Friday . . .

The Saskatoon Blades will salute Jerome Engele on Saturday and, yes, it is a well-deserved honour. Engele, presently an assistant coach with the Blades, will be honoured as a builder and will join a group that includes founder Jim Piggott, owner Nate Brodsky, GM/coach Daryl Lubiniecki and Jack McLeod, who was an owner and also served as GM and coach. Engele, raised on a farm near Humboldt, played for the Blades in the 1960s before going on to a pro career that included 100 NHL games. He was the Blades’ head coach in 1979-80 and has served as an assistant coach from 1983-97 and again from 2004 until now. He also has a fulltime job with the Saskatoon Police Service. Carrying the title of Inspector, he has been with the force for 25 years. . . . And it should be noted that he has a terrific sense of humour. . . . “There would be very, very few players — of all the players that went through the Saskatoon Blades’ organization — that weren’t touched in one way or another by Jerome Engele,” Blades owner Jack Brodsky told Cory Wolfe of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. . . . Engele told Wolfe: “It’s quite an honour and you don’t feel as though you deserve to be placed on the same banner as those men. They’re men who have done exceptional things. I’ve just done something that I enjoy — playing hockey and being around the hockey players.” . . .

Garth MacBeth, our man with his finger on the pulse of the European scene, reports that Jere Karalahti was formally charged Friday with a “gross drug crime” in connection with a large scale cocaine and amphetamine trafficking ring and ordered to prison to await trail. According to MacBeth, Finland has no bail system like in North America; you are held in jail once charged until the trial finishes. He adds that Finnish media are reporting that this occurred in July and that Karalahti might have been a drug courier for some group. Karalahti served three months probation in 1996 after a guilty plea on charges of using cannabis and heroin. If convicted, he faces a sentence of one to 10 years, which could be all jail time, all probation, or a combination of the two. . . . No matter how you look at it, Karalahti, who once was profiled in Sports Illustrated, appears to be in deep this time. . . .

Meanwhile, on the ice, MacBeth reports that G Milan Hnilicka (Swift Current) moves from Liberec (Czech Extraliga) to Salavat Yulaev Ufa (Russian Superliga), where he joins ex-NHLers Oleg Tverdovsky (Brandon), F Stanislav Chistov, and D Alexander Boikov (Victoria/Prince George/Tri-City).