More storm clouds appeared over the Portland Winter Hawks on Tuesday when the Portland Tribune reported that ex-head coach Mike Williamson has filed a lawsuit against the team, alleging breach of contract. With the WHL already poring over results of an audit of Winter Hawks’ finances, as conducted by the accounting firm KPMG, this lawsuit only muddies the Portland waters even more. . . . Oh to be a fly on the wall when the WHL’s board of governors next gathers in Calgary for the annual meeting in mid-June. . . .
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SOME MEMORIAL CUP THOUGHTS: The Spokane Chiefs, while not dominating the Memorial Cup in a big, big way, certainly have been the best team to this point. Their smothering defensive system has worked almost perfectly, with none of the other teams able to solve it, at least not in a one-game showdown. . . . The Chiefs, by virtue of their 3-0 record, now are enjoying four days off before they will play in Sunday’s final. The last time the Chiefs had so much time off? They had 10 days off between the end of the WHL final and the start of the Memorial Cup. They also were off for six days (March 29-April 3) after sweeping the Everett Silvertips from a first-round series and opening a second-round set with the Vancouver Giants. . . . Spokane will skate Wednesday and Friday, but will take Thursday off to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame and attend a Toronto Blue Jays game. . . . The Chiefs beat the QMJHL’s Gatineau Olympiques 3-1 on Tuesday night. The QMJHL champions went home with a 0-3 mark. . . . The two OHL teams — the Kitchener Rangers, who are the league champs and the host team, and the Belleville Bulls — meet Wednesday night with the winner getting last change when they play again Friday in the semifinal. These two teams just finished a seven-game series in the OHL final. . . . The Chiefs have, in essence, won three one-goal games. They beat Belleville 5-4 in OT and got past Kitchener, 2-1. And the victory over Gatineau included an empty-net goal. . . . While this tournament has featured a whole lot of speed and skating, you have to wonder: Where is the grit? Where is the physical play that has made major junior hockey such a fan favourite over the years. The Chiefs’ three games have included eight, five and six minor penalties. If this is the direction in which major junior hockey is headed, you can look for more general managers to instruct their scouts to focus strictly on skating ability and puck-handling skills when they are out beating the bushes. . . .
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The quote of the week belongs to Spokane head coach Bill Peters who, in discussing Chiefs G Dustin Tokarski, told Eric Koreen of the Canwest News Service: "He's more like a real player, not a goaltender. Goaltenders are out there a little bit, and that's not a knock on goalies. Everybody knows there's a screw loose there. His screw isn't as loose as most of them. He gets along with everybody."
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The AHL’s Manitoba Moose, an affiliate of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, signed LW Mark Derlago. The 22-year-old Derlago, a product of the Brandon Wheat Kings, got into four games with the Moose this season, picking up five points, two of them goals. He played 68 games with the ECHL’s Bakersfield Condors, and led the club with 39 goals. Derlago is a nephew of former Brandon sniper Bill Derlago.
