Friday . . .

THE MacBETH REPORT: F Greg Watson (Prince Albert) signed a one-year contract with Aalborg (Denmark AL-Bank Liga). He had 24 goals and 41 assists in 47 games with Brunico (Italy Serie A) this season.
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In case you missed it, the OHL released its 2009-10 schedule this week, while the QMJHL released its schedule a couple of weeks ago. Teams now are releasing their preseason schedules. . . . In the WHL, where again there is no rush, the pooh-bahs are going golfing Monday in Vancouver and then will hold the annual general meeting the next day. No, there won’t be any scheduling done at that meeting. In fact, you likely will have to wait until early August for a WHL schedule. . . . As one longtime observer put it Friday: “Aaahhh, I long for the ‘80s, when the WHL did its entire schedule at the annual meeting . . . and that was when the Winterhawks had to share their building with the NBA for the entire season -- there was no Rose Garden yet. Brian Shaw would have 39 solid home dates at the meeting and the deal would get done . . . in June.”
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There was another change in Lethbridge this week as Doug Campbell, the Hurricanes’ business manager, left the team to become sales manager for Clearly Interactive Inc., a new Lethbridge-based media company that is affiliated with Clear Sky Radio and CJOC-FM in Lethbridge. Campbell had been with the Hurricanes since 2001, with a hiatus from July 2005 to May 2006 when he returned as director of business operations. . . . Campbell’s announced departure comes nine days after the Hurricanes hired Geoff Stewart as business operations manager. And, on Thursday, Stewart announced that the team, which has neither a GM nor a head coach, had extended its early bird season-ticket deadline from June 15 to June 26. That would seem to indicate that the community-owned team’s board of directors hopes to have a GM in place before June 26. . . . Pat Siedlecki, the radio voice of the Hurricanes, reports on his blog that the hiring committee has interviewed four candidates and that the position of GM will be offered to one of them this weekend.
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THE COACHING GAME: Former WHL G Pete Peeters has been told the Edmonton Oilers won’t renew his contract as goaltending coach. Peeters has been with the Oilers for eight NHL seasons.
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The hockey season is over. Finally. . . . The Hershey Bears won the Calder Cup as AHL champions, beating the Manitoba Moose 4-1 in Winnipeg on Friday to win that series in six games. . . . In Detroit, the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Red Wings, 2-1, in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. . . . Thankfully, the hockey season didn’t outlast the NBA season. . . . Any time the Stanley Cup final goes seven games it is one for the ages and this series was definitely one of those. . . . Now I am going to beat a dead horse for the last time until next fall. . . . One play in Game 7 summed up this entire hockey season for me. It was in the second period and there was one of the two referees – Bill McCreary, I believe – tangled up with two skaters behind one of the nets. It was one of numerous occasions, again, where one of the four on-ice officials ended up interfering with the play. There are times when it appears that they don’t even attempt to get out of the way. . . . Enough is enough. The time has come to get rid of the two-man system. It stinks. Period. . . . By the way, if you watched the Stanley Cup playoffs at all you noticed that crosschecking is back in vogue and, as the playoffs evolved, interference and holding crept back into the game like lava seeping from a volcano. . . . When the officials call the obstruction, when they call the holding and the interference, the game has never been better. So why do they change the rules at this time of the season? . . . Oh, yes, that’s right. They want the players to decide things. That being the case, let the players decide things during the regular season, too, and how be they be allowed to decide things with just one referee on the ice surface? . . . And let’s not forget that there should have been an icing call immediately preceding Pittsburgh’s first goal in Game 7. Geez, the NHL final deserves better officiating than what we witnessed the last while. . . . The WHL is holding its annual meeting in Vancouver on Tuesday and, while it won’t happen, it sure would be nice to see it put the two-man system in the ashcan.
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Here’s a comment by The Globe and Mail’s Roy McGregor off a live blog during the first period of Game 7: “I'm afraid I find this ‘whistle in the pocket’ refereeing is doing the game or the league no favours. This one rule for the final, another rule for all the rest of the time is, sad to say, ludicrous.”
A little later, here’s Steve McAllister of The Globe and Mail: “To my, and I'm sure, Roy's chagrin, Helm gets plowed into the boards from behind with no call. I know it's Game 7 but it shouldn't be open season out there.”
Unfortunately, it was.
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And, finally . . . Paris Hilton and Cristiano Ronaldo. . . . Does it get any better than that? . . . The headline in The Sun: Ronaldo has night out in Paris . . . Check it out right here.