Blazers big on weekend home dates

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily New Sports Editor
Craig Bonner, the general manager of the Kamloops Blazers, couldn’t stop
smiling as he headed home from Kelowna on Wednesday afternoon.
That’s because he was able to finagle 26 weekend home dates out of the WHL’s
Western Conference scheduling meeting. With each team playing 36
regular-season home games, it leaves the Blazers with only 10 mid-week home
assignments.
Officials from the conference’s 10 teams gathered in Kelowna on Tuesday
evening and then spent all of yesterday putting together a tentative
regular-season schedule under the watchful eye of Richard Doerksen, the
WHL’s vice-president hockey.
The schedule remains tentative until the league is able to put it under the
microscope and finalize it.
When it was all over, Bonner said he had scraped together 23 Friday or
Saturday games — “I believe we had 15 last season,” he said — and three
Sunday dates.
“That is something that was a priority for us,” Bonner said, adding that the
Blazers are “leaning towards” starting Sunday games at 6 p.m. “We’re kind of
going back and forth.”
The Blazers will open the regular season by going home-and-home with the
Chilliwack Bruins. They’ll play in Chilliwack on Sept. 18 and the next night
at Interior Savings Centre.
The following weekend, the Blazers will do the same with the Kelowna
Rockets, with the opener in Kamloops on Sept. 25. And the Blazers will play
two against the Vancouver Giants the very next weekend (Oct. 2-3), playing
here Friday and there Saturday.
“That’s kind of neat the way it worked out,” Bonner said of the early
home-and-home series with B.C. Division rivals.
Bonner felt that this season’s scheduling, the second time he has done it as
the club’s GM, “was way, way better than last season.”
He said there was a good selection of available dates at ISC and that “made
scheduling a lot easier for us. There were a lot of open dates and it worked
out well.”
———
The Blazers will open training camp with players registering on Aug. 20.
“The actual on-ice starts on Aug. 21,” Bonner said, adding that rookie and
main camp start that day.
“There will be games for the rookies and the older players will practise the
first two days. Then we’ll go all into the main camp on Aug. 23.
———
The Blazers have dropped D Daniel Medland-Marchen, 17, from their protected
list.
Medland-Marchen, from Kelowna, was a second-round pick, 37th overall, in the
2007 bantam draft. He played last season with the junior B Kamloops Storm,
totaling 14 points and 91 penalty minutes in 41 games.
“In fairness to him,” Bonner said, “this allows him to find a place without
being handcuffed by waiting for us to (try and trade him). He has free rein
to go where he wants.
“He realized we had a lot of guys coming back and wasn’t quite sure where he
fit in.”
———
JUST NOTES: Blazers F Brendan Ranford is one of 40 players who are to attend
the Canadian men’s U-18 selection camp in Calgary from Saturday to Tuesday.
Ranford, from Edmonton, is trying to earn one of 22 spots on the team, which
will take part in the Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament in the Czech Republic
and Slovakia from Aug. 11-15. The team will be announced Tuesday, and will
leave for Europe the following morning. . . . This season, the Blazers will
visit East Division teams, with those teams not coming this way. The Blazers
will begin their East Division swing on Oct. 16 against the Pats in Regina.
They’ll play the Brandon Wheat Kings (Oct. 17), Moose Jaw Warriors (Oct.
20), Swift Current Broncos (Oct. 21), Prince Albert Raiders (Oct. 23) and
Saskatoon Blades (Oct. 24). . . . The Blazers will hold their alumni weekend
Aug. 7 and 8 at Sun Peaks. Bonner said “upwards of 50 former players” are
expected to be on hand.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com