province.
CBC News: 4 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in New Brunswick.
CBC News: Zero new COVID-19 cases reported in Nunavut on Thursday.
CNN: 292,000 people in the United States have died from coronavirus.
Ryan Struyk, CNN: World War II US battle deaths: 291,557 . . . US coronavirus deaths (so far): 292,091.
NBC News: The U.S. recorded 3,110 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, a new single-day record.
Governor Jay Inslee: Yesterday was the deadliest day of the pandemic so far in Washington. 49 people died — pushing us over 3,000 total deaths from COVID-19. Our hearts are with the families who have lost loved ones to this virus.
CBC News: Ellen DeGeneres says she has COVID-19. Production on comedian’s talk show halted until January.
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The Oklahoma Sooners were to have played football against the West Virginia Mountaineers on Saturday on ABC-TV, but it won’t happen. The game has been cancelled because the Mountaineers have an outbreak. The game had been scheduled for Nov. 28 but didn’t happen then, either. . . . The Washington at Oregon game won’t happen, either. Washington doesn’t have the minimum number of scholarship student-athletes available for the game. . . .
The Kansas City Chiefs are scheduled to visit New Orleans on Dec. 20 and the Saints were planning on having 15,000 fans in attendance. That changed on Thursday when the Saints and the city said that capacity now will be 3,000. . . .
The Chicago Bears closed their facility on Thursday after a positive test. The same thing happened on Nov. 5, and the Bears were back in business the next day. . . . The Houston Texans are scheduled to visit Chicago on Sunday. . . . The Bears put three practice-roster players on the reserve/COVID-19 list this week, and added DeAndre Carter, a punt returner/receiver, on Thursday.
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.
TAKING NOTE 