The Prince Albert Raiders introduced veteran WHL coach Jeff Truitt as their new head coach on Friday morning. He takes over from Marc Habscheid, who has signed on as the head coach of Pioneers Vorarlberg of the Austrian-based ICE Hockey League. . . . Truitt, 57,was an assistant coach alongside Habscheid for the previous four seasons. . . . A Moose Jaw native, Truitt has won WHL titles as a coach with the Lethbridge Hurricanes (1997), Kelowna Rockets (2003, 2005) and the Raiders (2019). . . . Interestingly, he moved up to head coach of the Rockets, replacing Habscheid, after the 2002-03 season. . . . He spent four seasons (1993-97) as an assistant coach with Lethbridge and was an assistant in Kelowna for four seasons (2000-04). He then spent two seasons as the Rockets’ head coach. . . . In 2009-10, Truitt was the director of hockey operations with the Moose Jaw Warriors. . . . Before joining the Raiders, he spent five-plus seasons as the Red Deer Rebels’ associate coach. . . . According to the WHL, Truitt has a regular-season record of 136-94-23 as a head coach. He is 29-21 in playoff games. . . . BTW, if you’re new to the WHL, that’s general manager Curtis Hunt to the right of Truitt in the above tweet.
After a four-year interlude in Edmonton, Brad Lauer is back in the NHL. Lauer, the head coach of the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings for the past four seasons has signed on with the Winnipeg Jets as an assistant coach. . . . Under Lauer, the Oil Kings are the reigning WHL champions. . . . Lauer, 55, began his coaching career by spending five seasons (2002-07) as an assistant coach with the Kootenay Ice (remember them?). . . . Before joining the Oil Kings, Lauer spent eight-plus seasons as an NHL assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators. . . . As a player, Lauer was with the Regina Pats for three seasons (1983-86) before going on to a pro career that included 323 regular-season NHL games. . . .
If you’re wondering who might succeed Lauer with the Oil Kings, perhaps we need look no further than Luke Pierce, who has worked as an assistant in Edmonton for four seasons. Pierce, 38, spent six seasons with his hometown BCHL-Merritt Centennials, the last five-plus as general manager and head coach. He then was the head coach of the Kootenay Ice (remember them?) for two seasons (2015-17). . . .
The Jets also added former Kamloops Blazers D Nolan Baumgartner, 46, to their organization. Baumgartner, who played four seasons (1992-96) in Kamloops, will work as an assistant coach with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. He also is a former Moose player and team captain. Baumgartner spent the past four-plus seasons as an assistant coach with the Vancouver Canucks.
Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, had this in his daily missive on Thursday:
“Having mentioned Russell Westbrook, I ran across an interesting stat about him and his contract with the Lakers.
“Assuming Westbrook plays the entire 2022-23 season with Los Angeles, he will have made a total of $91.3M in salary from the Lakers.
“In 1979, Jerry Buss bought the Lakers franchise PLUS the Los Angeles Kings franchise PLUS The Forum from Jack Kent Cooke for a total of only $67.5M.”
The Saskatchewan Roughriders showed 11 players out with “illness” on the injury list released by the CFL team on Friday. They were to have played the visiting Toronto Argos today (Saturday), but the game has been moved to Sunday. . . . Some players appear to have recovered, because the team had said 13 players and three staff members tested positive.
You may recall prior to the past NBA season when Andrew Wiggins, a Canadian, caused consternation in the camp of the Golden State Warriors when he was refusing to get vaccinated. Of course, he eventually reconsidered and now that he has a championship to his credit how does he feel? “I still wish I didn’t get (vaccinated), to be honest with you,” he said. . . . To which Janice Hough, aka the Left Coast Sports Babe, responded: “About a million Americans would offer a rebuttal if they weren’t like, you know, dead.”
Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe on a certain Kansas City Royals outfielder: “Andrew Benintendi played the dense card when asked about his anti-vax status at the All-Star Game. ‘I’m just here to answer baseball questions,’ said the former Red Sox outfielder. The natural follow-up should be, ‘But this IS a baseball question.’ When you choose to make yourself unavailable to your team, it’s a baseball issue. Benintendi’s intransigence may prevent him from being traded to a contender. The Yankees reportedly backed off when they learned Benintendi is a personal freedom fighter.”
THINKING OUT LOUD: The folks at Mount Allison U in Sackville, N.B., get it. They have stated that the school“will be maintaining mandatory indoor masking into the fall term. We will also be asking new students and staff to upload vaccination status and will provide testing kids.” . . . Anyone else just itching to see that Sleeman 2.0 commercial one more time? . . . Terry Mosher, aka Aislin, the Montreal Gazette’s brilliant editorial cartoonist, is the latest to produce a book in conjunction with what will be the 50th anniversary of the Summit Series. From Montreal to Moscow will be available in late August.
THE COACHING GAME:
The AJHL’s Lloydminster Bobcats have signed Nigel Dube, their general manager and head coach, to a five-year contract extension. He has been with Lloydminster since November 2018. There is a complete news release right here.
Headline at The Beaverton (@TheBeaverton): Hockey Canada’s NDA forbids TSN from disclosing final score for all games.
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6A Providence Building
1081 Burrard Street
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Tel: 604-806-9027
Toll free: 1-877-922-9822
Fax: 604-806-9873
Email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca
——
Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney
Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre
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——
Or, for more information, visit right here.
single-season points record. At least, not yet.
in Swift Current. . . . Kootenay (9-29-7) had lost its previous nine games (0-8-1). . . . The Broncos (9-31-3) now trail the Ice by four points in the race to stay out of the WHL’s cellar. . . . Makaj, who will turn 18 on Jan. 27, posted his first career WHL shutout by making 16 saves. It came in his 27th appearance, 26 of them this season. . . . The Broncos got 32 stops from G Isaac Poulter. . . . F Jaeger White (17) gave the visitors a 1-0 lead at 0:51 of the second period. . . . F Peyton Krebs (16) added insurance, on a PP, at 4:55 of the third period. . . . F Alex Thacker made his WHL debut with the Broncos. Thacker, 16, is from Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and was a sixth-round pick in the 2017 bantam draft. He is in his second season with the midget AAA Fort Saskatchewan Rangers. . . . Thacker is the 37th player to have suited up for the Broncos this season. . . . The Ice has had 43 players dress for at least one game.
to a 5-2 victory over the host Kamloops Blazers. . . . Moose Jaw (22-11-7) had lost its previous four games (0-3-1). The Warriors, who began a seven-game road trip with this one, are 13-3-1 on the road. They are third in the East Division, seven points behind Saskatoon but with five games in hand on the Blades. . . . Kamloops (15-23-3) has lost five in a row, and remains two points away from the Western Conference’s second wild-card playoff berth. . . . F Tristin Langan (33) gave the visitors a 1-0 lead at 3:26 of the first period. . . . F Brodi Stuart (13) tied it at 6:40. . . . Moose Jaw took a 3-1 lead before the period ended on goals from Almeida, on a PP, at 9:59, and F Daniil Stepanov (4), at 16:01. . . . F Jermaine Loewen (15) got the Blazers to within a goal at 12:03 of the second period. . . . The Blazers hung around but weren’t able to get the equalizer past Moose Jaw G Adam Evanoff, who finished with 34 saves. . . . Moose Jaw put it away with two late third-period goals from Almeida (13), at 15:27, and D Dalton Hamaliuk (3), on a PP, at 17:55. . . . Moose Jaw had either D Josh Brook or D Jett Woo, or both of them, on the ice for every shift in the third period until the score was 5-2. . . . Kamloops G Dylan Ferguson allowed three goals on 13 shots in the first period. Dylan Garand played the last two periods, stopping 17 of 19 shots. . . . Almeida enjoyed his third four-point game this season. He has 55 points, including 42 assists, in 36 games this season. . . . F Logan Stankoven, the fifth-overall selection in the 2018 bantam draft, played his second game with the Blazers. . . . F Carson Denomie, who was acquired Thursday by the Warriors, played his third game with his new teammates and his first against his ex-teammates. Yes, head coach Tim Hunter had him in the starting lineup. . . . Blazers F Jeff Faith sat out the third game of a five-game WHL suspension. . . . With Faith, who can also play on the back end, and the injured Quinn Schmiemann out, the Blazers dressed five defencemen. . . . The Warriors are without D Daemon Hunt, who is listed as being out week-to-week. . . . According to the Warriors’ Twitter account, this road trip will involve playing seven games in 14 days, and spending 51 hours on the bus to travel 4,629 km.
.500 or better. That, of course, would seem to indicate that there are 15 teams that have won more games than they have lost.
are playing in the U-15 Little Caesars midget program. Their Tier I team is ranked second in the U.S. . . . O’Brien, a 15-year-old from Denver, has six goals and 14 assists in 20 games. . . . In 25 games, Stefan, who is from Laguna, Calif., has 15 goals and 13 assists. Stefan, 15 is the son of Patrik Stefan, whose playing career included 455 NHL games — 414 with the Atlanta Thrashers and 41 with the Dallas Stars. Patrik now is the head coach of the Little Caesars midget team. . . . The then-Edmonton Ice selected Patrik in the 1997 CHL import draft but he never played in the WHL.
McMaster, 16, is pointless in three games with the Ice this season. He was a second-round pick by the Ice in the WHL’s 2017 bantam draft. . . . D Ben Zloty, 16, has gone back to the midget AAA Calgary Royals, while F Owen Pederson, 16, was returned to the prep team at OHA Edmonton. Pederson, a fifth-round selection in the 2017 bantam draft, is pointless in six games; Zloty, a sixth-round pick in the 2017 bantam draft, is pointless in three. . . . The Ice already has had 32 players dress for at least one game. . . . At 6-12-3, the Ice is three points out of the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot, but has played five more games than the Moose Jaw Warriors (7-5-4), who are in possession of that berth, at least for now.
host Windsor Spitfires on Saturday night. . . . Windsor won the game, 2-1, in a shootout and when it was over three goaltenders — two from the Storm — were introduced as the three stars. . . . Windsor’s Michael DiPietro was the first star, after stopping 31 shots. . . . Guelph starter Anthony Popovich blocked 28 shots and was selected as second star. . . . Nico Daws, Guelph’s backup on this night, was named the third star, despite not being credited with any playing time. . . . Daws came off the bench at 2:58 of OT and stopped Windsor F Cody Morgan on a penalty shot. On the play that led to the penalty shot, Morgan was hauled down from behind and fell into Popovich, who ended up with a broken skate blade. When the skate couldn’t be repaired quickly, referee Joe Celestin called for Daws to enter the game. . . . Daws stopped Morgan, and Popovich, a new blade in place, re-entered the game. . . . While Daws was announced as third star after the game, it appears to have been changed later because the OHL website now shows the third star as Windsor F Daniel D’Amico. He scored the winner in the eighth round of the shootout. . . . Tony Saxon of 
victory over the Hurricanes in Lethbridge. . . . Edmonton (13-7-2) has points in nine straight games (8-0-1). The Oil Kings lead the Central Division by one point over the Red Deer Rebels (13-5-1), who hold three games in hand. . . . Lethbridge (8-6-4) was 1-0-1 in its previous two outings. . . . The same teams will be back at it Friday, again in Lethbridge. . . . Fix-Wolansky now leads the WHL in assists (32) and points (45). He has points in 10 straight games, with seven goals and 20 assists in that run. . . . Fix-Wolansky (13) broke a 2-2 tie at 7:19 of the second period, while shorthanded, and D Conner McDonald (6) made it 4-2, on a PP, at 19:42. . . . The Hurricanes got to within a goal just 53 seconds into the third period when F Zachary Cox scored, but F Vince Loschiavo (10) got that one back for Edmonton at 9:39. . . . Cox (6) made it a one-goal game again, at 11:16, but the Oil Kings got insurance from F Jalen Luypen (2) at 18:30. . . . F Brett Kemp scored his 15th goal and added two assists for the winners, with F Quinn Benjafield earning three assists. . . . Lethbridge F Jadon Joseph had his point streak snapped at 11 games. He had nine goals and six assists in that time.
TAKING NOTE 