F Joel Broda (Tri-City, Moose Jaw, Calgary, 2004-10) has signed a one-year contract with Innsbruck (Austria, Erste Bank Liga). This season, with Dornbirn (Austria, Erste Bank Liga), he had nine goals and nine assists in 22 games. . . .
D Mário Grman (Red Deer, Kootenay, 2014-16) has signed a one-year plus option contract with SaiPa Lappeenranta (Finland, Liiga). This season, with Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia, KHL), he had four goals and four assists in 54 games. . . .
D Travis Brown (Moose Jaw, Victoria, 2010-15) has signed a one-year contract with Esbjerg Energy (Denmark, Metal Ligaen). This season, he was pointless in one game with the San Antonio Rampage (AHL), had 10 goals and nine assists in 29 games with the Wichita Thunder (ECHL), and had five goals and eight assists in 17 games with the Indy Fuel (ECHL). . . .
Some KHL news . . . Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia) has withdrawn from the KHL due to inability to find financing to fund the club in the KHL for the 2019-20 season. All players under KHL contracts have been released. Players with WHL ties who played for Slovan this season are D Mário Grman (Red Deer, Kootenay, 2014-16), D Andrej Meszároš (Vancouver, 2004-05) and F Kyle Chipchura (Prince Albert, 2001-06). . . . The club has applied to re-join Slovakia’s Extraliga but the application hasn’t yet been accepted. Slovan must pay all outstanding salaries from this season before being accepted. Per the KHL, Slovan was more than 150 days late in paying player salaries at some point this season. . . . Slovan says that the club’s current owner has promised to pay the outstanding player salaries and fund the team in Extraliga for next season. The club also is behind on paying arena rent to the city of Bratislava and will enter into negotiations with the city on this. . . . Slovan has a coaching staff in place but no players under contract for next season.
And then there were four . . .
The Brandon Wheat Kings joined the ranks of WHL teams without a head coach on Tuesday morning when they announced that David Anning’s contract, which expired on 
May 31, won’t be renewed.
The news release didn’t mention assistant coach Don MacGillivray, whose contract also ran out on May 31.
Anning, 34, spent seven season with the Wheat Kings, first as an assistant coach and then as head coach for the past three seasons. From Winnipeg, Anning joined the Wheat Kings from the MJHL’s Steinbach Pistons.
Anning put up a 102-87-23 regular-season record as Brandon’s head coach. That has him fourth on the club’s all-time victory list, behind McCrimmon (423), Bob Lowes (363) and the late Dunc McCallum (251).
The Wheat Kings missed the playoffs this season for the first time in six years.
MacGillivray, also from Winnipeg, was a long-time MJHL coach. He just completed his third season as an assistant coach with the Wheat Kings.
Earlier this spring, Wheat Kings owner Kelly McCrimmon also relieved general manager Grant Armstrong of his duties.
There has been speculation that former Victoria Royals head coach Dave Lowry could be Brandon’s next general manager. Anning’s departure will have people wondering if Lowry could be hired to do both jobs.
However, McCrimmon has told Perry Bergson of the Brandon Sun that he is leaning towards hiring two people to fill those roles.
Lowry spent five seasons as the Royals’ head coach before joining the Los Angeles Kings as an assistant coach prior to the NHL’s 2017-18 season. The Kings dismissed Lowry on April 17 following the hiring of Todd McLellan as their new head coach.
In the WHL, the Kamloops Blazers, Prince George Cougars and Spokane Chiefs also are looking for a head coach.
Matt Bardsley, the Blazers’ general manager, is expected to meet with Shaun Clouston, the former Medicine Hat Tigers GM/head coach, this week. Kamloops is working to replace Serge Lajoie with whom it parted company after the season.
The Cougars are looking for a replacement for Richard Matvichuk, who was fired late in his third season as head coach. Muddying the waters in Prince George is that Mark Lamb, who is preparing for his second season as general manager, is rumoured to be in line for an assistant coach’s position with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers.
The Chiefs need a replacement for Dan Lambert, who left last week after two years as their head coach. Lambert now is an assistant coach with the NHL’s Nashville Predators.
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The Tri-City Americans have signed F Jake Sloan to a WHL contract. From Leduc, Alta., Sloan was a third-round selection in the 2019 bantam draft. . . . He played this season with the bantam AAA Leduc Oil Kings, putting up 40 goals and 34 assists in 33 games, and was honoured as the league’s MVP.
Robert Petrovicky is the new head coach of Slovakia’s national U-20 team. Petrovicky replaces Ernest Bokros, the team’s head coach for the past eight years. . . . Petrovicky, 45, spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach with Slovan Bratislava of the KHL and with the Slovakian national team, which is coached by former NHL’er Craig Ramsey. As you will have seen in The MacBeth Report, Slovan Bratislava has withdrawn from the KHL due to financial issues. . . . Petrovicky is the older brother of former WHL F Ronald Petrovicky (Tri-City, Prince George, Regina, 1994-98). . . . Rastislav Stana, a former WHLer (Moose Jaw, Calgary, 1998-2000), is the Slovakian team’s goaltending coach. . . . Slovakia’s U-20 team is to gather on Sunday in Namestovo for a week-long summer camp. . . . The 2020 World Junior Championship is scheduled for Ostrava and Trinec, Czech Republic. . . .
Martin Merk of iihf.com has more right here, including news involving the Slovakian federation having taken the U-20 team out of the top Slovak league in order to focus funding on the U-18 program. . . .
year contract, with the club holding an option on a fifth season. . . . Ryan Keller, an assistant coach through two seasons, remains on staff, while the Blades are expected to add an assistant to replace Bryce Thoma, who was fired, along with head coach Dean Brockman, at season’s end. . . . Long-time assistant Jerome Engele also remains on the coaching staff. We can only hope he is gearing up for another season of those tweets in which he rates the post-game meals when on the road.
might want to bring back Bob Brown as general manager and Ken Hitchcock as head coach. . . . After all, Brown’s scouting contract with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers is soon to expire, while Hitchcock has moved into an advisory role with the Dallas Stars. . . . Well, it seems that a reader of this blog ran into Hitchcock on a golf course in Summerland, B.C., that afternoon. “I mentioned to him that I just read a rumour that he might return to Kamloops as coach,” the reader tells Taking Note in an email. “He laughed and said the only thing he would be returning for was to play golf at Rivershore . . . and he laughed some more.” . . . Great to hear that Hitch is in such good humour.
committed to the future of hockey in the Tri-Cities, as we work to improve the facility and fan experience for the 2018-19 season.” . . . According to the Americans, the WHL, Toyota Center and the City of Kennewick “have devised a three-year plan to address the WHL’s concerns” with the state of the facility that has been the Americans’ home arena for 30 years. . . . The news release, which is 
days after suffering a heart attack. He was 52. . . . An Edmonton native, Podloski played three seasons (1983-86) with the Winter Hawks. . . . He spent 1982-83 with the AJHL’s Red Deer Rustlers, but got into two regular-season games with Portland. He also played in one game in the Memorial Cup, as the Winter Hawks won the championship. . . . H also played for Portland in the 1986 Memorial Cup, putting up two goals and five assists in four games. . . . After three seasons of pro hockey in North America, he went on to spend 15 seasons playing in Europe, retiring after the 2004-05 season. . . . Earlier, Podloski obtained his Austrian citizenship and played for that country in the 1999 IIHF World Championship. . . . He owned and operated Podloski Hockey Training in Edmonton where one of his clients was F Sam Steel, the captain of the WHL’s Regina Pats. Podloski also was the head coach with the St. Edmund Hockey Academy in Edmonton.
Yes, it really has been 25 years since they made the move from Victoria. . . . With that in mind, they have unveiled their 25th anniversary logo. . . . According to a news release, the logo “features the Cougars’ logo over the number 25, with a banner across the front. The years 1994 and 2019 inside the banner reflect the years the organization has been operating in Prince George.” . . . You can bet the Cougars’ home schedule will be loaded with celebratory promotions.
TAKING NOTE 