You may have read here recently in The MacBeth Report that former Brandon Wheat Kings G Glen Hanlon had been dismissed as head coach of Dinamo Minsk, a Belarussian entry in the Continental Hockey League. Hanlon also is head coach of the Belarussian national team and, at the time, it was uncertain whether he would stay on. Well, a source told me Sunday that Hanlon will stay on as national team coach.
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Historically, a team has been considered to be at or over .500 if it earned at least one point for each game it has played. In other words, a team that has played 20 games is over .500 if it has 20 or more points. By that standard, the WHL goes into this week with 13 of its 22 teams at .500 or better, and with four more teams within two points of being at .500. . . . The NHL, meanwhile, has 22 of its 30 teams playing .500 hockey. . . . Ain’t life grand when there are loser points to throw around?
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The more I think about it the more I dislike the idea of Hockey Canada having the national junior team wear green jerseys in two games at the World Junior Championship in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The WJC, of course, will be played in Saskatchewan this time around. . . . Does this promotion mean that the WJC organizers are having trouble selling tickets to the 2010 event? Or is this just another cash grab that is needed to feed the Hockey Canada money cow? . . . Whatever, it’s a sad day when such a promotion is deemed necessary for an event that has always been able to stand on its own two feet. . . . But, hey, it all got Hockey Canada some space on Deadspin, and maybe that was the objective all along. Check it out right here.
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The Prince George Cougars split a home-ice weekend doubleheader with the Chilliwack Bruins and they did it without F Brett Connolly, the reigning CHL rookie of the year. Connolly has been out with a hip injury and is likely to be out for at least two more weeks. That means he’ll miss this weekend’s visit by the Tri-City Americans, who will be in Prince George for games Friday and Saturday.
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The Red Deer Rebels continue to be without F Landon Ferraro (knee) and D Alex Petrovic (ankle), although both are back skating. Neither will play Tuesday against the visiting Seattle Thunderbirds. The Rebels are hopeful that Ferraro will play on the weekend -- Red Deer is at home to Medicine Hat on Friday and Everett on Saturday -- but Petrovic is expected to watch for another two weeks.
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Fred Rinne of the Edmonton Sun has a great read right here about Shane Lehman, a player with the AJHL’s Spruce Grove Saints who can no longer play the game he loves but is thankful to be alive.
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SUNDAY:
In Calgary, D Michael Stone scored a PP goal at 10:29 of the third period to give the Hitmen a 2-1 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . The goal was Stone’s sixth of the season. . . . Seattle G Calvin Pickard stopped 33 shots, while Calgary’s Martin Jones, in his third game back from a high ankle sprain, turned aside 11. . . . Jones, 6-0 this season, won his 78th career victory to pass Dan Spence and become the winningest goaltender in Hitmen franchise history. . . . Calgary (12-3-0-0) took a 1-0 lead on F Tyler Fiddler’s goal at 4:24 of the first period. . . . Seattle F Prab Rai tied in on the PP at 6:43 of the second. . . . Fiddler had four goals in 66 games prior to this season. He has 10 in 15 games this season. . . . Al Murray, Hockey Canada’s chief scout, was in attendance. . . . Calgary has won five straight. . . . Attendance was 7,656. . . . The Hitmen, winners of five straight, are off until Wednesday when they meet the Rockets in Kelowna in the season’s first rematch of last season’s finalists.
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In Lethbridge, the Hurricanes scored the third period’s only three goals and beat the Moose Jaw Warriors, 5-4. . . . Moose Jaw led 4-2 going into the third after goals by F Spencer Edwards and F Brendan Rowinski broke a 2-2 tie. . . . The Hurricanes, who opened the season 0-8, now are 5-9-2-0. . . . Lethbridge is about to get D Luca Sbisa back from the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks. Sbisa, 19, opened last season with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers, who selected him 19th overall in the 2008 draft. He was returned to Lethbridge in February. His rights were dealt to Anaheim and he has been there since the NHL season opened. . . . The Warriors are 10-5-0-0. . . . F Carter Ashton’s second goal of the game, his ninth, cut into the Warriors’ lead and F Austin Fyten tied it at 10:14. . . . F Carter Bancks got the winner, his seventh goal this season, at 12:30. . . . Lethbridge G Linden Rowat stopped 28 shots to improve to 4-2-2-0. . . . Attendance was 2,747. . . . With the victory, Lethbridge moved out of the Eastern Conference cellar and into a tie for 10th with the Red Deer Rebels, two points ahead of the Kootenay Ice. . . . Sbisa, a 6-foot-2, 204-pounder from Italy, was pointless in eight games with the Ducks. . . . Sbisa’s arrival will leave the Hurricanes with three import players, one over the limit. Czech F Radim Valchar, acquired earlier this season from the Portland Winterhawks, is expected to be the odd-man out; the Hurricanes are trying to move him. He has five points in 11 games with Lethbridge.
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In Vancouver, the Giants blew a 2-0 first-period lead and then came from behind to edge the Kelowna Rockets, 5-4. . . . The Giants (10-3-1-2), who coughed up a 3-0 lead and lost 4-3 in OT in Kelowna on Friday, tied Sunday’s game on a goal by F J.T. Barnett, his 11th, and then won it when F Brendan Gallagher scored from a scramble at 16:38 of the third. . . . The Rockets (7-6-1-0) got a goal and two assists from D Tyson Barrie. . . . Kelowna G Chad Ketting came up with 31 saves in his first WHL start. . . . G Jamie Tucker stopped 26 shots for the Giants.
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In Regina, the Pats scored a 5-2 victory over the Broncos to avoid a weekend sweep. . . . The Broncos had beaten Regina 2-1 in Swift Current on Saturday. . . . Regina had lost three in a row, each by one goal. . . . Regina got a goal and two assists from F Jordan Eberle and two goals from F Graham Hood. . . . Eberle has 12 goals. . . . F Hampus Gustafsson scored his first WHL goal for Regina. . . . F Cody Eakin scored both Swift Current goals. After scoring six times in three weekend games, he leads the WHL with 15 goals. . . . Attendance was 3,806. . . . The Broncos (9-6-0-1), who are 9-1-0-0 at home, are 0-5-0-1 on the road. . . . Swift Current, playing its fourth game in five nights, dressed five defencemen, three of them freshmen. The Broncos have two defencemen, Eric Doyle and Jordan Evans, out with concussions. . . Attendance was 3,806.