Hay ties WHL career coaching record . . . Americans’ Rasmussen set to return . . . Silvertips run win streak to eight

MacBeth

D Jakub Čutta (Swift Current, 1998-2001) has signed a contract for the rest of this season with Litvínov (Czech Republic, Extraliga). Čutta last played in 2015-16 with Västerås (Sweden, Allsvenskan), when he had three assists in 31 games. . . .

F Michal Řepík (Vancouver, 2005-08) has signed a contract for the rest of this season with Sparta Prague (Czech Republic, Extraliga) after his release by mutual agreement by Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia, KHL). He had 12 goals and 11 assists in 51 games. Slovan has two regular-season games left, but can’t make the playoffs.


A LITTLE OF THIS . . .

The Tri-City Americans may have F Michael Rasmussen in their lineup tonight (Saturday) when they meet the visiting Spokane Chiefs.

Rasmussen, who had wrist surgery before Christmas, last played on Dec. 16. The 6-foot-6, TriCity30220-pound Rasmussen has 31 points, including 16 goals, in 22 games. He was a first-round selection by the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL’s 2017 draft.

Rasmussen took part in full practices this week for the first time since having surgery.

“It’s been a good week,” head coach Mike Williamson told Annie Fowler of the Tri-City Herald. “He has worked hard to put himself in a position to get back. We are pretty sure he will play this weekend. . . . We are pretty sure he is ready to go. We will make that final determination (Saturday).”

The Americans are scheduled to entertain the Seattle Thunderbirds on Sunday.

Tri-City remains without D Juuso Valimaki, but he may return to the club next week.

Fowler’s complete story is right here.


The biggest smile in all of the west likely belongs to Bruce Vance these days. He’s one of the good guys and spent a lot of time working in WHL circles. These days, you can bet that his focus is on the U of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s hockey team.

That’s because his daughter, Jessica, leads Canada West with six shutouts and a .921 save percentage.

Oh, did we mention that she spent two seasons at the U of Manitoba but couldn’t get into the Bisons’ lineup, other than one game that cost her a season of eligibility.

Then she transferred to Saskatchewan and had to sit out a season.

Claire Hanna of Global News in Saskatoon has more right here.


If you like what you get here, please consider clicking on the DONATE button over there to the right and helping the cause.

If you have a tip or just want to chat, email me at greggdrinnan@gmail.com. You are able to follow me on Twitter at @gdrinnan.

And don’t forget that the domain name here is greggdrinnan.com.

Enjoy!


Another day, another set of twins is brought to our attention.

This time it’s Brett and Garrett Festerling, now 31 and playing in Europe.

whlBrett, a defenceman, spent five seasons (2002-07) in the WHL, with the Tri-City Americans and Vancouver Giants. He now plays for the Nürnberg Ice Tigers of Germany’s DEL.

Garrett, a forward, was in the WHL for four seasons (2003-07), with the Portland Winterhawks and Regina Pats. These days, he also is in the DEL, with Adler Mannheim.

——

Twins who played together . . .

Darren and Trevor Kruger, Swift Current (1987-89)

Bob and Ted McAneeley, Edmonton (Calgary Buffaloes, 1966-67; Edmonton Oil Kings, 1968-69)

Trevor and Troy Pohl, Portland (1986-88)

Taylor and Travis Sanheim, Calgary (2014-16)

Jeremy and Joshua Schappert, Seattle (2005-08)

Rich and Ron Sutter, Lethbridge Broncos (1980-83)

Kaeden and Keenan Taphorn, Kootenay (active)

——

Twins who played but not together . . .

Brett and Garrett Festerling, Tri-City/Vancouver, Portland/Regina (2002-07)

Connor and Curtis Honey, Seattle, Brandon (2011-14)

Brent and Kyle Howarth, Kelowna, Medicine Hat/Spokane/Prince Albert Raiders (2003-06)

Kris and Ryan Russell, Medicine Hat and Kootenay (2003-07)

Beck and Will Warm, Tri-City and Edmonton (active)

——

Officials who are twins and work together . . .

Chad and Cody Huseby, linesmen from Red Deer (active)


THE COACHING GAME . . .

Since being fired as the general manager and head coach of the BCHL’s Nanaimo Clippers, Mike Vandekamp is hanging out at the rink and helping the minor hockey association.

“I want to continue to volunteer my time with that, mostly coach mentorship stuff,” Vandekamp, a former WHL coach, told Greg Sakaki of the Nanaimo News Bulletin. “That’s something that keeps a guy a little bit involved and down at the rink.”

Wes Mussio, the Clippers’ new owner, fired Vandekamp on Dec. 21, a move the coach said he never saw coming. Mussio announced the move via a late-night post on Twitter, citing irreconcilable differences.

“I don’t think there was ever a specific incident that led to this, or specific animosity or any disrespect shown,” Vandekamp said. “We were operating the hockey team the way we’ve always operated the hockey team.”

Under Vandekamp and assistant Dustin Donaghy, a former WHL player, the Clippers were 18-13-3-2 and second in the Island Division. Under Darren Naylor, the Clippers are 4-7-0-0 and have slipped to third, five points behind the Powell River Kings and Victoria Grizzlies.

Sakaki’s complete story is right here.


Scoreboard

FRIDAY:

At Prince Albert, F Kody McDonald had a goal and two assists against his old club as the Raiders beat the Prince George Cougars, 6-2. . . . Prince Albert (19-20-9) has points in four PrinceAlbertstraight (3-0-1) and remains four points behind Saskatoon in the chase for a wild-card spot. . . . Prince George (18-24-7) is 10 points out of a playoff spot. This was the start of a six-game East Division trek for Prince George. . . . McDonald opened the scoring with his 23rd goal, while shorthanded, at 3:51 of the first period. . . . F Josh Maser tied it with No. 22 at 9:48. . . . F Jordy Stallard (32) put the Raiders back out front at 9:48. . . . F Liam Ryan (2) got the visitors even again at 6:03 of the second period. . . . The Raiders scored the game’s last four goals. . . . F Parker Kelly (20) snapped the tie at 16:20. . . . F Curtis Miske (16) upped the lead to 4-2 at 1:21 of the third period. . . . F Cole Fonstad (13), just back from the Top Prospects game, scored at 8:36 and F Sean Montgomery (11) added a PP goal at 10:20. . . . Stallard, Montgomery and Parker each added an assist for the Raiders. . . . The Raiders were 1-2 on the PP; the Cougars were 0-5. . . . G Ian Scott earned the victory with 22 saves. . . . Prince George got 29 stops from G Tavin Grant. . . . F Brogan O’Brien, who last played on Dec. 10, was back in the Cougars’ lineup. . . . The Raiders were without F Regan Nagy, whose right knee injury apparently isn’t as bad as it looked when it happened. “I think we dodged a bullet there,” Raiders head coach Marc Habscheid told Jeff D’Andrea of paNOW.com. “He was X-Rayed, MRI’d, and they all came back clear. It seemed there was a lot of trauma in that area, but he seems to have dodged a bullet and he’s pretty much day-to-day. As soon as he can play, he can play.” . . . Announced attendance: 1,896.


At Saskatoon, G Nolan Maier stopped 20 shots to lead the Blades to a 5-0 victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings. . . . Saskatoon (24-23-3) had lost its previous two games. It holds Saskatoondown the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot, four points behind Regina. . . . Edmonton (13-28-7) has lost three in a row (0-2-1). . . . Maier, who turned 17 on Jan. 10, has two shutouts this season. He is 16-9-1, 3.18, .904. . . . F Josh Paterson (24) scored the game’s first goal, at 3:05 of the first period. . . . F Max Gerlach (23) scored a PP goal at 6:07, and D Jackson Caller (3) made it 3-0 at 9:20. . . . The Blades got a second-period goal from F Michael Farren (4), on a PP, at 17:03, and one in the third from F Braylon Shmyr (25), at 12:39. . . . Saskatoon got two assists from F Kirby Dach, with Gerlach and Paterson each adding one. . . . Saskatoon was 2-11 on the PP; Edmonton was 0-3. . . . Edmonton took 17 of the game’s 25 minor penalties. . . . G Josh Dechaine started for the Oil Kings and was beaten three times on eight shots in 10:13. Todd Scott finished up by stopping 17 of 19 shots in 49:47. . . . The Blades had F Caleb Fantillo back in their lineup. He hadn’t played since Nov. 29. . . . D Dawson Davidson (ill) was among Saskatoon’s scratches, ending his chance of playing 73 games this season. The Blades acquired him from Regina earlier this month. . . . Announced attendance: 3,309.


At Lethbridge, F Brayden Burke scored in OT to give the Moose Jaw Warriors a 3-2 victory over the Hurricanes. . . . Moose Jaw (39-7-3) has won four straight and leads the MooseJawWarriorsoverall standings by 11 points over Swift Current. . . . Lethbridge (22-21-6) has lost four in a row (0-2-2). It is second in the Central Division, six points behind Medicine Hat. . . . The Warriors took a 2-0 lead on second-period goals from F Tristin Langan (13), at 11:35, and F Justin Almeida (29), on a PP, at 13:24. . . . F Keltie Jeri-Leon (5) got the home boys to within a goal at 19:45. . . . F Jadon Joseph (6) forced OT with a goal at 19:34 of the third period. . . . Burke, who was acquired from the Hurricanes last season, won it with his 23rd goal of the season at 2:38 of extra time. He leads the WHL scoring race with 95 points, three more than teammate Jayden Halbgewachs. . . . D Kale Clague drew three assists for Moose Jaw, with Burke and Almeida getting one apiece. . . . Moose Jaw was 1-4 on the PP; Lethbridge was 0-1. . . . The Warriors got 19 saves from G Adam Evanoff. . . . G Logan Flodell stopped 30 shots for Lethbridge. . . . The Hurricanes are without F Taylor Ross and F Dylan Cozens, while D Jett Woo remains out of Moose Jaw’s lineup. . . . Announced attendance: 4,158.


At Medicine Hat, D Cal Foote’s OT goal gave the Kelowna Rockets a 4-3 victory over the Tigers. . . . Kelowna (31-14-3) has won three straight and leads the Western Conference by KelownaRocketsone point over Everett. . . . Medicine Hat (25-19-6) went to OT for the fifth time seven games. It leads the Central Division by six points over Lethbridge. . . . The Rockets scored the game’s last three goals, Foote winning it with his 10th goal on a breakaway at 3:01 of extra time. . . . F Mark Rassell gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead with goals at 0:42 and 5:43 of the first period. He has 41 goals, the third player this season to surpass 40. . . . F Leif Mattson (16) got Kelowna on the scoreboard at 19:45. . . . F Jaeger White (8) restored Medicine Hat’s two-goal lead at 17:39 of the second period. . . . F Kole Lind (25) got the visitors to within a goal at 5:20 of the third period, and F Conner Bruggen-Cate (14) tied it at 8:14. . . . D Gordie Ballhorn had two assists for Kelowna. . . . The Rockets were 1-2 on the PP; the Tigers were 0-1. . . . G Brodan Salmond stopped 29 shots for Kelowna, four fewer than Medicine Hat’s Michael Bullion. . . . F Dillon Dube was among Kelowna’s scratches. . . . Announced attendance: 3,041.


At Cranbrook, B.C., F Alec Baer and D Martin Bodak each scored twice to lead the Kootenay Ice to a 6-2 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings Kings. . . . Kootenay (22-23-3) Kootenaynewhas won two in a row. It is third in the Central Division, three points behind Lethbridge. . . . Brandon (28-16-5) has lost seven straight (0-4-3). It remains third in the East Division, six points ahead of Regina. . . . The same two teams will play in Cranbrook again tonight. . . . Last night, the Ice led 5-0 at 10:53 of the second period. . . . Bodak, who has five goals, got it started at 10:14 of the first period. Baer, on a PP, made it 2-0 at 13:00. . . . F Peyton Krebs (11) upped it to 3-0 at 1:22 of the second period. . . . F Sebastian Streu (7) made it 4-0, on a PP, at 4:28 and Baer’s 20th made it 5-0, on another PP, at 10:53. . . . Bodak added a third-period goal. . . . F Luka Burzan (7) and F Evan Weinger (23) scored for Brandon. . . . The Ice got three assists from F Brett Davis and two from F Colton Kroeker, with Baer adding one. . . . Kootenay was 3-3 on the PP; Brandon was 1-5. . . . G Matt Berlin stopped 21 shots for the home side. . . . Brandon’s Dylan Myskiw turned aside 27 shots. . . . The Wheat Kings will wrap up a seven-game road trip tonight. . . . Announced attendance: 2,230.


At Kamloops, head coach Don Hay tied the WHL’s career record for regular-season victories with No. 742 as the Blazers skated to a 5-2 victory over the Portland Winterhawks. . . . Hay Kamloops1now shares the record with long-time Edmonton/Portland coach Ken Hodge. Hay’s first opportunity to break the record comes tonight in a rematch with Portland. . . . Kamloops (22-23-3) has won four in a row but is still six points away from a playoff spot. . . . . Portland (28-16-4) had won its previous two games. It is second in the U.S. Division, four points behind Everett. . . . F Connor Zary (5) gave the home team a 1-0 lead, on a PP, at 7:17 of the first period. . . . Portland F Skyler McKenzie (36) tied it, on a PP, at 9:18. . . . The Blazers went ahead 3-1 on second-period goals from F Justin Sigrist (2), at 10:44, and F Jermaine Loewen, at 12:24. . . . Sigrist hadn’t scored opening night when he notched the Blazers’ first goal of the season in a 6-2 loss to the Rockets in Kelowna. . . . F Jake Gricius (10) added a Portland goal, on a PP, at 4:12 of the third period. . . . F Quinn Benjafield (16) provided some insurance at 14:20, and Loewen (23) got the empty-netter, at 18:23. . . . Portland was 2-5 on the PP; Kamloops was 1-2. . . . Blazers G Dylan Ferguson was the game’s first star, with 30 saves. . . . Portland G Cole Kehler, 20, stopped 20 shots. The Winterhawks acquired him from Kamloops on July 21, 2016, for a seventh-round pick in the 2018 bantam draft. . . . It was a homecoming for F Ty Kolle and D John Ludvig of the Winterhawks. Both played their first WHL games in their hometown. . . . The Winterhawks continue to play without top forwards Cody Glass and Kieffer Bellows, who have combined for 47 goals. . . . With the injuries, the Winterhawks have added F Seth Jarvis, a first-round pick in the 2017 bantam draft, to their roster. Jarvis, who turns 16 on Feb. 1, plays at the Rink Hockey Academy in Winnipeg. . . . Kamloops F/D Tylor Ludwar didn’t return after his head and the right elbow of Portland D Matthew Quigley came into contact at 18:11 of the second period. It would be safe to assume that Ludwar is in concussion protocol. . . . Announced attendance: 3,721.


At Langley, B.C., F Tanner Kaspick’s second goal of the game, in OT, gave the Victoria Royals a 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Giants. . . . Victoria (28-17-4) is second in the B.C. VictoriaRoyalsDivision, five points behind Kelowna. . . . The Giants (25-16-8) have lost four in a row (0-2-2). They are third in the B.C. Division, two points behind Victoria. . . . F Dawson Holt (8) gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead at 2:54 of the first period. . . . Victoria tied it on F Andrei Grishakov’s 15th goal, at 7:34. . . . F Tyler Benson put the Giants back out front at 9:22. . . . The Royals took a 3-2 lead on second-period PP goals from Kaspick, at 7:25, and F Matthew Phillips (33), at 10:28. . . . Benson’s 19th goal at 19:06 of the third period forced OT. . . . Kaspick won it with his 16th goal at 2:28 of extra time. . . . Phillips added an assist to his goal for the Royals, while Holt did the same with the Giants. . . . Victoria was 2-5 on the PP; Vancouver was 0-4. . . . G Griffen Outhouse stopped 22 shots for the winners. . . . The Giants got 28 stops from G David Tendeck. . . . Announced attendance: 3,357.


At Everett, F Matt Fonteyne broke a 1-1 tie 34 seconds into the second period and the Silvertips went on to a 3-1 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . Everett (31-16-2) has Everettwon eight in a row and leads the U.S. Division by four points over Portland. . . . Seattle (25-17-6) had a five-game winning streak end. It is third in the U.S. Division, one point ahead of Spokane. . . . F Bryce Kindopp (14) put the home team out front at 9:25 of the first period. . . . Seattle tied it at 11:50 on a PP goal from D Austin Strand (16). He has 11 PP goals this season. . . . Fonteyne put the home side ahead 2-1 with his 29th goal, on a PP. . . . F Connor Dewar added insurance at 9:40 of the third period. . . . Fonteyne also had an assist. . . . Seattle was 1-4 on the PP; Everett was 1-5. . . . G Carter Hart earned the victory with 20 saves, 10 more than Seattle’s Liam Hughes, who had missed the previous five games with an undisclosed injury. . . . Hart now is 18-3-1, 1.33, .958. . . . Seattle lost F Sami Moilanen in the second period with an undisclosed injury. . . . Everett F Sean Richards sat this one out as he began serving a two-game suspension. . . . He also will miss tonight’s rematch in Kent, Wash. . . . Announced attendance: 8,164.


SATURDAY (all times local):

Edmonton at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.

Regina at Swift Current, 2:30 p.m.

Prince George at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.

Kelowna at Red Deer, 7 p.m.

Brandon vs. Kootenay, at Cranbrook, B.C., 7 p.m.

Moose Jaw at Medicine Hat, 7:30 p.m.

Portland at Kamloops, 7 p.m.

Everett vs. Seattle, at Kent, Wash., 7:05 p.m.

Spokane vs. Tri-City, at Kennewick, Wash., 7:05 p.m.

Calgary at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.


TWEET OF THE DAY

Advertisement

Hay closing in on top spot in WHL record book . . . One victory from Hodge’s long-standing mark . . . Standard may fall this weekend

Don Hay, the head coach of the Kamloops Blazers, goes into this weekend with 741 regular-season WHL coaching victories. That is one off the record of 742 that has been held by Ken Hodge since 1993.

Hodge was a long-time head coach with the Portland Winterhawks, who will play in Kamloops on Friday and Saturday nights. The teams then will head for Portland and a Sunday date.

At the same time, Mike Johnston, the Winterhawks’ vice-president, general manager and head coach, is in search of his 300th regular-season victory, all of the with Portland. He will become the 23rd coach in WHL history with at least 300 victories.

On top of that, the Winterhawks will be playing their 3,000th regular-season WHL game on Friday night.

Before the 2015-16 WHL season began, Hay and I sat down for coffee and a chat. What follows is the I wrote for The Coaches Site.


It was late on the afternoon of May 21, 1995.

There was pandemonium in Riverside Coliseum, the home arena of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, who had just beaten the Detroit Jr. Red Wings, 8-2, to win their third Memorial Cup championship in four years.

Don Hay, the Kamloops native who was the Blazers’ head coach, stood in their dressing room and watched the celebration carrying on around him.

More than 20 years later, he recalls: “I was in the dressing room going, ‘What am I going

DonHay
Don Hay, the head coach of the Kamloops Blazers, has held a lot of media scrums during his lengthy coaching career. (Photo: Gregg Drinnan)

to do now? What am I going to do now? Am I going to quit the Blazers?’ ”

Hay had been on the Blazers’ coaching staff for 10 years at that point, the last three as head coach. Earlier, when he was an assistant coach, he also was a Kamloops firefighter.

“Coaching was different then,” he says. “Believe it or not, there’s more security now than there was then, and I had a good job (with the fire department).”

History shows that Hay didn’t get out of the coaching game, and he never returned to the firehall. He moved on to the NHL, came back to the WHL, and then returned to the NHL before once again coming back to the WHL.

He’s back in Kamloops now, as the Blazers’ head coach, and he is really comfortable being back home.

In a lengthy conversation with the 2015-16 WHL season on the horizon, Hay touches on a lot of things and tells some stories.

—————

Tom Renney had been the head coach when the Blazers began that Memorial Cup run by winning the 1992 championship in Seattle. After that victory, Renney signed a two-year contract with the Blazers. However, he wasn’t in Kamloops long enough to get it started.

During the summer, Dave King left Hockey Canada, where he had been head coach of the national men’s team. Hockey Canada asked Renney if he wanted that job.

“That was always Tom’s dream job, to coach the national team,” Hay says. “He grew up in Nelson watching the (Trail) Smokies and teams like that, and his dad was into that. So he left in the middle of July.”

That’s when Blazers general manager Bob Brown asked Hay, a seven-year assistant coach, if he wanted to succeed Renney.

Interestingly, Hay actually had taken a bit of a step back from the Blazers. His children were old enough that they were getting actively involved in sports and he was able to spend more time with them. And, of course, there was the job with the Kamloops Fire Department.

“I had to take a two-year leave of absence from the firehall,” Hay recalls. “I wasn’t going to go anywhere else to coach. I wasn’t going to leave the security of the firehall. I actually took a paycut to come and coach the Blazers.”

Hay signed a two-year contract as the Blazers’ head coach. That contract was up after the Blazers won the 1994 Memorial Cup in Laval, Que.

“That was the end of my two years,” Hay says. “We had just won the Memorial Cup and I had to make a decision whether I’m going to go back to the firehall.”

Except that the Blazers were to be the host team for the 1995 Memorial Cup tournament.

“So,” Hay says, “they said, ‘Take another year but this is your last year.’ ”

—————

After the Blazers won the 1992 Memorial Cup, they went young with, Hay says, “I think five 16-year-olds.” He also pointed to a “key trade” that Brown made in acquiring goaltender Steve Passmore from the Victoria Cougars “to stabilize our group.”

Passmore returned as a 20-year-old for 1993-94.

“The team to beat that season was Portland,” Hay says. “They had (Adam) Deadmarsh and (Jason) Wiemer and (Scott) Langkow in goal. They had a good team. Langkow got hurt during the season so we had jumped them in the standings.”

Kamloops and Portland met up in the West Division final, with the Blazers, who had finished seven points ahead of the Winterhawks, holding home-ice advantage.

“Game 1 and 2, we won,” Hay remembers. “Game 3 and 4, they won. Game 5, back here, Kamloops1we won that to go up 3-2. Down in Portland for Game 6, Jarome Iginla, who was 16, got the first goal and then Scott Ferguson scored late in the game and we ended up winning the series. It was something that wasn’t expected.”

The Blazers then took out the Saskatoon Blades in a seven-game championship final.

“We went to Laval and it was like, ‘Boy, it all came together.’ So we unexpectedly won in ’94.”

The following season, as Hay puts it, “We had a really strong team. I think we went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team in the country.”

In the end, they came up against the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL final. With the Blazers the host team for the Memorial Cup, both teams knew they would be advancing. Still, as the series progressed, Hay found himself having to make a key decision.

With the series using a 2-3-2 format, the Wheat Kings won the opener in Kamloops.

“The second game,” Hay explains, “we were down and we make the decision to pull the goalie, Roddie Branch, and we put in Randy Petruk.”

Petruk, a 16-year-old from Cranbrook, had gotten into 27 games as a freshman, going 16-3-4. Still, he was 16 years of age. Branch was 20.

“Petruk won eight straight games after that,” Hay says. “We were down 2-0 going to Brandon. We won all three games in Brandon and came back here to win Game 6 in our building. He won those four games and then he won four games at the Memorial Cup as a 16-year-old.”

That was the last time Hay turned to a 16-year-old goaltender. Still, he says that experience is why he didn’t have any problem turning to 17-year-old Tyson Sexsmith in 2006-07 when he needed a goaltender with the Vancouver Giants the host team for the 2007 Memorial Cup. Hay went to Sexsmith early on, and the kid got into 51 regular-season games and 22 more in the playoffs.

The Giants lost to Willie Desjardins and the Medicine Hat Tigers in seven games in the WHL final that year — “That playoff against Medicine Hat was as good as any playoff I’ve been in,” Hay says — but later beat the Tigers 2-1 in the Memorial Cup final in Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.

The Giants had won the 2006 WHL title under Hay, but lost a semifinal game at the Memorial Cup in Moncton.

—————

When Hay ended a three-season professional playing career, he returned to Kamloops and was prepared to work as a firefighter and coach minor hockey.

He also was in on the ground floor with the Kamloops Cowboys, a short-lived senior team that played in a league with the likes of the Quesnel Kangaroos, who featured the legendary Gassoff boys, Prince George Mohawks and North Delta Hurricanes.

Hay’s coaching career began innocuously enough when the Cowboys’ coach skipped a practice.

“One day our coach got mad at our group and didn’t show up,” Hay recalls. “We’re sitting in the dressing room, going, ‘Who wants to run practice?’

“I said, ‘Well, I’ll give it a try,’ and I became kind of the player-coach.”

As he got involved in coaching minor hockey, he worked hard to get his coaching levels. As he says, “They wouldn’t give me a head-coaching job because I didn’t have my levels.”

He got the levels and was quite content coaching minor hockey. Then came the phone call that would change everything. It was the summer of 1985 and Ken Hitchcock was preparing for his second season as the Blazers’ head coach.

“I didn’t know him at all,” Hay says. “He said, ‘Come on down for a coffee. I want to meet you.’ I went down there and by the time I left he offered me a part-time assistant-coaching job.”

Hay’s head was spinning as he went home. He was 31 years of age and knew he wanted to give it a shot.

He remembers going home and saying to his wife, Vicki: “Just let me try this for a year. I can work it around my shifts.”

It was a part-time gig and he wouldn’t be making road trips. At least that was the plan at the start.

“But the more you got into it,” Hay says, “the more you were there all the time. I said, ‘Just let me try it for a year’ and it’s been ever since.”

Of course, if Hay thought he was a coach then, he admits that he quickly underwent an attitude adjustment.

“I remember my first practice with Hitch,” Hay says. “I thought being an ex-pro player, I knew everything. I found out I didn’t know anything.

“He was a student of the game. He had gone to watch the Oilers practice with Glen Sather. He had spent time with Clare Drake in Edmonton. Hitch used to watch Sather with Gretzky, Kurri, Coffey . . .”

Hay spent five years working with Hitchcock, and they made two trips to the Memorial Cup — 1986 in Portland and 1990 in Hamilton.

“That 1990 team . . . it was a good team,” he says. “Lennie Barrie. Dave Chyzowski. We got Clayton Young in a trade from Victoria. He got 100 points. He was our fourth-line centre. We had an awesome team. We had some great teams here.”

It was Hitchcock who pushed Hay towards Hockey Canada. It was Hitchcock who prodded Hay until he got involved in the U-17 program that was in its infancy. Hay was one of the coaches when some B.C. teams gathered at Memorial Arena in Kamloops.

“That was the first year of the program,” Hay says. “Bob Nicholson was the head of B.C. amateur hockey. I can remember we were representing Okanagan and we were playing a Lower Mainland team. The first period was all penalties.

“Bob was there and he said, ‘If you guys can’t get this thing straightened out we might not have this program.’

“It was a startup program; they wanted to identify the best players. It obviously ended up fine and things moved on.”

—————

A lot of ice has been made since Hay got into the coaching game. When he first started coaching, who would have seen cell phones and social media on the horizon?

“The players have changed. The coaches have changed,” Hay says. “At one time you had one coach. Now you have an assistant coach . . . some people have two assistant coaches. We have a couple of part-time guys. . . .  The players have so many resources now . . . video, YouTube.

“At one time we had nothing. Then we had VHS for a long time. My first year in Vancouver we had a computer and I was a little leery about how this thing all worked.”

Hay pauses, and then he chuckles.

“In 1990, Len Barrie had the first cell phone. He was in the back of the bus with this great big cell phone like this,” Hay says, and he holds his hands about a foot apart.”

Yes, even the t-shirts have changed.

“In ’94 in Laval, we had Stanfield underwear that we would write things on with a Sharpie,” Hay says. “Now you get a new t-shirt with something written on it.”

The way Hay sees it, everything has changed.

“The kids have really changed,” he says, but he adds that a lot of that is because “technology has changed. . . . Society has changed.”

He thinks back 15 or 20 years and remembers when coaches and players read The Hockey News on the bus “to find out what was going on” in the NHL and the three major junior leagues.

Hay was the head coach of the Canadian team that played in the 1995 World Junior Championship in Red Deer. He remembers attending a summer session in Red Deer . . .

“The Quebec guys sat over there. The Ontario guys sat over there. The Western Hockey League guys sat over there. Nobody knew each other,” he says. “The only guy they knew was Brett Lindros because he was such a recognizable guy. People didn’t know who Bryan McCabe was. Nobody knew what was happening.”

These days, thanks at least in part to social media, everyone knows everyone and many players are in regular contact with each other.

This, of course, has led to rules regarding the use of phones and social media.

“We have no phones at meals,” Hay says. “When you come in the dressing room, you put your phone away.”

When the Blazers travel to Vancouver, for example, the players have to turn off their phones once they reach Chilliwack.

“You have to explain why you’re doing it,” Hay says. “You’re doing it so they can focus and concentrate.”

A chuckle follows.

“I remember one time when we were playing in Swift Current and staying in Medicine Hat,” he says. “We got back and I was upset after we lost.”

Hay ordered his player to go “straight to your rooms.”

Except that Darcy Tucker chimed in with: “I have to phone my mom and dad.”

So, as Hay recalls, “They all lined up at the pay phone.”

Another pause. Another chuckle. He has asked players what they would rather give up — a hot shower or the cell phone.

“They would all rather shower in cold water than give up their cell phones,” he says with a laugh.

Hay also points out that dealing with cell phones and social media is “part of the discussion” at all levels of hockey, including the World Junior Championship. “How are we going to handle cell phones and computers and things like that? You want the focus to be on the task at hand, but the phone has become such a big part of their lives.”

Helping players learn to deal with social media, as Hay points out, is part of a coach’s responsibility. The WHL has rules regarding the use of social media because, as Hay says, “We don’t want the players embarrassing themselves.”

He adds: “They’re young people. They have to learn the right decision-making. I always tell the players ‘my job is to not only teach you hockey skills, but to teach you life skills.’

“The biggest life skill is making good decisions.”

—————

If Hay has learned one thing in his coaching career, it is that the only constant in hockey is change. That is something that he doesn’t see changing, either.

“The kids are more educated; they’re more aware,” he says. “They’re well coached. They’re probably not as coachable . . . not open to change at times. That’s probably the biggest thing.

“As coaches, we have to change with the times and the players. The players have got to change and adapt, also. Sometimes there’s stubbornness to change on both sides.”

However, as he is quick to point out, it is “the coachable guys who have a chance to become players.”

He quickly names four former WHLers who went on to play in the NHL and in a couple of sentences he explains how they got there. “Chris Murray, Darcy Tucker, Milan Lucic, Brendan Gallagher . . . those guys would come to the rink every day wanting to get better,” Hay says. “They wanted to know, ‘What can you teach me today?’ If they got corrected, they would try to do it (better) and please you. That’s what coachability is all about. They had to work to get where they wanted to get to.”

Of course, nothing is like it used to be. Hockey didn’t use to be all about systems. Oh, sure, coaches worked on defensive zone coverages and such, but . . .

“It wasn’t like it is now; no doubt about it,” Hay says. “Games were like 8-6 and 9-7. There were systems, but not as detailed as they are today and not as structured as they are today. That’s probably the biggest change I’ve seen in my time.”

When Hay left for the first time after the 1994-95 season, he left behind a WHL that, as he puts it, “was still a pretty explosive league with lots of goals.” It’s not like that now and one of the main reasons, he suggests, is that the “coaches are more educated now.”

Hockey coaches, as a rule, love to share. They spend their summers attending coaching clinics, either as presenters or participants. Hay is no exception.

“I learned from Hitch to give back,” Hay says. “Give back to the community that helps you. Every summer I try to either present at a coaches clinic or go to a coaches clinic. It’s important to continue to learn. You pick up one or two things that you think can help you have success and I think that’s important.”

As for the future of the game, he sees hockey “going to more of a development model.” It starts with the increase in the number of coaches being hired in the pro game.

“You look at the (Chicago) Blackhawks and their farm team,” he says. “They had a head coach, an assistant coach . . . they had special assignment coaches. They had a faceoff guy, a goalie guy, a defence guy, a forward guy, a penalty-killer guy. They’re trying to teach their players as much as they can because of the salary cap . . . they have to replace these guys with younger guys.”

The people who run junior teams are paying attention, too. In the case of the Blazers, Hay says they spent the first two days of their training camp on skill development. They brought in Dallas Stars goaltending coach Jeff Reese.

“We also did defencemen development. We did forward development,” Hay says. The focus on skill development has meant one other thing, too.

“You want to get to your group as quick as possible so you can start working with them and start developing them,” he says.

—————

Hay returned to Kamloops as the Blazers’ head coach over the summer of 2014. He had spent the previous 10 years as the head coach of the Vancouver Giants. Ron Toigo, the Giants’ majority owner, let Hay out of the final year of a contract in order to allow him to return to his hometown.

“I had 10 really good years in Vancouver,” Hay says. “The opportunity came probably at the right time for everybody. I didn’t think the opportunity would come, to be able to come back. Things just didn’t match up along the way. When I was looking for a job, the Blazers had a quality coach. When they needed a coach, I had a job.”

Hay seems completely at peace with where he is at this stage of his life. He is 61 now, and he’s back home and surrounded by family.

“It feels different,” he says of being back in Kamloops. “It feels good but it feels different.”

These days, with Hay into his second season in his second stay with his hometown Blazers, he seems really comfortable with his lot in life.

While son Darrell continues to play professionally — he is a defenceman with the Sheffield Steelers of Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League — Hay is in close proximity to his and Vicki’s twin daughters. Angela, who is married to former WHL goaltender Thomas Vicars, lives in Salmon Arm, while Ashly, who was married in July, lives in Kamloops.

“This is home. I was born and raised here. I came back every summer. It’s not like I left Kamloops and never came back. I have always felt that Kamloops is home. I enjoyed my time in Vancouver and the people I met there and the people I worked with there. I just didn’t think the opportunity would ever present itself.”

Blazers’ Hay one victory away . . . Silvertips win seventh in row . . . Winterhawks roar back, beat Wheaties

MacBeth

D Cody Corbett (Edmonton, 2011-14) has signed a contract for the rest of this season with Orli Znojmo (Czech Republic, Erste Bank Liga). This season, he had three goals and 18 assists in 35 games with the Idaho Steelheads (ECHL). . . .

D Shaun Heshka (Everett, 2003-06) has signed a one-year-plus-option contract extension with Kärpät Oulu (Finland, Liiga). This season, he has eight goals and 14 assists in 38 games.


A LITTLE OF THIS . . .

We have an addition to the piece on twins who have played in the WHL.

That piece identified Bob and Ted McAneeley, Rich and Ron Sutter, Darren and Trevor Kruger, and Trevor and Troy Pohl as players who had been teammates in the WHL. Of course, the Kaphorn twins, Kaeden and Keenan, now are with the Kootenay Ice.

An emailer on Sunday added two more names to the list, although they aren’t players.

Chad and Cody Huseby are twin brothers who work as linesmen based out of Red Deer. Chad is in his eighth season working WHL games, while Cody is in his ninth season.


Scoreboard

SUNDAY:

At Saskatoon, the Moose Jaw Warriors scored two goals in the second half of the third period and beat the Blades, 5-3. . . . Moose Jaw (38-7-3) has the WHL’s best record and has MooseJawWarriorswon three in a row. . . . Saskatoon (23-22-3) is in possession of the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot, four points behind Regina. . . . The Warriors took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from F Brett Howden (18), at 1:48, and F Brecon Wood (3), at 11:42. . . . F Josh Paterson scored a shorthanded goal for the Blades at 19:44. . . . F Justin Almeida (28) restored Moose Jaw’s two-goal lead just 51 seconds into the second period. . . . Saskatoon pulled even in the third period on goals from Paterson (23), at 1:37, and F Eric Florchuk (10), at 6:58. . . . F Brayden Burke (22), who also had an assist, broke the tie at 12:57, and F Jayden Halbgewachs (51) added insurance at 19:55 with the empty-netter. . . . The Warriors got two assists from D Oleg Sosunov, with Halbgewachs and Howden adding one each. . . . Saskatoon was 0-2 on the PP; Moose Jaw was 0-3. . . . G Brody Willms stopped 16 shots for the winners, while Saskatoon’s Nolan Maier made 31 saves. . . . D Jett Woo was among Moose Jaw’s scratches, apparently given the day off by the coaching staff. . . . Announced attendance: 4,511.


At Calgary, F Conner Chaulk’s OT goal gave the Hitmen a 4-3 victory over the Prince Albert Raiders. . . . Calgary, which scored two shorthanded goals, improved to 15-26-6. . . . CalgaryPrince Albert (18-20-9) has points in three straight (2-0-1). It is four points away from a playoff spot. . . . The Raiders skated to a 2-0 lead on goals from F Kody McDonald (22), on a PP, at 4:38 of the first period and F Sean Montgomery (10), at 6:49 of the second. . . . F Riley Stotts (12) got Calgary on the scoreboard at 16:39. . . . F Ozzy Wiesblatt, in his first WHL game, restored Prince Albert’s two-goal lead at 3:47 of the third period. . . . Calgary forced OT on goals from F Luke Coleman (9), shorthanded, at 16:59, and F Jakob Stukel (22), at 18:33. . . . Chaulk won it with a shorthanded breakaway goal at 3:37 of OT. He’s got 10 goals this season. . . . F Jake Kryski had two assists for Calgary, with Stotts getting one. . . . Prince Albert was 1-6 on the PP; Calgary was 0-4. . . . Calgary G Nick Schneider earned the victory with 23 saves, 10 fewer than Prince Albert’s Ian Scott. . . . The Raiders were playing their third game in fewer than 48 hours after winning 5-1 in Red Deer on Friday and beating the Tigers 3-2 in OT in Medicine Hat on Saturday. . . . Announced attendance: 6,829.


At Edmonton, Don Hay closed to within one regular-season victory of the WHL’s career coaching record as his Kamloops Blazers beat the Oil Kings, 4-2. . . . Kamloops (21-23-3) Kamloops1has won three in a row to get within six points of a playoff spot. The Blazers played three road games in fewer than 48 hours and swept the Central Division’s three poorest teams. They also won 2-1 in Calgary and 3-1 in Red Deer. . . . Edmonton now is 13-27-6. . . . Hay has posted 741 victories as a WHL head coach, one shy of the record held by the retired Ken Hodge. The Blazers’ next three games are against Hodge’s old team, the Portland Winterhawks. They’ll play in Kamloops on Friday and Saturday, then in Portland on Sunday. . . . F Quinn Benjafield (15) scored twice for the Blazers in Edmonton, opening the scoring at 11:35 of the first period and giving them a 3-1 lead at 11:57 of the second. . . . Edmonton F Brendan Semchuk (11), who is from Kamloops, scored at 3:30 of the second period. . . . Kamloops D Nolan Kneen (4), on a PP, gave the visitors a 2-1 lead at 8:38. . . . After Benjafield’s second goal, F Colton Kehler (21), on a PP, got the home team to within a goal at 18:21. . . . Kamloops got insurance from F Jermaine Loewen (21) at 9:38 of the third period. . . . The Blazers got three assists from D Joe Gatenby, with Benjafield and Kneen each getting one. . . . F Trey Fix-Wolansky had two assists for Edmonton. . . . Kamloops was 1-3 on the PP; Edmonton was 1-4. . . . F Max Palaga stopped 32 shots for Kamloops. Dylan Ferguson had started the previous nine games for the Blazers. . . . The Oil Kings got 24 saves from G Todd Scott. . . . Announced attendance: 9.189.


At Everett, G Carter Hart stopped 23 shots to help the Silvertips to a 4-1 victory over the Swift Current Broncos. . . . Everett (30-16-2) has won seven straight games and leads the EverettWestern Conference, by one point over Kelowna. . . . Swift Current (33-11-4) had points in each of its previous nine games (7-0-2). It is second in the overall standings, nine points behind Moose Jaw. . . . Hart improved his numbers this season to 17-3-1, 1.35, .958. . . . F Garrett Pilon (23) gave Everett a 1-0 lead at 3:33 of the first period, and F Sean Richards (18) pped that to 2-0 at 4:20. . . . F Andrew Fyten (7) scored for Swift Current at 8:59. . . . The Silvertips got their other goals from F Riley Sutter (20), at 4:04 of the second period, and F Matt Fonteyne (28), at 14:59 of the third. . . . D Wyatte Wylie had two assists for Everett, with Fonteyne and Sutter adding one each. . . . Each team was 0-5 on the PP. . . . The Broncos got 30 saves from G Stuart Skinner, including 16 in the second period when the home team had a 17-2 edge in shots. . . . F Aleksi Heponiemi drew an assist on the Broncos’ goal to run his point streak to 28 games. He had picked up three points in each of his previous four games. He has 89 points in 36 games this season, after finishing last season with 86 points in 72 games. . . . Richards was hit with a match penalty for attempt to injure at 14:59 of the third period. . . . There were five national anthems played prior to this game as the Silvertips saluted the players who had represented their teams in the WJC — D Ondrej Vala (Czech Republic) and Hart (Canada) of the Silvertips, and F Tyler Steenbergen (Canada), F Artyom Minulin (Russia) and Heponiemi (Finland) of Swift Current. . . . Announced attendance: 4,089.


At Portland, F Alex Overhardt, playing in his 250th regular-season game, broke a 3-3 tie as the Winterhawks scored a 4-3 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings. . . . Portland (28-Portland15-4) has won two in a row. It is second in the U.S. Division, two points behind Everett. . . . Brandon (28-15-4) has lost five straight (0-3-2). It is third in the East Division, 10 points behind Swift Current and seven ahead of Regina. . . . The Wheat Kings got out to a 3-0 first-period lead on two goals from F Evan Weinger (22), who played the previous three seasons with Portland, at 8:41 and 11:50, and one from F Ty Lewis (26), at 18:55. . . . The Winterhawks tied it with three second-period goals. . . . F Joachim Blichfeld (16) started the comeback at 4:43. . . . D Brendan De Jong (2) cut the deficit to one at 5:55. . . . F Lane Gilliss (3) tied it at 12:52. . . . Overhardt (12), who also had an assist, got the winner, on a PP, at 13:48 of the third period. . . . Brandon was 1-1 on the PP; Portland was 1-5. . . . G Cole Kehler earned the victory with 23 saves. . . . Brandon G Logan Thompson made 36 saves. . . . Portland had F Ryan Hughes (ill) back in the lineup, but remains without F Cody Glass and F Kieffer Bellows, both of whom are injured. . . . Announced attendance: 6,588.


MONDAY (all times local):

No Games Scheduled.


TUESDAY (all times local):

Lethbridge vs. Kootenay, at Cranbrook, B.C., 7 p.m.

Medicine Hat at Red Deer, 7 p.m.

Brandon vs. Seattle, at Kent, Wash., 7:05 p.m.

Swift Current at Spokane, 7:05 p.m.

WHL officials: We were robbed! . . . Tale of twins continued . . . Izzy golden for Rockets . . . Saturday in the WHL

A LITTLE OF THIS . . .

First, a couple of housekeeping items . . .

Please note that Taking Note has a new domain name — greggdrinnan.com — that came into effect on Saturday morning. In order to reach this page, that’s all you have to type into your browser or save in your bookmarks.

Feel free to spread the word.

Also, there now is a DONATE button over there on the right. Thanks in advance.


You will recall the piece here yesterday about the Lethbridge Hurricanes having signed twin brothers Adam and Justin Hall, 16, Edmontonians who were selected in the eighth whland seventh rounds, respectively, of the WHL’s 2016 bantam draft.

Mention was made of the Taphorn twins — Kaeden and Keenan, 17 — who are playing with the Kootenay Ice.

Emails on Saturday provided more twins info, which is provided here in chronological order . . .

Bob and Ted McAneeley, now 67, were the league’s first twins. From Cranbrook, B.C., they played with the Calgary Buffaloes in the league’s first season (1966-67). Bob, a forward, played for the Calgary Centennials in 1967-68, while Ted, a defenceman, was with the Edmonton Oil Kings. The twins were together again, in 1968-69, with the Oil Kings.

Unfortunately, the McAneeley boys just missed the Oil Kings run of seven straight Memorial Cup appearances (1960-66), during which time they won two titles (1963 and 1966).

The Sutter twins — Rich and Ron — played together for three seasons (1980-83) with the Lethbridge Broncos. From Viking, Alta., they both were forwards. The twins, now 54, played with the Broncos in the 1983 Memorial Cup, but weren’t fortunate enough to win a championship.

The Pohl brothers — Trevor and Troy — are from Vernon, B.C. Now 50, they played together with the Portland Winterhawks in 1986-87 and 1987-88. Both forwards, they were with Portland for all of the 1986-87 season and some of 1987-88.

The 49-year-old Kruger twins — Darren, a defenceman, and Trevor, a goaltender — are from Swift Current and played for the Broncos. Darren played there for two seasons (1987-89), while Trevor was there for three (1986-89). They were key contributors to the Broncos’ 1989 Memorial Cup championship. The Krugers are believed to be the only twins to have played together on a Memorial Cup winner from the WHL.

Thanks a bunch to those of you who took the time to email.


Three WHL on-ice officials were robbed of their equipment in Marysville, Wash., on Friday afternoon.

The three were en route from Vancouver to Kent, Wash., to work the Friday night game between the Seattle Thunderbirds and the visiting Kelowna Rockets.

They stopped in Marysville for their pregame meal. After eating, they returned to their vehicle and noticed that a bag that had been inside now was missing. There also was some damage to one of the door handles.

Aware that someone had been inside the vehicle, they checked the trunk and discovered that all of their equipment bags and suitcases were gone.

Kevin Muench, the WHL’s director of officiating, explained the rescheduling that had to be done:

“One referee was already in Seattle and we were able to contact two of our linesmen in Everett and have them go to Seattle. One of the referees scheduled to work (the game in Langley, B.C., between the Victoria Royals and Vancouver Giants) was redirected to Seattle.”

The game in Kent began with three officials on the ice, but the fourth official arrived early in the first period.

“We were able to make another assignment change with the help of another league to get a second referee to Vancouver in time for the game there,” Muench said.


Myles Mattila has done a whole lot in the world of mental health awareness in recent times, and he’s only 18 years of age. Mattila, this season a forward with the KIJHL’s  Kelowna Chiefs, was featured in a piece on Sportsnet that is well worth watching. . . . Mattila is a special young man who hasn’t let any of the publicity get to him. He just continues to do great work and to spread the word that help is available. . . . The Sportsnet feature is right here.


The junior B Golden Rockets of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League started Izzy Palumbo, 15, in goal on Saturday as they beat the visiting Columbia Valley Rockies, 7-4. . . . Palumbo stopped 28 shots in leading the Rockets to only their third victory in 38 games. . . . Palumbo, who plays for a Tier 3 midget team in Revelstoke, has always played on a boys’ team. She was signed as an AP with the Rockets in December.


If you would like to contact Taking Note with information, have a question or just feel like commenting on something, feel free to send an email to greggdrinnan@gmail.com. I’m also on Twitter (@gdrinnan).


Scoreboard

SATURDAY:

At Saskatoon, the Blades got 45 saves from G Nolan Maier and an OT goal from F Eric Florchuk as they beat the Regina Pats, 4-3. . . . Saskatoon (23-21-3) had lost its previous Saskatoontwo games. It holds down the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot, four points behind the Pats. . . . Regina (24-20-5) has lost two in a row (0-1-1). It is fourth in the East Division, seven points behind Brandon. . . . Florchuk, who has nine goals, opened and closed the scoring in this one. . . . He opened the scoring at 9:17 of the first period. . . . F Chase Wouters (13) made it 2-0 at 16:22. . . . Regina scored the next three goals, with F Jesse Gabrielle (5) counting at 18:13 of the first period, former Blades F Cam Hebig (32) getting one at 5:32 of the second, and F Sam Steel (17) scoring at 18:43. . . . Saskatoon D Evan Fiala (5) tied it 3-3 at 12:22 of the third period. . . . Florchuk won it at 1:37 with boyhood pal Kirby Dach getting the lone assist. . . . Florchuk was acquired from Victoria at the trade deadline. . . . Dach was back in the lineup after not playing since Dec. 27. . . . Hebig and Steel each had an assist for the Pats. . . . Saskatoon was 0-1 on the PP; Regina was 0-4. . . . G Max Paddock, who hadn’t played since Dec. 27, stopped 28 shots for Regina. . . . The Pats were without F Jake Leschyshyn for a second straight game. On Friday, John Paddock, the Pats’ GM/head coach, told Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader-Post that Leschyshyn is “hurting. . . . He’s got a little bit of stuff going on, that’s all.” . . . Announced attendance: 4,346.


At Red Deer, G Dylan Ferguson stopped 25 shots in his ninth straight start to lead the Kamloops Blazers to a 3-1 victory over the Rebels. . . . Kamloops (20-23-3) has won two in Kamloops1a row, both on this quick three-game trip into the Central Division, but remains eight points from a playoff spot. The Blazers will play their third game in fewer than 48 hours this afternoon in Edmonton. . . . Red Deer (10-25-11) has lost 13 in a row (0-7-6). . . . F Josh Tarzwell (4), who is from Red Deer, scored his first goal with the Rebels at 10:07 of the first period. He started the season with Lethbridge. . . . F Jackson Shepherd (4) got Kamloops into a tie at 12:24 of the second period, and F Travis Walton (2) broke the tie at 16:30. . . . F Orrin Centazzo (8) put it on ice for Kamloops at 17:54 of the third period. . . . Red Deer was 1-4 on the PP; Kamloops was 0-3. . . . G Riley Lamb stopped 23 shots for Red Deer. . . . Don Hay of the Blazers now has 740 regular-season victories as a WHL head coach. He is two away from tying Ken Hodge for the most regular-season coaching victories in WHL history. . . . The Blazers are in Edmonton this afternoon, then return home for two games against Hodge’s former team, the Portland Winterhawks. They actually will play three straight games — Friday and Saturday in Kamloops, and Sunday in Portland. . . . Announced attendance: 4,374.


At Medicine Hat, D Vojtech Budik scored in OT to give the Prince Albert Raiders a 3-2 victory over the Tigers. . . . Prince Albert (18-20-8) has won two in a row. It is five points PrinceAlbertaway from a playoff spot. . . . Medicine Hat (24-18-5) has lost three straight (0-1-2), but still leads the Central Division by five points over Lethbridge. . . . F Mark Rassell (39) gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead at 9:27 of the second period. . . . The Raiders took a 2-1 lead on goals from F Curtis Miske (15), at 11:01, and F Regan Nagy (21), on a PP, at 17:48. . . . Medicine Hat tied it at 2:25 of the third period when F Josh Williams (5) scored. . . . Budik (7) won it with his fourth goal in three games, this one coming 1:00 into OT. . . . F Jordy Stallard had two assists for the Raiders, with Miske adding one. . . . Prince Albert was 1-3 on the PP; Medicine Hat was 0-7. . . . G Ian Scott earned the victory with 33 saves, nine more than Medicine Hat’s Michael Bullion. . . . Nagy appeared to injure his right knee when he came together with Tigers D Dalton Gally. Nagy wasn’t able to put any weight on his right leg as teammates helped him off the ice. . . . The Raiders are 2-0-0 in their trip into the Central Division. They will play their third game in fewer than 48 hours this afternoon in Calgary. . . . Announced attendance: 3,475.


At Prince George, the Cougars scored the game’s last three goals en route to a 4-2 victory over the Lethbridge Hurricanes. . . . Prince George (18-23-7) had lost its previous three PrinceGeorgegames. It is eight points from a wild-card spot. . . . Lethbridge (22-20-4) was 5-0-1 in its previous six games. it is second in the Central Division, five points ahead of Kootenay. . . . The Cougars broke a 2-2 tie with third-period goals 16 seconds apart by F Max Kryski (6), at 10:38, and F Josh Curtis (8), at 10:54. . . . F Jared Bethune (16) had given the home side a 1-0 lead, on a PP, at 3:27 of the first period. . . . Lethbridge took a 2-1 lead on first-period goals from F Keltie Jeri-Leon (3), at 12:45, and F Jake Elmer (14), at 13:22. . . . D Austin Crossley pulled the Cougars into a 2-2 tie with his first goal, at 3:39 of the second period. . . . Prince George was 1-7 on the PP; Lethbridge was 0-3. . . . G Tavin Grant made 28 saves to earn the victory over Logan Flodell, who stopped 28 shots. . . . The Hurricanes dressed 17 skaters, one under the maximum. They were without F Taylor Ross and F Dylan Cozens, who have been playing alongside Logan Barlage. . . . Lethbridge is 2-1-1 on a five-game swing into B.C. that ends Tuesday in Cranbrook against the Kootenay Ice. . . . Announced attendance: 2,704.


At Langley, B.C., G Shane Farkas recorded the shutout as the Portland Winterhawks beat the Vancouver Giants, 2-0. . . . Portland (27-15-4) had lost its previous three games (0-2-1). PortlandIt is second in the U.S. Division, two points behind Everett. . . . Vancouver (25-15-7) had points in each of its previous 10 games (7-0-3). It is third in the B.C. Division, one point behind Victoria. . . . Farkas stopped 31 shots to earn his first WHL shutout. It came in his 22nd appearance. He is 6-4-0, 3.41, .904 as the backup to Cole Kehler. . . . F Ty Kolle (5) gave Portland a 1-0 lead at 13:32 of the third period, and F Mason Mannek (7) got the empty-netter, at 19:07. . . . Portland was 0-1 on the PP; Vancouver was 0-3. . . . The Giants got 25 saves from G David Tendeck. . . . F Ryan Hughes (ill) and F Cody Glass were out of Portland’s lineup for a second straight game, while F Kieffer Bellows missed his third game. It all meant that Portland again dressed eight defencemen and 10 forwards. . . . Mike Johnston, Portland’s general manager and head coach, was back behind the bench after a one-game absence while he was on a scouting trip. . . . Announced attendance: 4,154.


At Kelowna, F Kole Lind had a goal and three assists and G Cole Tisdale, 15, got his first WHL victory as the Rockets doubled the Victoria Royals, 8-4. . . . Kelowna (29-14-3) is atop KelownaRocketsthe Western Conference standings, one point ahead of Everett. . . . Victoria (27-17-4) had lost its previous four games. It is three points behind Kelowna. . . . Tisdale, 15, stopped 23 shots in his first WHL start. Tisdale is from Lethbridge, but he spent one year living in Kelowna. Before the game, he told Rockets play-by-play man Regan Bartel: “I came to a few Rockets games, but I always had to wait until after the Ogopogo head went up because I was scared of it.” If you haven’t been to a game in Kelowna, an Ogopogo likeness is lowered to the ice prior to the game and the Rockets make their entrance by skating through it. . . . Tisdale was an eighth-round pick by the Rockets in the 2017 bantam draft. He normally plays for the minor midget Lethbridge Hurricanes, but is with the Rockets because James Porter Jr. and Roman Basran are injured. . . . Victoria starter Griffen Outhouse blocked 32 of 39 shots in 52:08. Dean McNabb finished up with two saves in 5:32. . . . Kelowna took control of this one with three goals in the first 8:20 of the first period. . . . Lind (22) got it started at 3:18, with D Cal Foote (9) scoring at 4:33 and F Dillon Dube (21) making it 3-0, on a PP, at 8:20. . . . Victoria F Tyler Soy, in his 300th regular-season game, got his 22nd goal, on a PP, at 16:32. . . . F Kyle Topping (17) upped Kelowna’s lead to 4-1, on a PP, 31 seconds into the second period. . . . The Royals then got to within a goal on PP scores from F Matthew Phillips (32), at 12:23, and F Dante Hannoun (20), at 14:14. . . . But the Rockets put it away with four straight goals, starting with F Leif Mattson (15), shorthanded, at 17:03 of the second. F Jack Cowell added a pair in the third period, giving him 10, while F Carsen Twarynski got his 30th. . . . Cowell’s second goal, at 14:28 of the third, was into an empty net. . . . Victoria F Igor Martynov (15) closed out the scoring on a late penalty shot. . . . Kelowna got two assists from each of D James Hilsendager, Nolan Foote and Conner Bruggen-Cate, with Dube, Cal Foote and Mattson getting one apiece. . . . F Tanner Kaspick and Phillips each had two helpers for Victoria and Hannoun added one. . . . Victoria was 3-7 on the PP; Kelowna was 2-6. . . . The Royals are without 6-foot-3 D Kade Jensen (WHL suspension) and 6-foot-4 D Chaz Reddekopp (undisclosed injury). . . . Announced attendance: 5,941.


At Everett, G Carter Hart stopped 25 shots to record the shutout as the Silvertips beat the Brandon Wheat Kings, 4-0. . . . Everett (29-16-2) has won six in a row and leads the U.S. EverettDivision by two points over Portland. . . . Brandon (28-14-4) has lost four straight (0-2-2). It is 0-2-1 and has been blanked twice on its U.S. Division trip. The Wheat Kings are third in the East Division, 10 points behind Swift Current. . . . Hart now has six shutouts this season and 25 in his career. The WHL career shutout record (26) belongs to Tyson Sexsmith (Vancouver, 2005-09). Sexsmith played in 179 games; Hart has made 169 appearances. . . . F Matt Fonteyne, who opened the scoring at 16:16 of the first period, had two goals and an assist. He’s got 27 goals. . . . Everett also got three points — a goal and two assists — from F Patrick Bajkov. He’s got 258 regular-season points now, and that’s just four off the franchise record held by F Zach Hamill (2003-08). . . . F Connor Dewar (22) had Everett’s other goal. . . . D Kevin Davis picked up two assists. Davis, 20, has six goals and 40 assists in 46 games. He has had 12 games with two or more assists. . . . Everett was 1-4 on the PP; Brandon was 0-1. . . . G Logan Thompson made 41 saves for Brandon. . . . The Wheat Kings will play their third game in fewer than 48 hours this afternoon in Portland. . . . Announced attendance: 5,917.


At Kent, Wash., D Turner Ottenbreit, who has 21 goals in 259 career regular-season games, scored in the eighth round of a shootout as the Seattle Thunderbirds beat the SeattleSwift Current Broncos, 7-6. . . . Seattle (24-16-6) has won four in a row and now is third in the U.S. Division, four points behind Portland. . . . Swift Current (33-10-4) has points in nine straight (7-0-2), and is 2-0-1 on a U.S. Division trip. It is second in the overall standings, seven points behind Moose Jaw. . . . The teams were tied 2-2 going into the second period, F Glenn Gawdin (37) and D Colby Sissons (11) having scored for the visitors, with F Nolan Volcan (24), on a PP, and F Sami Moilanen (19) having done the same for Seattle. . . . The Thunderbirds took a 5-2 lead on second-period goals from F Donovan Neuls (17), on a PP, at 0:58, F Matthew Wedman (9), at 7:59, and F Zack Andrusiak (21), at 14:42. . . . F Giorgio Estephan on a PP, got one back for the Broncos at 16:40, but F Noah Philp got that one back for Seattle just 40 seconds later. . . . Swift Current then erased a 6-3 third-period deficit on goals from F Tyler Steenbergen (36), at 6:29, Estephan (22), on a PP, at 17:03 and F Beck Malenstyn (5), at 18:46. . . . The Broncos twice scored in the shootout (Steenbergen and D Artyom Minulin), only to have Neuls and D Austin Strand tie it. . . . Andrusiak added two assists to his goal, with Neuls and Wedman getting one each. . . . Steenbergen also had four assists, with F Aleksi Heponiemi getting three as he ran his point streak to 27 games. Estephan and Malenstyn added one each. . . . The Broncos were 2-3 on the PP; the Thunderbirds were 2-5. . . . Seattle G Dorrin Luding stopped 26 shots. The Thunderbirds got a scare late in the third period when Luding went down and got a visit from trainer Phil Varney. With two other goaltenders injured, Seattle had Cole Schwebius, 15, on the bench backing up Luding. . . . This was Seattle’s Teddy Bear Toss game, with Volcan getting the goal at 5:14 of the first period. . . . The Broncos were without F Matteo Gennaro (undisclosed injury) for a second straight game. . . . Announced attendance: 6,142.


At Spokane, F Kailer Yamamoto scored in OT to give the Chiefs a 5-4 victory over the Tri-City Americans. . . . Spokane (24-19-3) has won two in a row. The Chiefs hold down the SpokaneChiefsWestern Conference’s second wild-card spot, two points behind the Americans, who now are fourth in the U.S. Division. . . . Tri-City (23-16-7) has points in three straight (1-0-2). . . . The Chiefs got out to a 3-0 lead on goals from F Ethan McIndoe (13) and F Jake McGrew (11), on a PP, in the first period, and F Zach Fischer (20), at 4:32 of the second period. . . . Tri-City cut into the lead on second-period goals from D Jake Bean (8) and F Isaac Johnson (13). . . . Spokane F Luke Toporowski (3) restored the two-goal lead at 10:43 of the third period. . . . The Americans tied it on goals from F Sasha Mutala (7), at 14:21, and D Mitchell Brown (2), at 15:33. . . . Yamamoto, who also had two assists, won it with his fifth goal 47 seconds into OT. . . . Yamamoto has nine points, three of them goals, in four games since returning from the WJC. . . . McIndoe added an assist to his goal. . . . The Americans got two assists from D Dylan Coghlan and one each from Mutala and Bean. . . . Spokane was 1-2 on the PP; Tri-City was 0-3. . . . G Bailey Brkin stopped 31 shots for Spokane. . . . Tri-City starter Beck Warm allowed two goals on 14 shots in the first period. Patrick Dea finished up with 27 saves on 30 shots in 40:47. . . . Announced attendance: 10,397.


SUNDAY (all times local):

Moose Jaw at Saskatoon, 2:05 p.m.

Prince Albert at Calgary, 4 p.m.

Kamloops at Edmonton, 4 p.m.

Swift Current at Everett, 4:05 p.m.

Brandon at Portland, 5 p.m.


TWEET OF THE DAY

Hockey loses writing legend . . . It’s twins for the Hurricanes . . . Halbgewachs is first sniper to 50 . . . Bellerive, Topping, Volcan fill their hats

A LITTLE OF THIS . . .

Many observers are in agreement that the newspaper business is headed for an abyss.

If that, indeed, is the case, it is a tragedy that generations to come won’t ever enjoy the thrill of waiting for their daily newspaper to be delivered in order to read the likes of Red Fisher, who died Friday at the age of 91.

When I was a youngster, I delivered the Winnipeg Tribune. It arrived in our town via a train, which came in three nights a week. That meant I delivered two papers at a time. First, though, I would camp under a street light and read Jack Matheson. Later, in the mid-1970s, I was fortunate enough to spend five years working for Matty, which is how I came to meet the legendary Jim Coleman, who was the national columnist for Southam, which owned a number of Canada’s major dailies.

Coleman was one of the greats, and so was Fisher.

Back in the day, newspapers entered into exchanges with other newspapers. We would send you a copy of our product; you would reciprocate. That’s how I came to read Fisher on a regular basis.

As Michael Farber, no slouch himself, wrote on Friday for the Montreal Gazette, Fisher’s “career touched seven decades.” Think about that for a moment or two.

Think about this, too — the first Montreal Canadiens game that Fisher covered, as Farber pointed out, “was the Richard Riot, that singular marriage of hockey, sociology and, ultimately, mythology that has marked Quebec for generations.”

Take a minute today and think about Fisher and all that he stood for as a journalist who was there when teams and writers travelled via train and was still writing when Twitter arrived.

He really did see it all, and he wrote it all, too.

Do yourself a favour at some point today. Pour yourself a cup of tea or coffee, and read Farber’s story celebrating the life and career of Red Fisher. It is right here.


I continue to hear from people wondering if I’m back writing again, or if it’s all over. So please don’t be afraid to tell your friends and neighbours that I’m back up and pass along the address. Thank you.


Danny Flynn made his debut as a WHL head coach on Friday night as the host Portland Winterhawks dropped a 5-3 decision to the Swift Current Broncos.

With Mike Johnston, Portland’s general manager and head coach, on a scouting trip, PortlandFlynn took over. Johnston, who apparently was at the bantam AAA John Reid Memorial tournament in St. Albert, Alta., on Friday,

is expected to rejoin the Winterhawks back for tonight’s game in Langley, B.C., against the Vancouver Giants.

Of course, it’s not like Flynn doesn’t have any experience as a head coach. For starters, he was in the Memorial Cup last season as head coach of the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs. He also has been head coach of the OHL’s Belleville Bulls and Soo Greyhounds, and the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats.

Flynn and Johnston both are from Dartmouth, N.S., which had a lot to do with Flynn’s joining the Winterhawks as an assistant coach prior to this season.

Evan Richardson, the play-by-play voice of the Winterhawks, pointed out via Twitter that Flynn is the fourth person to serve as a head coach in all three major junior leagues, joining Mike Kelly (Brandon, Windsor/North Bay, Saint John), Ron Harris (Spokane, Windsor, Saint-Jean) and Joe Canale (Medicine Hat, Sarnia, Shawinigan/Chicoutimi/Beauport/Sherbrooke).


The Lethbridge Hurricanes have signed twin brothers Adam and Justin Hall, both of whom were selected in the 2016 WHL bantam draft. . . . The twins, 16, are from Edmonton. Justin was a seventh-round selection; Adam was taken in the eighth round. . . . This season, they are playing for the midget AAA CAC Edmonton Canadians. Justin has 10 goals and eight assists in 27 games, while Adam has seven goals and 13 assists in 27 games.

While there have been a number of brother acts in the WHL, twins are a whole lot rarer. Of course, the Taphorn brothers — Kaeden and Keenan — are with the Kootenay Ice. The 17-year-olds are from Yorkton, Sask.

Know of any other twin acts? Email me at greggdrinnan@gmail.com.


Hartley Miller, in his weekly Hart Attack column, wonders if winning is enough to draw hockey fans to an arena these days. He notes that the Prince George Spruce Kings are in the hunt for first overall in the BCHL, but their attendance is off about 10 per cent over last season and is the poorest it has been since 2010-11. . . . Miller points out, too, that the Spruce Kings are running a “Friday night promotion where they practically give away their product.” If you go to Save-On-Food, you are able to purchase the Friday Family Special — four tickets, including two adult, four soft drinks and four popcorn for $19.72. The regular price would be $68. . . . Now that’s a promotion. . . . Miller’s column is right here.


On Thursday, Jim Matheson, the Hockey Hall-of-Famer who covers the Edmonton Oilers for Postmedia, tweeted that he has been hearing that the annual Young Stars preseason tournament in Penticton, B.C., might be done.

The 2017 tournament was the eighth annual, but according to Matheson “many NHL scouts” have been saying that it “was disappointing for (the) calibre of kids taking part.”

However, Andrew Jakubeit, a former WHL on-ice official who now is the mayor of Penticton, told infonews.ca that all of this is news to him.

Jakubeit, who also is the event’s chairman, said that “we are still working with the (Vancouver) Canucks to finalize the details of the Young Stars tournament. It is our intention to host the event again this year.”


If you would like to contact Taking Note with information, have a question or just feel like commenting on something, feel free to send an email to greggdrinnan@gmail.com. I’m also on Twitter (@gdrinnan).


If you enjoy stopping by here, and even if you don’t, feel free to make a donation to the cause by visiting my old site, taking note.ca, and clicking on the DONATE button. Thank you, in advance.


Scoreboard

FRIDAY:

At Regina, F Jayden Halbgewachs scored twice, giving him 50 goals in 47 games, to lead the Moose Jaw Warriors to a 5-3 victory over the Pats. . . . Moose Jaw (37-7-3) has won MooseJawWarriorstwo in a row and continues to lead the overall standings by eight points over Swift Current. . . . Regina (24-20-4) had points in each of its previous five games (4-0-1). It holds down the Eastern Conference’s first wild-card spot. . . . The Warriors took control with four first-period goals, two of them via the PP, as they outshot their hosts, 22-8. . . . Halbgewachs got it started, on a PP, at 5:46. . . . F Vince Loschiavo (14) made it 2-0 at 7:30, and D Dmitri Zaitsev (5) scored, on a PP, at 14:37. . . . F Tanner Jeannot (32) upped it to 4-0 at 19:34. . . . F Jesse Gabrielle (4) scored for Regina, on a PP, at 5:59 of the second period, but the Warriors got that one back when Halbgewachs got No. 50 at 3:35 of the third. . . . Halbgewachs joins F Theo Fleury and Kent Hayes as the only players in Warriors history to enjoy two 50-goal seasons. Halbgewachs finished last season with 50 goals in 71 games. Fleury had 61 in 1986-87 and 68 the following season. Hayes had 56 goals in 1984-85 and 50 in 1985-86. . . . The Pats’ last two goals came from D Josh Mahura, who has 16, at 8:53 and 19:09. . . . F Brayden Burke and D Kale Clague each had two assists for the Warriors, with Loschiavo adding one. . . . Mahura also had an assist to go with his two goals. . . . Moose Jaw was 2-3 on the PP; Regina was 2-4. . . . G Brody Willms earned the victory with 42 saves, 21 of them in the third period when his guys were outshot 23-5. . . . G Ryan Kubic stopped 32 shots for the Pats. . . . F Jake Leschyshyn was among Regina’s scratches. . . . Announced attendance: 6,484.


At Calgary, G Dylan Ferguson turned aside 32 shots to lead the Kamloops Blazers to a 2-1 Kamloops1victory over the Hitmen. . . . Kamloops (19-23-3) had lost its previous three games. It is eight points out of a playoff spot. . . . Calgary (14-26-6) is 13 points out of a playoff spot. . . . Don Hay of the Blazers now has 739 regular-season victories as a WHL head coach, three short of the all-time record that has belonged to Ken Hodge since the end of the 1992-93 season. . . . Ferguson was particularly busy in the third period when he stopped 19 shots. . . . The Blazers got their goals in the second period, from F Luc Smith (12), at 17:29, and F Quinn Benjafield (13), at 18:54. . . . D Vladislav Yeryomenko (11) scored for Calgary, on a PP, at 16:58 of the third period. . . . Calgary was 1-4 on the PP; Kamloops was 0-5. . . . The Hitmen got 34 stops from G Nick Schneider. . . . Announced attendance: 6,196.


At Red Deer, D Vojtech Budik scored two goals and added an assist to lead the Prince PrinceAlbertAlbert Raiders to a 5-1 victory over the Rebels. . . . Prince Albert (17-20-8) is five points behind Saskatoon, which holds down the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot. . . . Red Deer (10-24-11) has lost 12 in a row (0-6-6) and has fallen into the league’s basement. . . . Budik, who has six goals, scored at 1:50 and 11:00, the latter via the PP, of the first period, then drew an assist on D Jeremy Masella’s fourth goal at 16:01. . . . F Jordy Stallard (31) made it 4-0, on a PP, at 4:55 of the second period. . . . D Alex Alexeyev (6) scored for Red Deer, on a PP, at 19:06. . . . The Raiders got their last goal from F Parker Kelly (19), shorthanded, at 7:00 of the third period. . . . Kelly also drew two assists. . . . The Raiders were 2-3 on the PP; the Rebels were 1-5. . . . Prince Albert got 29 saves from G Ian Scott. . . . Red Deer starter Ethan Anders allowed two goals on seven shots in 11:00. Riley Lamb came on in relief to stop 24 of 27 shots in 49:00. . . . Announced attendance: 3,987.


At Cranbrook, B.C., F Brendan Semchuk and F Colton Kehler each scored two first-period goals to get the Edmonton Oil Kings started towards a 5-1 victory over the Kootenay Ice. . EdmontonOilKings. . Edmonton (13-26-6) had lost its previous two games. . . . Kootenay (20-23-3), which opened a seven-game homestand, had won its past two games. It is third in the Central Division, five points behind Lethbridge. . . . Semchuk opened the scoring at 3:37 with his first goal since being acquired from Vancouver at the trade deadline. . . . Kehler, who has 20 goals, made it 3-0 with goals at 4:27 and 8:19, the latter via the PP. . . . Semchuk got his 10th goal at 14:54. . . . F Sebastian Streu (6) got the Ice’s goal, on a PP, at 4:43 of the second period. . . . Edmonton F Carter Souch (2) closed out the scoring at 13:49. . . . F Tomas Soustal had two assists for Edmonton, with Kehler adding one. . . . The Oil Kings were 1-2 on the PP; the Ice was 1-6. . . . Edmonton got 43 saves from G Todd Scott, 20 of those in the second period. . . . G Matt Berlin allowed five goals on 19 shots in his first start for the Ice since being acquired from Seattle at the trade deadline. He hadn’t played since Dec. 29 due to an undisclosed injury. . . . Announced attendance: 2,431.


At Portland, F Aleksi Heponiemi had three assists as he ran his point streak to 26 games in the Swift Current Broncos’ 5-3 victory over the Winterhawks. . . . Swift Current (33-10-SCBroncos3) has points in eight straight (7-0-1) and is 2-0-0 on its U.S. Division trek. The Broncos are second in the overall standings, eight points behind Moose Jaw. . . . Portland (26-15-4) has lost three in a row (0-2-1). It is second in the U.S. Division, two points behind Everett. . . . G Giorgio Estephan (20) gave the Broncos a 1-0 lead at 4:45 of the first period. That was the 300th regular-season point of his career. He later added two assists and now has 302 points in 301 games, the first 297 of those with Lethbridge. . . . F Skyler McKenzie (35) got Portland into a 1-1 tie at 14:11. He’s got five goals in his past three games and 14 goals in 13 games. . . . D Colby Sissons put the Broncos back out front at 7:50 of the second period, only to have F Alex Overheard (11) tie it, on a PP, at 15:20. . . . The Broncos took a 4-2 lead on third-period goals from F Beck Malenstyn (4), at 1:05, and Sissons (11), on a PP, at 11:21. . . . Portland F Joachim Blichfeld (15) cut into the lead at 17:55, but the Broncos iced it on an empty-netter from F Tanner Nagel (5) at 19:56. . . . Portland got two assists from D Dennis Cholowski, with Blichfeld and McKenzie adding one each. . . . Each team was 1-3 on the PP. . . . The Broncos got 34 saves from G Stuart Skinner. At the other end, Cole Kehler blocked 21 shots. . . . Cody Glass, Kieffer Bellows and Ryan Hughes (ill) were Portland’s scratches, each of them a top-six forward. . . . Portland did get back F Lane Gilliss and F Jake Gracious from injury-related absences. . . . The Winterhawks have added F Jaydon Dureau to their roster. An eighth-round selection in the 2016 bantam draft, Dureau has 27 goals and 31 assists in 28 games with the midget AAA Regina Pat Canadians this season. . . . Still, Portland only has 10 healthy forwards on its roster, so Dureau slotted in on Portland’s fourth line with defencemen John Ludvig and Conor MacEachern. Yes, the Winterhawks are running short of forwards, which may have something to do with GM/head coach Mike Johnston missing this game while on a scouting/recruiting assignment. . . . F Matteo Gennaro was among Swift Current’s scratches after having a run-in with a goal post during the Broncos’ 3-2 OT victory over the host Tri-City Americans on Wednesday. . . . Announced attendance: 5,300.


At Prince George, F Jordy Bellerive scored three times to help the Lethbridge Hurricanes to a 6-2 victory over the Cougars. . . . Lethbridge (22-19-4) has points in six straight (5-0-1). LethbridgeIt is second in the Central Divison, four points behind Medicine Hat. . . . Prince George (17-23-7) has lost three in a row and is eight points from a playoff spot. . . . Bellerive, who has a career-high 29 goals in 44 games, picked up his first WHL hat trick. He scored 27 goals in 70 games last season. This season, he also career highs in assists (34) and points (63). . . . F Owen Blocker (2) gave Lethbridge a 1-0 lead at 5:32 of the first period. . . . The Cougars tied it at 8:14 as F Josh Curtis scored. . . . The Hurricanes scored the next three goals, all in the second period. . . . Bellerive scored at 1:46, with F Brad Morrison (16) counting at 4:08 and F Jake Elmer (13) at 4:33. . . . Morrison, who also had an assist, is from Prince George and played the first 260 regular-season games of his WHL career with the Cougars. They traded him to Vancouver prior to the start of this season, and he dealt to Lethbridge earlier this month. . . . Curtis (7) cut into the lead at 14:46. . . . Bellerive completed his hat trick with goals at 15:20 of the second period and 17:09 of the third. . . . Lethbridge got three assists from D Igor Merezhko. . . . D Joel Lakusta had two assists for the Cougars. . . . Lethbridge was 0-4 on the PP; Prince George was 0-5. . . . G Logan Flodell earned the victory with 22 saves. . . . G Taylor Gauthier started for the Cougars. He gave up four goals on 13 shots in 24:33 before being lifted in favour of Isaiah DiLaura, who stopped 13 of 15 shots in 35:27. . . . Announced attendance: 5,138.


At Kennewick, Wash., F Jordan Topping completed a three-goal night with a PP goal in OT to give the Tri-City Americans a 4-3 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings. . . .Tri-City TriCity30(23-16-6) had lost its previous five games (0-4-1). It and Seattle are tied for third in the U.S. Division, four points behind Portland. . . . Brandon (28-13-4) has lost three straight (0-1-2) and is 0-1-1 on its swing into the U.S. Division. Still, the Wheat Kings are third in the overall standings. . . . The Americans took a 2-0 lead on first-period goals from Topping, on a PP, at 10:07, and F Isaac Johnson (12) at 11:26. . . . The Wheat Kings tied it on PP goals from F Baron Thompson (13) at 3:01 of the second period and F Stelio Mattheos (31) at 7:19 of the third. . . . Topping put Tri-City back out front at 12:28. . . . Brandon forced OT when F Evan Weinger (20) scored at 19:18 with the extra attacker on the ice. . . . Topping won it with his 26th goal at 2:49 of extra time. . . . Tri-City got three assists from D Dylan Coghlan and two from F Morgan Geekie. . . . F Ty Lewis had two helpers for Brandon, with Mattheos and Thompson getting one each. . . . Brandon was 2-2 on the PP; Tri-City was 2-3. . . . The Americans got 35 saves from G Patrick Dea, who was making his 150th regular-season appearance. . . . G Dylan Myskiw stopped 32 shots for Brandon. . . . The Americans had F Max James back from a four-game absence, the first three of which were due to a WHL suspension, but remain without D Juuso Valimaki, F Michael Rasmussen, F Kyle Olson and D Roman Kalinichenko. Rasmussen, who had pre-Christmas wrist surgery, is back skating, but he’s wearing a non-contact sweater and isn’t shooting the puck especially hard. . . . Earlier in the day, the Wheat Kings named D James Shearer, who is from Brandon, as the team captain. He takes over from F Tanner Kaspick, who was traded to the Victoria Royals on Jan. 10. . . . Announced attendance: 3,463.


At Langley, B.C., F Tanner Kaspick scored in the sixth round of a shootout to give the Victoria Royals a 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Giants. . . . Victoria (27-16-4) has won VictoriaRoyalsfour straight and is second in the B.C. Divison, one point behind Kelowna and one ahead of Vancouver. . . . Vancouver (25-14-7) has points in 10 straight (7-0-3). . . . F Ty Ronning gave the Giants a 1-0 lead at 5:23 of the first period. . . . Victoria went ahead 2-1 on goals from F Dante Hannoun (19), on a PP, at 17:20 of the first and F Jeff de Wit (9), at 4:48 of the second. . . . Ronning, who has 42 goals, tied it at 11:11. . . . Victoria went back out front at 1:00 of the third period on F Tyler Soy’s 21st goal. . . . The Giants tied it again on D Dylan Plouffe’s eighth goal, at 7:51. . . . F Tyler Benson and F Owen Hardy each had two assists for Vancouver. . . . Victoria was 1-2 on the PP; Vancouver was 0-2. . . . G Griffen Outhouse stopped 40 shots through OT for the Royals. At the other end, David Tendeck made 22 saves. . . . The Giants remain without Slovakian F Milos Roman, who last played on Jan. 9. He has eight goals and 21 assists in 34 games. On Friday, the CHL announced that Roman, a freshman, won’t be playing in the Top Prospects Game on Thursday in Guelph. He was replaced by F Liam Foudy of the OHL’s London Knights. . . . The Giants did have D Darian Skeoch in the lineup after he sat since Jan. 9 with an undisclosed injury. . . . Announced attendance: 3,637.


At Kent, Wash., F Nolan Volcan scored three goals to lead the Seattle Thunderbirds to a 7-2 victory over the Kelowna Rockets. . . . Seattle (23-16-6) has won three in a row and is Seattletied with Tri-City for third in the U.S. Division. . . . Kelowna (28-14-3) leads the Western Conference by one point over Victoria and Everett. . . . Seattle scored the game’s first three goals. F Zack Andrusiak (20) got it started 59 seconds into the first period. Volcan made it 2-0 at 8:01. . . . F Noah Philp (9) upped it to 3-0 at 6:07 of the second period. . . . F Dillon Dube (20) got the Rockets on the scoreboard, on a PP, at 10:20. . . . The Thunderbirds reply with three more goals, from Volcan, at 12:00, D Turner Ottenbreit (6), at 13:40, and F Blake Bargar (9), at 6:43 of the third period. . . . F Conner Bruggen-Cate (13) got Kelowna’s second goal at 10:34. . . . Volcan, who has 23 goals, completed his hat trick, on a PP, at 17:33. . . . Seattle got three assists from each of D Jarret Tyszka and F Sami Moilanen. . . . The Thunderbirds were 2-6 on the PP; Kelowna was 1-4. . . . G Dorrin Luding blocked 27 shots for Seattle. . . . The Rockets opened with G Brodan Salmond, who was beaten five times on 16 shots in 33:40. Cole Tisdale, 15, came on in his WHL debut and stopped 15 of 17 shots in 26:20. . . . Announced attendance: 6,057.


SATURDAY (all times local):

Regina at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.

Kamloops at Red Deer, 7 p.m.

Prince Albert at Medicine Hat, 7:30 p.m.

Lethbridge at Prince George, 7 p.m.

Portland vs. Vancouver, at Langley, B.C., 7 p.m.

Victoria at Kelowna, 7:05 p.m.

Brandon at Everett, 7:05 p.m.

Swift Current vs. Seattle, at Kent, Wash., 7:05 p.m.

Tri-City at Spokane, 7:05 p.m.


TWEET OF THE DAY

This actually was from Thursday, but it holds up with the Tigers not playing on Friday . . .

The numbers are in: Since Nov. 13 … 58 trades … 110 players … 77 bantam draft picks … 12 conditional picks

WHEELING AND DEALING …

NUMBER OF TRADES (since Nov. 13): 58

PLAYERS: 110

BANTAM DRAFT PICKS: 77

CONDITONAL BANTAM DRAFT PICKS: 12

THE DEADLINE: It came and went on Wednesday, Jan. 10.


Why did I start counting on Nov. 13? Because that’s the day when the trading season got serious; that is the day when the Regina Pats, the host team for the 2018 Memorial Cup, went out and got D Cale Fleury from the Kootenay Ice.


THE DEAL: The Portland Winterhawks acquired D Dennis Cholowski, 19, and G Ty Taylor, 18, from the Prince George Cougars for F Ilijah Colina, 17, F Connor Bowie, 16, Portlandfirst- and third-round picks in the 2020 WHL bantam draft, and second-rounders in 2018 and 2019.

THE NUMBERS: The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Cholowski, in his first WHL season, had 13 goals and 26 assists in 37 games with the Cougars. Among WHL defencemen, he is second in goals and sixth in points. . . . The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Taylor is 16-3-3, 1.90, .929 in 22 games with the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers. Last season, also with Vernon, he was 13-12-2, 2.96, .908. . . . Colina had four goals and 23 assists in 83 career games with Portland. This season, he had three goals and 12 assists in 37 games. . . . Bowie, 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, is playing for the NEBC Yukon Trackers in the Northern Alberta Midget AA Hockey League, where he has 20 goals and 15 assists in 18 games. He had a goal and four assists with Portland in the exhibition season.

THE INFO: Cholowski was the Cougars’ captain. From Langley, B.C., Cholowski was a first-round pick, 20th overall, by the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL’s 2016 draft. He has PrinceGeorgesigned with the Red Wings. The Cougars selected him in the 10th round of the 2013 bantam draft. . . . The Winterhawks selected Taylor’s brother Trey in the ninth-round of the WHL’s 2017 bantam draft. Neither Taylor has signed a WHL contract. . . . Colina, from Delta, B.C., was an eighth-round pick by Portland in the 2015 bantam draft. . . . Bowie, from Fort St. John, B.C., was a seventh-round pick by Portland in the 2016 bantam draft.

WHY: Cholowski, one of the WHL’s top defencemen, should be a perfect fit with the Winterhawks. As GM/head coach Mike Johnston put it in a news conference: “It’s always been our philosophy to have transitional defencemen on our back end and he fits in perfectly with out style of play.” . . . The Cougars, reloading after going all-in last season, have added a roster forward, a prospect and draft picks to the cupboard.


THE DEAL: The Moose Jaw Warriors acquired D Kale Clague, 19, from the Brandon Wheat Kings for F Luka Burzan, who turned 18 on Jan. 7, D Chase Hartje, who turned 18 MooseJawWarriorson Dec. 17, first-round selections in the WHL’s 2019 and 2021 bantam drafts, and a second-round pick in 2018.

THE NUMBERS: Clague, 6-foot-0 and 180 pounds, had 10 goals and 37 assists in 28 games with Brandon this season. His 47 points have him second among WHL defencemen. In 169 career games, he has 25 goals and 118 assists. In 40 playoff games, he has eight goals and 13 assists. He was part of Brandon’s 2015-16 championship roster. . . . Burzan, 6-foot-0 and 180 pounds, has six goals and 13 assists in 42 games this season. Last season, as a freshman, he had 14 goals and 13 assists in 27 games. . . . The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Hartje had four goals and 21 assists in 25 games with Bemidji, Minn., High School last season. He had 17 assists in 31 games with the Warriors.

THE INFO: Clague, from Lloydminster, Alta., is fresh of winning a gold medal with Team BrandonWKregularCanada at the WJC in Buffalo; he won silver with Team Canada at the previous year. The Wheat Kings selected him in the first round, sixth overall, of the 2013 bantam draft. Clague was picked by the Los Angeles Kings in the second round of the NHL’s 2016 draft and he has signed with them. . . . Moose Jaw selected Burzan, who is from Surrey, B.C., with the sixth overall pick of the 2015 bantam draft. In his draft season, he had 80 goals and 51 assists in 62 games with a bantam A1-T1 team at the North Shore Winter Club. . . . Hartje was listed by the Warriors. Last season, he also played in 16 games with Great Plains of a U.S. high school league and had two goals and four assists in nine games with the NAHL’s Bismarck Bobcats.

WHY: The Wheat Kings, third in the overall standings and third in the East Division, behind Moose Jaw and Swift Current, who were buying, decided the prices were too high so they sold. This deal, and the one below with Victoria, has allowed Brandon to feel positive about its future. . . . The Warriors, meanwhile, add one of the WHL’s top defencemen, something that allows it to keep pace with Swift Current and Regina, at least on paper.


THE DEAL: The Victoria Royals acquired F Tanner Kaspick, 19, and F Cameron MacDonald, 15, from the Brandon Wheat Kings for D Jonathon Lambos, who will turn 17 on Jan. 14, F Ty Thorpe, who will turn 16 on Jan. 27, and first-round picks in the WHL’s 2019 and 2021 bantam drafts.

THE NUMBERS: Kaspick had 11 goals and 25 assists in 35 games with the Wheat Kings VictoriaRoyalsthis season. Last season, he had 19 goals and 26 assists in 49 games with his hometown team. In 191 career games, he has 45 goals and 86 assists. . . . MacDonald has 22 goals and 14 assists in 20 games with the West Valley Hawks of the B.C. Major Midget Hockey League. The 5-foot-8, 160-pounder also has two assists in four games with the BCHL’s Powell River Kings. . . .

Lambos, 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds, has two goals and 12 assists in 21 games with the Rink Hockey Academy’s prep team in Winnipeg. He played last season in the Omaha Lancers organization. . . . Thorpe has seven goals and eight assists in 18 games with the Rink Hockey Academy Prep team.

THE INFO: Kaspick was selected by the St. Louis Blues in the fourth round of the NHL’s 2016 draft and he has signed with them. The Wheat Kings picked him in the second round of the WHL’s 2013 bantam draft. He was part of the Brandon team that won the 2016 WHL title. . . . MacDonald, who is from Surrey, B.C., was picked by Brandon in the fifth round of the 2017 bantam draft. He has yet to sign a WHL contract. . . . Lambos, from Winnipeg, was a third-round pick by Victoria in the 2016 bantam draft. He hasn’t yet signed a WHL deal. . . . The 5-foot-11, 145-pound Thorpe, from Brandon, was a third-round pick by Victoria in the 2017 bantam draft. He also hasn’t yet signed a WHL contract.

WHY: As Royals president and GM Cam Hope said in a news release: “There are very few opportunities to acquire a player with Tanner’s skill, character and experience.” Kaspick will fit nicely into Victoria’s top six forwards. . . . Hope and Brandon GM Grant Armstrong also moved three prospects; keep in mind that Armstrong worked with the Royals before signing with Brandon prior to 2016-17. Armstrong also got two more first-round draft picks for his scouts to drool over, at least for now.


THE DEAL: The Lethbridge Hurricanes acquired F Keltie Jeri-Leon, 17, from the LethbridgeKamloops Blazers for a seventh-round pick in the WHL’s 2019 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Jeri-Leon had a goal and two assists in 21 games with the Blazers. Last season, he had two goals and an assist in 46 games with Tri-City. He was pointless in two games there this season.

THE INFO: The Blazers acquired Jeri-Leon, who is from West Kelowna, B.C., from the Tri-City Americans on Oct. 8 for a seventh-round bantam pick in 2018. . . . He turns 18 on Jan. 19. . . . The Americans selected him in the fifth round of the 2015 bantam draft.

WHY: Kamloops gets a draft pick for a player they acquired but was having trouble getting into their lineup. . . . Lethbridge adds a depth forward.


THE DEAL: The Everett Silvertips acquired F Spencer Gerth, 19, from the Victoria Royals Everettfor a seventh-round selection in the 2019 WHL bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: This season, Gerth, an undrafted list player, had three goals and three assists in 43 games with the Royals. In 156 games split between Victoria and, yes, Everett, he has five goals and five assists.

THE INFO: Gerth, from Langley, is 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds. The Royals acquired him from Everett on Nov. 22, 2016, for a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2018 bantam draft.

WHY: Gerth is an energy guy and that’s what the Silvertips wanted.


THE DEAL: The Everett Silvertips acquired F Bronson Sharp, who turned 18 on Dec. 29, from the Portland Winterhawks for a fifth-round pick in the WHL’s 2020 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Sharp had two goals and one assist in 38 games with Portland this season. In 84 career games, all with Portland, he has two goals and three assists. . . . He had 16 goals and 21 assists in 22 games with the Yale Hockey Academy prep team in the CSSHL in 2015-16.

THE INFO: From Mission, B.C., the 5-foot-11, 170-pound Sharp was listed by Portland.

WHY: Sharp will add more depth to Everett’s forward ranks.


THE DEAL: The Lethbridge Hurricanes acquired the WHL rights to F Michael Horon, 16, from the Everett Silvertips for a sixth-round selection in the WHL’s 2019 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Horon has nine goals and 13 assists in 24 games with the midget AAA Lethbridge Hurricanes. . . . Last season, he had 77 points, including 38 goals, in 37 games with the minor midget Hurricanes.

THE INFO: From Lethbridge, Horon was a ninth-round pick by Everett in the 2016 bantam draft.

WHY: The Hurricanes have the opportunity to recruit a hometown lad into their organization.


THE DEAL: The Seattle Thunderbirds acquired F Jaxan Kaluski, 18, from the Moose Jaw SeattleWarriors for a sixth-round selection in the WHL’s 2019 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Kaluski had two goals and an assist in 22 games with the Warriors this season. He had one assist in 16 games last season.

THE INFO: Kaluski, from Lloydminster, Alta., was listed by the Warriors. He was limited to 16 games by a fractured ankle that required surgery.

WHY: Kaluski adds depth and energy to Seattle’s roster.


THE DEAL: The Regina Pats acquired D Aaron Hyman, 19, from the Seattle Thunderbirds ReginaPats100for F Owen Williams, 17, and a second-round pick in the WHL’s 2019 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Hyman had a goal and six assists in 26 games with Seattle. Last season, he had a goal and six assists in 20 playoff games. . . . The 6-foot-2, 180-pound Williams, a freshman, had one goal and six assists in 26 games with the Pats.

THE INFO: If he stays healthy, Hyman will get a chance to play in a second straight Memorial Cup tournament. He was on Seattle’s championship team last season. From Calgary, Hyman was selected by the Hitmen in the third round of the 2013 bantam draft. They traded him to Seattle on Dec. 27, 2016, for a third-round pick in the 2018 bantam draft. . . . Williams, from Delta, B.C., was picked by Regina in the ninth round of the 2015 bantam draft.

WHY: The Pats wanted size and they got it in Hyman, who is 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds. He’ll play hard in his zone. . . . The Thunderbirds move him for a defenceman with some upside and an early draft pick.


THE DEAL: The Regina Pats acquired D Brady Pouteau, who turned 20 on Tuesday, from the Lethbridge Hurricanes for a seventh-round pick in the WHL’s 2018 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Poteau had a goal and 10 assists in 31 games with Lethbridge this season. In 122 career games, the first 61 with Regina, he has four goals and 26 assists.

THE INFO: Poteau, from Oak Bluff, Man., was selected by the Pats in the fourth round of the 2013 bantam draft. They traded him to the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Jan. 5, 2017 for a seventh-round pick in the 2018 bantam draft.

WHY: The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Poteau brings more size and experience to Regina’s back end.


THE END

Three high-profile players kept off ice on eve of trade deadline . . . Giants keep winning on road . . . Ferguson carries Blazers to victory

A LITTLE OF THIS …

With the WHL’s trading deadline arriving this afternoon, a couple of veteran forwards and a high-profile defenceman were kept off the ice by their teams on Wednesday.

F Cam Hebig didn’t practise with the Blades in Saskatoon. GM Colin Priestner admitted whlthat four teams had inquired about Hebig and the Blades didn’t want to risk an injury in case something could be worked out. Hebig missed all of last season with an injury.

This season, Hebig, who is to turn 21 on Jan. 21, has 30 goals and 28 assists in 40 games. From Saskatoon, he has 193 points, 87 of them goals, in 238 career games, all with the Blades. They picked him in the third round of the 2012 WHL bantam draft.

If Hebig isn’t dealt, he is expected to play tonight against the visiting Medicine Hat Tigers.

Meanwhile, in Brandon, F Davis Koch didn’t play as the Edmonton Oil Kings met the Wheat Kings. Koch, 19, is from Surrey, B.C. This season, he has 18 goals and 21 assists in 40 games.

In 224 regular-season games, he has 59 goals and 99 assists. The Oil Kings selected him in the second round of the 2013 bantam draft.

In Prince George, D Dennis Cholowski, the team captain, didn’t play for the Cougars as they dropped a 5-1 decision to the Vancouver Giants. After the game, Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk admitted that Cholowski, 19, was scratched in order to keep him healthy just in case.

Cholowski, a first-round pick by the Detroit Red Wings in the 2016 NHL draft, has signed an NHL deal. In his first WHL season, he has 13 goals and 26 assists in 37 games.


The Calgary Hitmen claimed D Egor Zamula off waivers from the Regina Pats on Tuesday. Zamula, 17, is from Chelyabinsk, Russia. A freshman, he had seven assists in 38 games with the Pats, who had to drop an import player after acquiring D Libor Hajek from the Saskatoon Blades on Monday. . . . The Hitmen had an opening for an import after they sent F Andrei Grishakov to the Victoria Royals for a third-round pick in the 2019 bantam draft on Jan. 4. . . . Calgary’s other import is sophomore D Vladislav Yeryomenko, 18, who is from Belarus.


The Everett Silvertips have returned two players — D Dylan Anderson and F Gage Goncalves — to the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds of the B.C. Major Midget Hockey League. . . . Anderson, 15, was pointless in one game with the Silvertips. He was a fourth-round selection in the 2017 bantam draft. . . . Goncalves, a list player, also was pointless in one game with Everett.


Scoreboard

TUESDAY:

At Brandon, F Brett Kemp scored in OT to give the Edmonton Oil Kings a 3-2 victory over the Wheat Kings. . . . Edmonton (11-24-6) had lost its previous three games (0-2-1). It is 4-EdmontonOilKings3-3 in its last 10. . . . Brandon (27-12-2) had won its last two outings. The Wheat Kings are third in the overall standings, five points behind Swift Current. . . . F Ty Lewis (24) gave the Wheat Kings a 1-0 lead, on a PP, at 16:03 of the first period. . . . D Jayden Platz (1) pulled the visitors even at 2:26 of the second period. . . . Brandon went back out front when F Baron Thompson (12) scored at 11:38 of the third period. . . . F Scott Atkinson (2) tied it for Edmonton at 14:53. . . . Kemp won it with his 10th goal at 2:06 of OT. . . . D Brayden Gorda had an assist and was plus-2 in his first game back with the Oil Kings. He returned to the Oil Kings last week after missing the first half of the season for personal reasons. . . . Brandon was 1-4 on the PP; Edmonton was 0-3. . . . G Josh Dechaine earned the victory with 34 saves, 12 more than Brandon’s Dylan Myskiw. . . . Brandon D Kale Clague has yet to return to the lineup after playing for Canada at the WJC. . . . Announced attendance: 3,225.


At Lethbridge, F Logan Barlage, acquired earlier in the day in the rather large trade, scored in the sixth round of a shootout to give the Hurricanes a 5-4 victory over the Red LethbridgeDeer Rebels. . . . The Hurricanes (18-19-3) had lost their previous two games. They moved into a second-place tie with Kootenay in the Central Division, eight points in arrears of Medicine Hat. . . . The Rebels (10-22-10) have lost nine in a row (0-4-5). . . . G Logan Flodell, who came over with Barlage in that swap with the Swift Current Broncos, got the victory with 29 saves through OT. He also stopped the last five Red Deer shooters in the shootout. . . . F Brad Morrison, acquired earlier from the Vancouver Giants, scored Lethbridge’s first two goals, both on the PP, at 6:26 and 17:53 of the first period. He’s got 13 goals. . . . In between, Red Deer D Alex Alexeyev (5) got his guys on the scoreboard. . . . F B Brendan Stafford (1) gave Lethbridge a 3-1 lead at 3:17 of the second period. . . . Red Deer took the lead on three second-period goals, two PP scores from Reese Johnson, who has 15 goals, at 7:16 and 8:52, and a goal from F Mason McCarty (20), at 10:19. . . . F Dylan Cozens (12) tied it again at 15:22. . . . The third period was scoreless. . . . Lethbridge got two assists from each of F Jordy Bellerive and F Taylor Ross, with Cozens adding one. . . . F Kristian Reichel and Alexeyev each had two assists for Red Deer, and McCarty had one. . . . Lethbridge was 2-2 on the PP; Red Deer was 2-4. . . . Red Deer G Ethan Anders allowed four goals on 27 shots through two periods. Riley Lamb came on for the third period and OT, stopping all 14 shots he faced. . . . Lethbridge acquired four players from Swift Current in the morning and all four played last night — Flodell, Barlage, D Matthew Stanley and F Owen Blocker. . . . F Jacob Boucher, a ninth-round pick in the 2017 bantam draft, made his WHL debut with the Hurricanes. He’s from St. Albert, Alta. . . . After the game, Lethbridge general manager Peter Anholt played host to a town hall as he explained to fans the deal he made with the Swift Current Broncos earlier in the day. . . . Announced attendance: 2,696.


At Kamloops, G Dylan Ferguson stopped 47 shots to lead the Blazers to a 2-1 victory over Kamloops1the Spokane Chiefs. . . . Kamloops (18-20-3) had lost its previous two games (0-1-1). It is six points behind Spokane, which holds down the Western Conference’s second wild-card spot. . . . Spokane (21-17-3) has lost two in a row. . . . The Blazers got first-period goals from F Quinn Benjafield (12), at 2:49, and F Luc Smith (9), at 19:09. . . . F Riley Woods (18) got the Chiefs to within a goal at 1:10 of the third period. . . . D Joe Gatenby had two assists for Kamloops. . . . F Orrin Centazzo, acquired Sunday from Everett, had an assist in his Kamloops debut. D Montana Onyebuchi, who also came over in that deal, sat out with the flu. . . . Kamloops was 0-3 on the PP; Spokane was 0-7. . . . G Donovan Buskey stopped 26 shots for the Chiefs. . . . Spokane F Kailer Yamamoto, who played for the U.S. at the WJC, sat out, and he won’t play tonight in Kelowna against the Rockets, either. . . . Announced attendance: 3,289.


At Prince George, the Vancouver Giants ran their road winning streak to seven games with a 5-1 victory over the Cougars. . . . Vancouver (24-14-5) is 6-0-1 in its past seven Vancouvergames. The victory lifted the Giants into a tie with Kelowna for the Western Conference lead. However, Kelowna has three games in hand. . . . Prince George (15-19-7) had points in each of its previous four games (2-0-2). . . . Vancouver took a 3-0 first-period lead on goals from F Dawson Holt (7), at 7:27, F James Malm (16), at 9:00, and D Matt Barberis (4), on a PP, at 16:04. . . . The Cougars’ goal came from F Jared Bethune (14), at 16:17. . . . D Kaleb Bulych (1) added more insurance for the Giants at 2:21 of the second period and F Jared Dmytriw (12) finished the scoring at 12:04. . . . The third period was scoreless. . . . Malm and Holt added two assists each. . . . Vancouver was 1-2 on the PP; Prince George was 0-2. . . . G David Tendeck made 21 saves for the Giants. . . . Cougars starter Tavin Grant allowed five goals on 21 shots in 32:04. Taylor Gauthier finished up by stopping all 10 shots he faced in 27:56. . . . D Brennan Riddle made his Vancouver debut after being acquired Monday from the Lethbridge Hurricanes. . . . The Cougars had recent acquisitions D Austin Crossley and F Ethan Browne in the lineup for the first time. . . . The same teams will meet in Prince George again tonight. . . . Announced attendance: 2,477.


At Kent, Wash., F Ryan Hughes scored the only goal of the shootout to give the Portland Winterhawks a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . Portland (24-13-3) has won Portlandtwo in a row and is back on top of the U.S. Division, one point ahead of Everett with two games in hand. . . . Seattle (20-14-6) has points in nine straight games (7-0-2) and holds down the Western Conference’s first wild-card spot. Seattle also is three points behind third-place Tri-City in the U.S. Division. . . . Portland had taken a 2-0 lead on first-period goals from F Skyler McKenzie (29), who was playing in his 250th game, at 1:31 and F Alex Overheard (9) at 19:58. . . . Seattle got second-period goals from F Sami Moilanen (17), at 0:57, and D Reece Harsch (9), on a PP, at 11:48. Hirsch left the game after two periods with an undisclosed injury. . . . The Thunderbirds were 1-5 on the PP; the Winterhawks weren’t given even one opportunity. . . . G Cole Kehler blocked 33 shots for Portland, seven more than Seattle’s Liam Hughes. . . . Seattle F Donovan Neuls, in his fourth full season there, had an assist to give him 42 points this season. He now has 29 assists, two more than he had last season, and 42 points, also a career high after he had 41 in 2016-17. . . . The Winterhawks are without three regulars who played in the WJC — F Kieffer Bellows (U.S.), D Henri Jokiharju (Finland) and F Joachim Blichfeld (Denmark). Blichfeld was injured in a late tournament game and he hasn’t yet been checked out by Portland’s medical staff. . . . Announced attendance: 5,020.


WEDNESDAY (all times local):

Calgary at Moose Jaw, 7 p.m.

Edmonton at Regina, 7 p.m.

Medicine Hat at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.

Vancouver at Prince George, 7 p.m.

Tri-City at Everett, 7:05 p.m.

Spokane at Kelowna 7:05 p.m.


TWEET OF THE DAY

Sunday’s WHL trade: Blazers, Silvertips swap six players, two picks. . . . Everett adds two veterans

WHEELING AND DEALING …

NUMBER OF TRADES (since Nov. 13): 26

PLAYERS: 54

BANTAM DRAFT PICKS: 34

CONDITONAL BANTAM DRAFT PICKS: 5

THE DEADLINE: Wednesday, Jan. 10 (2 p.m. PT, 3 p.m. MT, 4 p.m. CT)


THE DEAL: The Everett Silvertips acquired F Garrett Pilon, 19, and D Ondrej Vala, 19, from the Kamloops Blazers for F Orrin Centazzo, 17,  D Montana Onyebuchi, 17, F Kalen Ukrainetz, 15, F Nathanael Hinds, 15, and first- and fourth-round selections in the 2019 bantam draft.

THE NUMBERS: Pilon, 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, led the Blazers in goals (17), assists (25) and points (42) in 38 games this season. The 5-foot-11, 185-pounder has 177 points, Everettincluding 53 goals, in 177 career regular-season games. . . . This season, Vala, 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, has seven goals and 13 assists in 31 games. In 163 career games, he has recorded 21 goals and 45 assists. . . . The 5-foot-8, 160-pound Centazzo has six goals and five assists in 40 games this season. In 81 career games, he has 10 goals and 10 assists. . . . Onyebuchi, 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, is a right-hand shot who has three goals and seven assists in 38 games this season. . . . The 5-foot-9, 150-pound Ukrainetz is playing for the Tisdale Trojans of the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League. He has 11 goals and 10 assists in 29 games this season. . . . The 5-foot-10, 160-pound Hinds has seven goals and 15 assists in 28 games with the midget AAA Winnipeg Bruins this season.

THE INFO: Pilon is the son of former WHL/NHL D  Rich Pilon. Garrett, an alternate Kamloops1captain with Kamloops, was selected by the Washington Capitals in the third round of the 2016 NHL draft and has signed with them. He was born in Mineola, N.Y., and played minor hockey in Saskatoon. . . . Vala, who is from Pardubice, Czech Republic, is in his third WHL season. He has just returned from representing his country at the World Junior Championship in Buffalo. He also played for Czech Republic in the 2017 WJC. Vala wasn’t selected in the NHL draft, but has signed as a free agent with the Dallas Stars. . . . Centazzo, from Marwayne, Alta., played bantam and midget hockey in Lloydminster, Alta. He was a fifth-round pick by Everett in the 2015 bantam draft. . . . Onyebuchi, from Dugald, Man., was selected by Everett in the third round of the WHL’s 2015 bantam draft. . . . From Wynyard, Sask., Ukrainetz was selected by Everett in the ninth round of the WHL’s 2017 bantam draft. In 2016-17, he had 26 goals and 24 assists in 30 games with the bantam AA Humboldt, Sask., Broncos. . . . Hinds, from Winnipeg, was a third-round pick by Everett in that same draft. The 5-foot-10, 160-pounder has seven goals and 15 assists in 28 games with the midget AAA Winnipeg Bruins this season. Last season, Hinds put up 24 goals and 31 assists with the bantam AAA Winnipeg Warriors.

WHY: Everett, with the best goaltender in junior hockey in Carter Hart on its roster, is in the race for top spot in the Western Conference and hopes this gives it a leg up on the likes of the Kelowna Rockets, Portland Winterhawks and Tri-City Americans, the latter of whom added all-star D Jake Bean from the Calgary Hitmen on Saturday night. . . . Pilon is an under-appreciated player who plays both ends of the ice. Everett also had an opening for an import, so Vala joins Slovakian F Martin Fasko-Rudas, who is in his first season. . . . The Blazers have said that they will bid to be the host team for the 2020 Memorial Cup. This is the first step towards gathering assets that will allow them to build a competitive team for 1919-20.

Cougars, ‘Tips swap Ethans . . . Blades’ win streak now at five . . . Mahura helps Pats to victory in return


MacBeth

D Cody Carlson (Medicine Hat, Regina, Prince George, 2006-12) has signed a contract for the rest of this season with the Dundee Stars (Scotland, UK Elite). This season, he had a goal and three assists with the Atlanta Gladiators (ECHL) 28 GP, 1+3. . . .

F Curtis Hamilton (Saskatoon, 2006-11) has signed a contract for the rest of this season with Tappara Tampere (Finland, Liiga). Last season, he had 14 goals and 13 assists in 43 games with SaiPa Lappeenranta (Finland, Liiga), and one goal in two games with TPS Turku (Finland, Liiga) 2 GP, 1+0. . . . Last week, he played with Team Canada as it won the Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland.


A LITTLE OF THIS . . .

There was an interesting occurrence on my Twitter timeline on Monday afternoon.

Two tweets arrived back-to-back and each one dealt with a goal scored by a Chyzowski in a WHL game. The brothers — Ryan and Nick — must have been close to scoring at precisely the same time.

The first tweet came from Ryan McCracken of the Medicine Hat News, at 4:03 p.m.: “A beautiful set play on the PP makes it 1-0 Tigers out in Cranbrook. Chyzowski finished off a feed from Quenneville.”

A nano second later this tweet — it is time-stamped 4:04 p.m. — arrived from Earl Seitz of CFJC-TV in Kamloops: “Chyzowski on power play gives Blazers 2-1 lead with 11:10 left in the third.”

McCracken’s tweet referred to F Ryan Chyzowski, a sophomore with the Medicine Hat Tigers, who scored his 13th goal of the season for a 1-0 lead at 7:02 of the second period. The Tigers went on to beat the Kootenay Ice, 5-4 in OT.

Seitz was watching as F Nick Chyzowski, Ryan’s older brother, scored his 12th goal of the season to break a 1-1 tie at 8:50 of the third period in the Blazers’ 4-1 victory over the visiting Victoria Royals.

The Chyzowski brothers are the sons of former Blazers F Dave Chyzowski, who now is the team’s marketing director.


When D Alex Petrovic played for the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels, his name was pronounced just as it is spelled — Pet-ra-vick. These days, he is with the NHL’s Florida Panthers and he has decided to change the pronunciation of his surname. Why? Because he wants to honour his 96-year-old grandfather. . . . Matthew DeFranks of the Sun Sentinel has more on this neat story right here.


WHEELING AND DEALING:

NUMBER OF TRADES (since Nov. 13): 17

PLAYERS: 31

BANTAM DRAFT PICKS: 17

CONDITONAL BANTAM DRAFT PICKS: 4

MONDAY:

THE DEAL: The Prince George Cougars dealt F Ethan O’Rourke, 18, to the Everett Silvertips for F Ethan Browne, 16. . . . Browne had been on Everett’s suspended list since leaving the team early in November. At the time, general manager Garry Davidson said that Browne “has been placed on suspension as he has clarified his wishes to return home to the Edmonton area.”

THE NUMBERS: This season, the 6-foot-5, 200-pound O’Rourke has five goals and nine assists in 37 games. In 57 career regular-season games, he has six goals and 10 assists. In his draft season, O’Rourke had 18 goals and 17 assists in 58 games with the Okanagan Hockey Academy bantam prep team. . . . The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Browne was pointless in one game with Everett last season and had one assist in eight games earlier this season. He has been with the AJHL’s Drayton Valley Thunder, where he had three goals and two assists in nine games. In his draft season, he had 77 points, 39 of them goals, with the bantam AAA Sherwood Park Flyers.

THE INFO: While O’Rourke was a third-round pick by the Cougars in the 2014 WHL bantam draft, the Silvertips selected Browne in the first round, 13th overall, in 2016. . . . O’Rourke, from Penticton, B.C., is the son of Cougars associate coach Steve O’Rourke. . . . There is an O’Rourke family connection with Everett. Steve played one season (1993-94) with the BCJHL’s Penticton Panthers when Davidson was the team’s head coach.

WHY: O’Rourke provides Everett with size and depth up front. . . . The Cougars, who are looking to the future, are hoping that Browne can recapture the offensive ability he showed in bantam. In 2014-15, he had 114 points in 32 games with the bantam AA Sherwood Park Flyers.


Scoreboard

MONDAY:

At Saskatoon, F Josh Paterson broke a 2-2 tie in the third period as the Blades beat the Swift Current Broncos, 4-2. . . . Saskatoon (19-17-3) has won five in a row and eight of Saskatoonnine. It is tied with Regina for the Eastern Conference’s two wild-card spots. . . . Swift Current (26-10-2) has lost three straight, but remains second in the overall standings. However, it now is nine points behind Moose Jaw. . . . F Dryden Michaud (2) gave the home side a 1-0 lead at 9:42 of the first period. . . . F Ethan Regnier (2) tied it at 14:11. . . . The Blades went back on top, 2-1, at 7:49 of the second period when D Evan Fiala scored his fourth goal of the season. . . . The Broncos tied it when F Kole Gable (4) scored at 8:38. . . . Paterson broke the tie, on a PP, at 5:36 of the third period. He’s got 19 goals in 39 games, and that’s two more than he scored in 72 games last season. An 18-year-old from Edmonton, Paterson has eight goals in a five-game streak. . . . F Braylon Shmyr (19), who also had an assist, got the empty-netter for Saskatoon, at 18:16. . . . The Blades were 1-4 on the PP; the Broncos were 0-3. . . . Saskatoon G Nolan Maier stopped 20 shots in earning his eighth straight victory. . . . The Broncos got 38 saves from G Logan Flodell. . . . For much of the season’s first half, the Broncos’ top line of Glenn Gawdin, Aleksi Heponiemi and Tyler Steenbergen terrorized opponents. On Monday, all three were out of the lineup. Gawdin was ill, while Heponiemi (Finland) and Steenbergen (Canada) are in Buffalo at the World Junior Championship. Those three have combined for 204 points, including 86 goals. . . . Starting on Wednesday, Swift Current, which also is without D Artyom Minulin (Russia), will play four games in five nights before the WJC comes to an end. . . . G Ryan Kubic, who has played one game for the Blades since Nov. 18, was dressed in a backup role. . . . Announced attendance: 3,760.


At Edmonton, F Davis Koch, who also had three assists, scored late in the third period to give the Oil Kings a 5-4 victory over the Calgary Hitmen. . . . Edmonton (10-22-5) has EdmontonOilKingspoints in five straight (3-0-2). The Oil Kings are 14 points away from a playoff spot. . . . Calgary (11-20-6) is 10th in the Eastern Conference, 11 points from a playoff spot. . . . The Oil Kings opened up a 3-0 first-period leads on goals from F Trey Fix-Wolansky, at 4:15; F Colton Kehler (14), on a PP, at 15:10; and Fix-Wolansky (16) again, at 18:20. . . . F Andrei Grishakov (11) got Calgary on the scoreboard, on a PP, at 6:16 of the second period. . . . Edmonton got that one back as F David Kope (5) scored at 18:43. . . . The Hitmen tied the game with three third-period goals, from F Mark Kastelic, at 4:09; F Jakob Stukel, at 11:39; and Kastelic (12), on a PP, at 15:36. . . . That set the stage for Koch (17) to get the winner at 16:26. . . . Edmonton got two assists from each of F Tomas Soustal, Fix-Wolansky and D Conner McDonald. . . . Grishakov and Stukel each had two assists for Calgary, with Kastelic getting one. . . . Calgary was 2-7 on the PP; Edmonton was 1-7. . . . The Oil Kings held a 35-19 edge in shots, including 16-1 in the first period. . . . G Josh Dechaine stopped 15 shots for the Oil Kings. . . . Calgary starter Nick Schneider surrendered four goals on 23 shots through the first two periods. Matthew Armitage came on in relief to stop seven of eight shots in 20 minutes. . . . Announced attendance: 9,821.


At Kamloops, the Blazers scored the game’s last four goals to beat the Victoria Royals, 4-1. . . . The Blazers (17-19-2) had lost their previous four games (0-3-1) and had been shut out Kamloops1in each of their last two home games. They are ninth in the Western Conference, five points out of a wild-card spot. . . . The Royals (21-15-4) had been 1-0-1 in their previous two games. They are second in the B.C. Division, three points behind Kelowna, which holds three games in hand. . . . F Tyler Soy (17) gave the Royals a 1-0 lead, on a PP, at 1:09 of the second period. . . . Kamloops pulled even when F Carson Denomie (5) scored at 6:25. . . . F Nick Chyzowski (12) broke the tie, on a PP, at 8:50 of the third period, and F Brodi Stuart (11) added insurance at 13:25. . . . F Quinn Benjafield, who also had two assists, got the empty-netter, at 19:42. . . . Kamloops was 1-3 on the PP; Victoria was 1-5. . . . G Dylan Ferguson earned the victory with 23 saves. . . . At the other end, Griffen Outhouse stopped 43 shots. . . . Including this game, Kamloops will play Victoria in four of six straight games. The Royals will be back in Kamloops on Saturday. The Blazers are to visit Victoria on Jan. 12-13. . . . Don Hay of the Blazers now has 737 regular-season coaching victories, five short of the career record held by the retired Ken Hodge. . . . Announced attendance: 3,732.


At Langley, B.C., F James Malm scored at 2:00 of OT to give the Vancouver Giants a 4-3 victory over the Prince George Cougars. . . . The Giants (20-14-5) are 2-0-1 in their past Vancouverthree games. They now have as many victories as they had all of last season when they finished 20-46-6 and out of the playoffs for a third straight season. . . . The Giants are third in the B.C. Division, one point behind Victoria and nine ahead of Kamloops. . . . The Cougars (14-18-6) got a victory and an OTL from the doubleheader in Langley. They had won a wild one, 7-6 in OT, on Saturday. . . . Prince George is fifth in the B.C. Division, two points behind Kamloops. . . . Yesterday, the Cougars had a 2-0 lead early in the first period as D Dennis Cholowski (11) scored at 6:19 and F Kody McDonald got his 19th at 6:33. . . . F Brayden Watts (11) got the Giants to within a goal, on a PP, at 8:21, and F Jared Dmytriw tied the score, at 13:26. . . . Dmytriw (10), who had two goals and two assists, gave the Giants their first lead at 9:05 of the second. . . . Cholowski forced OT when he scored his 12th goal at 12:44 of the third period. Cholowski, who is from Langley, had scored two goals and added two assists in Saturday’s game. He now has 35 points in 35 games. . . . F Owen Hardy had two assists for Vancouver, with Watts getting one. . . . Vancouver was 1-5 on the PP; Prince George was 0-3. . . . G David Tendeck started for the Giants but lasted just 6:33 as he allowed two goals on six shots. Todd Scott came on to earn the victory, stopped 12 of 13 shots in 55:27. . . . The Cougars got 34 stops from Tavin Grant. . . . Ethan Browne, acquired earlier in the day from the Everett Silvertips, wasn’t in the Cougars’ lineup as they went with 11 forwards. . . . Announced attendance: 3,776.


At Cranbrook, B.C., D Kristians Rubins scored at 1:54 of OT to give the Medicine Hat Tigers a 5-4 victory over the Kootenay Ice. . . . Medicine Hat (21-15-2) has won two in a Tigers Logo Officialrow. . . . The Tigers are atop the Central Division, five points ahead of Kootenay. . . . Kootenay (18-17-3) has points in seven straight (5-0-2). . . . With this game, the Ice started a stretch of five games in six nights. It starts with three games in three nights as it visits Lethbridge tonight and Swift Current on Wednesday. . . . The Tigers looked to have this one under wraps with a 4-1 lead early in the third period. . . . After a scoreless first period, F Ryan Chyzowski (13) gave the visitors a 1-0 lead, on a PP, at 7:02 of the second. . . . F Mark Rassell (32), who also had two assists, upped it to 2-0 at 13:26. . . . Ice F Brett Davis halved the deficit at 1:18 of the third period, but Medicine Hat went ahead 4-1 on a pair of shorthanded goals by F James Hamblin, at 6:20 and 6:55. He’s got 13 goals. . . . The Ice got even by scoring three times in 6:25. . . . F Alec Baer got it started, on a PP, at 7:18. . . . F Cameron Hausinger (12) pulled the home boys to within a goal at 7:56. . . . Baer forced OT with his 16th goal, at 13:43. . . . Rubins won it with his third goal of the season. . . . Davis added an assist to his goal for the Ice. . . . Each team was 1-2 on the PP. . . . G Jordan Hollett made 35 saves for the Tigers, four more than the Ice’s Bailey Brkin. . . . Announced attendance: 2,426.


At Regina, F Matt Bradley scored the OT winner and added two assists as the Pats got past the Prince Albert Raiders, 5-4. . . . Regina (19-18-3) has won three straight games and ReginaPats100remains tied with Saskatoon for the Eastern Conference’s two wild-card spots. . . . Prince Albert (13-17-8) has lost five in a row (0-4-1) and is 1-6-1 in its past eight. It now trails Regina and Saskatoon by eight points. . . . D Dawson Davidson (7) gave the Pats a 1-0 lead when he scored shorthanded at 7:41 of the first period. . . . The Raiders then took a 3-1 lead on second-period goals from D Brayden Pachal (2), at 7:27; F Cole Fonstad (12), on a PP, at 13:27; and F Parker Kelly (16), at 16:54. . . . Regina erased that deficit and took a 4-3 lead by scoring three times in 2:38 of the third period. . . . D Josh Mahura (12) pulled the home boys to within a goal at 4:46. . . . F Nick Henry (6) tied the game at 7:14. . . . F Jake Leschyshyn gave Regina its first lead at 7:24. . . . The Raiders pulled even when F Jordy Stallard (26) scored, on a PP, at 13:01. . . . Bradley won it with his 24th goal of the season. . . . Mahura, in his first game since being released by the Canadian national junior team on Dec. 26, also had two assists, including the primary helper on the winner. . . . F Robbie Holmes also had two assists for Regina. . . . The Raiders got two assists from each of Pachal and F Spencer Moe, with Fonstad and Stallard each getting one. . . . Prince Albert was 2-5 on the PP; Regina was 0-3. . . . G Tyler Brown blocked 27 shots for Regina, while the Raiders’ Curtis Meger, who is from Regina, stopped 34. . . . Announced attendance: 6,243.


TUESDAY (all times local):

Kootenay at Lethbridge, 7 p.m.


TWEET OF THE DAY


If you enter your email address over there on the right you will be notified each time I post something new on this site.

I haven’t yet been able to get a DONATE button posted here. But if you care to help the cause, please visit the old site (takingnote.ca), click on the DONATE button and do it there. Thank you.

Empty seats in Buffalo. What the heck happened? . . . WHL returns to action tonight with 11 games. A preview

Well, the 2018 World Junior Championship is through one day. Day 1 in Buffalo featured two routs, a pair of close games and a whole lot of empty seats.

Yes, it would appear that attendance — or lack of same — is going to be a big story at the BuffaloWJC for a second straight year . . . or have you forgotten what happened in Toronto and Montreal a year ago?

“There might have been 2,000 folks in the KeyBank Center stands to see the Czech Republic’s upset of Russia in the opener,” writes Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News. “Canada got better as its 4-2 victory over Finland went along in a game played in front of maybe 8,000 fans. Team USA battered Denmark in front of a pathetic house of maybe 5,000 — and officials closed the 300 level and offered fans comp seats down below. Which had to make folks who paid for that level super-duper happy about the extra money they shelled out.

“Organizers have to be choking on their hot chocolate after the intimate gatherings that entered the building. The Canada-Russia game played here on Dec. 26, 2010 drew a sellout crowd of 18,690. The US-Finland game that day drew 14,093.  So what the heck happened Tuesday?”

In his column, that is right here, Harrington goes on to detail what he thinks happened, and it doesn’t portend well for the rest of the tournament.

Following the 2017 WJC, Harrington wrote a column that warned of what might happen if . . .

After Team USA won the gold medal, Harrington wrote: “But the bigger story should serve as a cautionary tale for the Sabres, USA Hockey and the International Ice Hockey Federation, which seems bent on squeezing every dollar out of this tournament it can. The Saskatoons, Halifaxes and Grand Forkses of the world need no longer apply because the IIHF clearly want big cities, big dollars.

“That led to embarrassing scenes of empty seats all over the Air Canada Centre in Toronto during the opening rounds and in the Bell Centre in Montreal up through the semifinals. The problem here is simple: Price point, price point, price point.

“And packages, packages, packages.”

That column from almost a year ago is right here.


The WHL swings back into action tonight (Wednesday) after a Christmas break that began following games of Dec. 17.

Of course, that also means that the annual trade moratorium has been lifted, and you whlcan expect the dealing to resume anytime and to run through Jan. 10, when the trade deadline arrives.

Since Nov. 13, the WHL’s 22 teams have combined to make 13 trades involving 25 players, 14 bantam draft picks and three conditional bantam picks.

Tonight, there are 11 games on the schedule; yes, all 22 teams are to play. It’s worth noting that 26 of the WHL’s best players won’t be playing, at least not in the WHL; that’s because they are with various teams at the World Junior Championship in Buffalo.

Here’s a brief look at tonight’s schedule (all times local):

REGINA (16-17-3) at BRANDON (24-8-1), 7 p.m. — The Pats are without F Sam Steel, while the Wheat Kings won’t have D Kale Clague. Both are with Team Canada in Buffalo. . . . Brandon has won nine of its past 10 games and is third in the East Division, 14 points ahead of Regina, which is to be the host team for the 2018 Memorial Cup but hasn’t yet played much like a contender. The Pats, who hold down the Eastern Conference’s first wild-card spot, have lost four in a row (0-3-1) and are 3-6-1 in their past 10. . . . Regina isn’t expected to have D Josh Mahura in the lineup after he was cut by Team Canada for a second time on Tuesday. Mahura had been dropped after Canada’s selection camp, but then was brought back as insurance in case D Dante Fabbro couldn’t answer the bell. Fabbro was pronounced OK to play on Tuesday, so Mahura was released. Again. He has flown home to Edmonton and the Pats have given him some family time. Whether he returns for the rematch with Brandon in Regina on Thursday remains to be seen.


PRINCE ALBERT (13-14-7) at SASKATOON (15-17-3), 7:05 p.m. — The Raiders and Blades are tied for the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot, each with 33 points. . . . The Raiders are 3-4-3 in their past 10 outings; the Blades are 5-5-0. . . . Saskatoon is 1-0-1 in the season series; Prince Albert is 1-1-0. . . . Prince Albert is missing D Voytech Budik (Czech Republic), while the Blades are without D Libor Hajek (Czech Republic). Interestingly, the two formed one defensive pair as the Czech got past Russia, 5-4, in Buffalo yesterday. . . . These teams will play again Thursday, this time in Prince Albert.


MOOSE JAW (27-6-2) at SWIFT CURRENT (25-7-2), 7 p.m. — The Warriors have the WHL’s best record, with the Broncos second, just four points in arrears. . . . Tim Hunter, Moose Jaw’s head coach, is with Team Canada in Buffalo as an assistant coach, meaning that assistant coach Mark O’Leary is in charge. . . . Warriors F Brett Howden (Canada) also is in Buffalo.while the Broncos have three players there — D Artyom Minulin (Russia), F Tyler Steenbergen (Canada), F Aleksi Heponiemi (Finland). . . . The Warriors are 2-1-1 in the season series; the Broncos are 2-2-0. . . . They’ll continue the series on Thursday in Moose Jaw.


EDMONTON (7-22-4) at RED DEER (10-18-6), p.m. — The Oil Kings have lost four in a row (0-3-1) and are 2-6-2 in their past 10 outings. They own the WHL’s poorest record and are 15 points out of a playoff spot. . . . The Rebels have points in three straight (1-0-2) and in six of 10 (1-4-5). However, they are seven points away from a playoff spot. . . . Rebels F Brandon Hagel, 19, has 23 points, including 16 assists, in 27 games but has sat out the past six games with an undisclosed injury. . . . Red Deer F Kristian Reichel (Czech Republic) is in Buffalo, but D Alex Alexeyev, 18, should be back after he was released Tuesday by the Russian junior team. . . . F Arshdeep Bains, who turns 17 on Jan. 9, remains with the Rebels after playing two games with them prior to the break. When he joined the Rebels, he was leading the B.C. Major Midget Hockey League in scoring, with 57 points, 41 of them assists, in 22 games with the Valley West Hawks. . . . These teams haven’t met since the Rebels opened the regular-season with a doubleheader sweep (7-3, 5-3). . . . They’ll play again Thursday, this time in Edmonton.


CALGARY (10-18-5) vs. KOOTENAY (15-17-2), at Cranbrook, B.C., 7 p.m. — The Ice is tied with Lethbridge for second in the Central Division, six points behind Medicine Hat. Kootenay has points in three straight (2-0-1) and is 5-4-1 in its past 10 games. . . . The Hitmen are 11th in the 12-team Eastern Conference. They have lost two in a row (0-1-1) and are 4-5-1 in their past 10. . . . This will the third straight game in which these teams have played each other. They close out the pre-Christmas schedule with a home-and-home series, Kootenay winning them both — 5-1 at home on Dec. 16 and 4-3 in OT on Dec. 17. . . . And guess what? Yes, they’ll make it four in a row on Thursday in Calgary. . . . The Hitmen are without their best player in D Jake Bean, who is with Canada in Buffalo, and D Vladislav Yeryomenko (Belarus). . . . Kootenay D Martin Bodak is with Slovakia.


LETHBRIDGE (15-16-2) at MEDICINE HAT (18-14-2), 7 p.m. — Each of these teams won its last game before the break. . . . Lethbridge is 5-4-1 in its past 10 and has closed to within six points of the Central Division-leading Tigers, who are 3-5-2 over their past 10. . . . The Hurricanes lead the season series 2-1-0, but the teams haven’t met since Oct. 22. . . . Medicine Hat F Mark Russell has three goals and three assists in the three games against Lethbridge. . . . Tigers F Mason Shaw, who put up 27 goals and 67 assists in 71 games last season, has yet to play this season after suffering a knee injury while with the Minnesota Wild’s entry at an NHL rookie tournament in Traverse City, Mich. . . . The Tigers also are waiting for freshman F Josh Williams to recover from a collarbone injury suffered during a practice at the U-17 World Hockey Challenge almost two months ago. . . . The Hurricanes have lost F Ryan Vandervlis, 19, for the rest of the season with shoulder woes. He had 19 points, 11 of them goals, in 19 games. Lethbridge GM Peter Anholt acquired F Lane Zablocki, 19, from Red Deer in the hopes that he can fill the void created by Vandervlis’s absence. Zablocki, who had 19 points in 31 games with Red Deer this season, has one assist in two games with Lethbridge. . . . The Hurricanes and Tigers will resume hostilities on Thursday in Lethbridge.


TRI-CITY (18-10-3) vs. PORTLAND (21-11-1), 7 p.m. — The Americans have won three in a row and are 5-4-1 over their past 10 games. . . . The Winterhawks (21-11-1) have lost two in a row and have stumbled of late — they are 2-7-1 in their past 10. . . . It all leaves Portland second in the U.S. Division, one point behind Everett and four ahead of the Americans. . . . Tri-City is without D Juuso Valimaki (Finland), while Portland is missing F Joachim Blichfeld (Denmark), F Kieffer Bellows (U.S.) and D Henri Jokiharju (Finland). . . . The host Winterhawks beat the Americans 5-2 on Nov. 11 in the only previous meeting between these teams this season. . . . They’ll meet again Friday in Kennewick, Wash.


EVERETT (21-13-2) vs. VANCOUVER (18-13-4), at Langley, B.C., 7 p.m. — The Silvertips won their last two pre-Christmas games and nine of their past 10. That streak has lifted them to the top of the Western Conference, one point ahead of Portland, Kelowna and Victoria. . . . The Giants are the WHL’s hottest team, having won six in a row and eight of 10. They are third in the B.C. Division, three points behind Kelowna and Victoria. . . . Vancouver will be missing F Milos Roman (Slovakia), who leads all WHL freshmen with 29 points. . . . Everett is without Carter Hart, the WHL’s top goaltender, who started for Canada in its 4-2 victory over Finland in Buffalo on Tuesday. In his absence, freshman Dustin Wolf, a 16-year-old from Tustin, Calif., will get the bulk of the work. A fifth-round pick in the 2016 bantam draft, he is 5-2-0, 2.00, .942 this season. . . . The Giants return from the break to play Everett twice (they’ll meet again Friday, this time in Everett), and then return to Langley for a doubleheader with Prince George. Vancouver then will journey into Alberta for three games in four nights (Edmonton, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat), before travelling to Prince George for games on Jan. 9 and 10. . . . Yes, that stretch of nine games in 15 days may end up defining the Giants’ season.


PRINCE GEORGE (12-17-5) at VICTORIA (20-13-3), 7:05 p.m. — The Cougars have lost three in a row and are 3-6-1 in their past 10, as they have slid into the Western Conference cellar, four points behind Kamloops. . . . Victoria also has lost its last three, and is 3-5-2 in its past 10. But it is tied for first with Kelowna in the B.C. Division, and is only one point out of the Western Conference lead. . . . The Cougars will stay in Victoria for a game on Thursday night, then travel to Langley, B.C., for games with Vancouver on Saturday and Monday, before heading home for a weekend doubleheader against Tri-City and a Jan. 9-10 double-dip with visiting Vancouver. . . . F Vladislav Mikhalchuk of the Cougars is in Buffalo with Belarus. . . . The Royals are missing F Ivan Martynov, who also is with Belarus. . . . F Tyler Soy, who is six assists away from owning the Victoria/Chilliwack franchise record for career assists, left the last game before Christmas with an apparent shoulder injury. There has been no word on his status since then. . . . Victoria has been playing without F Regan Nagy (finger) and F Dante Hannoun (ill). Both are key offensive performers. . . . This is the sixth straight season in which these teams have returned from Christmas to play twice in Victoria. The Royals are 8-1-1 in the previous 10 meetings.


KAMLOOPS (16-17-1) at KELOWNA (20-11-3), 7:05 p.m. — The Blazers last their last game before the break and are 5-4-1 in their past 10 games. More importantly, they are 16-8-1 since opening the season with a nine-game losing skid. They are fourth in the B.C. Division, seven points behind Vancouver, and are just one point shy of the Western Conference’s second wild-card playoff berth. . . . The Rockets have won two in a row and seven of 10. Kelowna is one point out of the Western Conference lead and tied with Victoria atop the B.C. Division. . . . The Blazers lost two players to the WJC — D Ondrej Vala is with Czech Republic and freshman F Justin Sigrist is with Switzerland. . . . With Vala gone, the Blazers have added D Quinn Schmiemann from the midget AAA Notre Dame Hounds of Wilcox, Sask. . . . The Rockets are without D Cal Foote and F Dillon Dube, both of whom are with Canada. . . . Kelowna is 2-0-0 in the season series, but the teams haven’t met since opening weekend when the Rockets posted 8-2 and 5-1 victories. . . . The Rockets will play in Kamloops on Friday night. . . . Kamloops head coach Don Hay needs six regular-season victories to equal the WHL career record of 742, held by the retired Ken Hodge.


SEATTLE (15-14-4) at SPOKANE (18-13-3), 7:05 p.m. — The defending-champion Thunderbirds surged a bit going into Christmas as they won their last two games to finish a 10-game stretch at 4-4-2. They hold down the Western Conference’s second wild-card spot. . . . The Chiefs lost their last game prior to the break — 10-3 to the visiting Thunderbirds — but have won six of 10. . . . These teams will meet again on Friday, this time in Kent, Wash., meaning they will have played each other in three straight games. . . . They are 1-1-0 in the season series, the Chiefs having posted a 9-2 home-ice victory on Dec. 9. . . . Spokane has two players at the WJC — F Kailer Yamamoto (U.S.) and D Filip Kral (Czech Republic). . . . Seattle F Sami Moilanen was among the last players released by Finland.


Tweet of the day


Scoreboard

TUESDAY:

No Games Scheduled.


WEDNESDAY (all times local):

Regina at Brandon, 7 p.m.

Prince Albert at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.

Moose Jaw at Swift Current, 7 p.m.

Edmonton at Red Deer, 7 p.m.

Calgary vs. Kootenay, at Cranbrook, B.C., 7 p.m.

Lethbridge at Medicine Hat, 7 p.m.

Tri-City at Portland, 7 p.m.

Everett vs. Vancouver, at Langley, B.C., 7 p.m.

Prince George at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.

Kamloops at Kelowna 7:05 p.m.

Seattle at Spokane, 7:05 p.m.


THURSDAY (all times local):

Saskatoon at Prince Albert, 7 p.m.

Brandon at Regina, 7 p.m.

Swift Current at Moose Jaw, 7 p.m.

Kootenay at Calgary, 7 p.m.

Red Deer at Edmonton, 7 p.m.

Prince George at Victoria, 7:05 p.m.

%d bloggers like this: