Saturday . . .

It seems that these are interesting time behind closed doors in the Lethbridge Hurricanes organization.
The Hurricanes reached the WHL’s championship final a year ago, where they were swept by the Spokane Chiefs, who went on to win the Memorial Cup. This time around, the Hurricanes had an inconsistent regular season and were the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed. They upset the No. 2 Saskatoon Blades in seven games in the first round but then were swept by the No. Calgary Hitmen.
General manager Roy Stasiuk and head coach Michael Dyck both signed with the Hurricanes on Nov. 8, 2005. Each signed a contract covering the rest of 2005-06 and two more seasons, with the club holding an option on a fourth season. On Nov. 27, 2007, the Hurricanes announced that the board of directors had voted unanimously to pick up those options, which covered 2008-09.
Sometime after that, the board extended Stasiuk’s contract through 2009-10 with a club option for 2010-11.
Dyck turned down at least three offers before the start of this season and chose not to talk contract during the season.
Now, with the Hurricanes’ season over, Purcell reports that the rumour mill is “swirling about tension between coaching staff and management.”
Defenceman Ben Wright, the Hurricanes’ captain, told Purcell: “We’re not stupid in that room. But there was never any effect on the way they ran the team. I think both of them were always too professional to let any of that get to us.”
Stasiuk is scouting at the World U-18 championship in Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., and won’t be doing his post-mortem until he returns to Lethbridge. At that point, he will do his season-ending exit interviews with Dyck and assistant coach Matt Kabayama.
Sometime after that, the direction in which the Hurricanes choose to go will become obvious.
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If you haven’t seen it, the list of players invited to the NHL scouting combine is right here.
The combine is scheduled for May 25-30 at the Westin Bristol Place hotel in Toronto.
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For the latest on the Portland situation involving Memorial Coliseum, take a trip to right here. Is it just me, or is this starting to sound a bit like what was going on in Moose Jaw?