Monday . . .

The Portland Winter Hawks will be a bit short of players at practice Tuesday as a group is traveling to Las Vegas to attend the funeral of Dave Francis, the father of F Chris Francis. Dave had a stroke on the Jan. 3 weekend and never recovered. Chris, four of his teammates and the Winter Hawks’ coaching staff will fly to Las Vegas on Tuesday and return Wednesday for a game in Spokane against the Chiefs. Portland owner Bill Gallacher is footing the bill. . . . Chris has stayed with the Winter Hawks and, in fact, scored the OT-forcing goal in a 5-4 shootout loss to the visiting Everett Silvertips on Sunday. “When I scored that goal, I knew my dad was watching me tonight,” Chris told Scott Sepich, a freelancer who is covering the Winter Hawks for the Oregonian.
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F Tomas Vincour of the Edmonton Oil Kings won’t play in the Home Hardware Top Prospects Game due to injury. He has been replaced by F Marcus Foligno of the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves. . . . The skills competition goes Tuesday night in Oshawa, with the game set for Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS.
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F Evander Kane of the Vancouver Giants is the Boston Pizza WHL player of the week. He had six points, four of them goals, as the Giants won two road games. It is the second time Kane has won the honour; he was also player of the week for the period ending Oct. 12. . . . G James Reid of the Spokane Chiefs is the WHL nominee as the ADT CHL goaltender of the week. He was 2-0-0-0 with a 0.50 GAA and a .977 save percentage.
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When the Tri-City Americans visit the Bruins in Chilliwack on Tuesday night, the game will be televised throughout the Pacific Northwest on Fox Sports Northwest. “It’s been a long time coming,” Americans general manager Bob Tory told Annie Fowler of the Tri-City Herald. “This is big for the league and huge for the U.S. Division. There are some big markets for people to see our product and for us to educate them about the league. We have to hope viewership is good so they renew next year.” . . . The Americans will have G Chet Pickard back with them. They were 7-4-0-0 while he was with Team Canada and Drew Owsley and Brett Martyniuk handled the goaltending.
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The QMJHL’s Lewiston MAINEiacs will reveal a new head coach Tuesday after they fired GM/head coach Ed Harding on Monday. Harding was an assistant coach as Lewiston won the QMJHL’s regular-season and playoff titles and qualified to the 2007 Memorial Cup in Vancouver. He was named GM/Head coach in June 2007 and the team finished ninth. This season, Lewiston is 14-32-0-0 and tied for 17th place.