Monday . . .

Bruce Hamilton, the president and GM of the Kelowna Rockets and the chairman of the WHL’s board of governors, was in Vancouver on Monday.
While he did take in the NHL game between the Buffalo Sabres and the Canucks, that wasn’t the main purpose of his visit.
He was there to attend a news conference at which it was announced that he will be among the four inductees into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame this summer.
“(This) is a great honour,” Hamilton told me Monday evening. “I'm just a guy from Saskatoon trying to make our players be good people in the end.”
Hamilton is a former Saskatoon Blades forward (1974-77), who went on to play a bit professionally and was on an Allan Cup winner with the Spokane Flyers.
He helped out the Blades as an assistant coach for a bit and also was a firefighter in Saskatoon before becoming involved in the ownership of the Tacoma Rockets, an expansion franchise that began play in 1991-92 and moved to Kelowna for the 1995-96 season. Since then, the Rockets have appeared in four Memorial Cup tournaments.
Today, an argument could be made that the Rockets are the WHL’s leading franchise.
Because of the Rockets, Kelowna (aka the Little Apple) has played host to a Memorial Cup, which the Rockets won, and to World Junior Championship games and to WHL all-star games and Subway Super Series games.
In the world of major junior hockey, Kelowna is one of THE happening places.
The Rockets average more than 6,000 fans per game in 6,007-seat Prospera Place, and Hamilton will be first to give credit to people like his brother Gavin, the organization’s vice-president of business development, and Gavin’s wife, Anne-Marie, who is the director of marketing and game operations.
And, despite the cyclical nature of junior hockey, the Rockets, more often than not, are a competitive team. The Rockets are, in fact, the WHL’s defending champions. That was the franchise’s third WHL championship in seven seasons.
The credit for that, Bruce Hamilton will tell you, goes to the coaching staff and to super scout Lorne Frey -- his actual title is assistant GM/head scout/director of player personnel -- and his staff for keeping the talent tank full.
Still, it is Bruce Hamilton who is out in front -- he is the franchise’s lightning rod -- and his induction into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame is well deserved.
Going into the hall alongside Hamilton will be Trevor Linden, who went on from the Medicine Hat Tigers (1985-88) to a lengthy NHL career, former NHLer Dallas Drake and Frank Lento, the latter a Hockey Canada and B.C. Hockey executive.
Linden played 19 seasons in the NHL, 16 of them with the Vancouver Canucks, who retired his number (16) last season. In Vancouver, he is perhaps the most popular player ever to have played for the Canucks.
Drake, who is from Trail, played junior B in Rossland and junior A in Vernon.
The banquet and induction ceremony will be held in Penticton on July 23.
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Hamilton’s son, Curtis, a forward with the Saskatoon Blades, had surgery on his broken collarbone Sunday. He has broken the collarbone twice this season, although not in the same spot.
There is not yet a timetable for his return.
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So that is all for Patrice Cormier.
The 19-year-old captain of the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, and the captain of Canada’s national junior team, was suspended Monday for the remainder of this QMJHL season and all of the playoffs. That is his penalty for the flying elbow that landed on the head of Quebec Remparts defenceman Mikael Tam.
The suspension to Cormier arrives just a few days after the OHL drilled Windsor Spitfires forward Zack Kassian for a Jan. 14 hit that left Barrie Colts forward Matt Kennedy with a head injury. Kassian ended up with a 20-game suspension.
Kassian’s suspensions follows an OHL sentence that was handed down in November. Under the terms of that one, Erie Otters forward Michael Liambas had his season ended by the OHL for a thundering check on Kitchener Rangers defenceman Ben Fanelli. Because he is 20 and was in his last season of eligibility, the OHL effectively ended Liambas’s major junior career.
Now I’m not about to sit here and say that the suspensions were correct, or whether they have been too harsh or not harsh enough.
It is quite evident that the NHL, which has bailed every time it has had the opportunity to set a tone on punishment for hits to the head, is not prepared to act on something that has become all but epidemic.
It is time then for all other levels of hockey to act independently to eradicate this problem before someone dies on the ice in front of a few thousand witnesses. If that should happen -- and, given the video evidence before us on oh, so many sportscasts, that day would appear to be coming sooner rather than never -- there will two victims. Oh, and when that day arrives you can bet that the police will become involved in a big hurry.
In an attempt to prevent that day’s arrival, it is time to put the onus on coaches at all levels of hockey to redefine the term “finishing your check.” It is time for those same coaches to spend more time teaching how to take out an opposing player through angling and bumping, rather than through charging and elbowing.
After all, is it really necessary to try and put an opponent into the third row of the stands when all one is trying to do is separate him from the puck?
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THE MacBETH REPORT: F Jason Miller (Medicine Hat, 1987-1991) has been released by Dresden (Germany 2.Bundesliga).He had seven goals and 20 assists in 29 games this season.
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The Brandon Wheat Kings announced Monday that Tom Cochrane, a seven-time Juno winner, will be part of FanFest during the 2010 MasterCard Memorial Cup. (To our American readers, the Junos are our Grammys.)
Cochrane will headline the Memorial Cup final weekend social on May 22 in the Keystone Centre’s Manitoba Room. It’s worth noting that Cochrane got a taste of the Prairies on Saturday -- he was playing the casino in Swift Current when the power went out.
Cochrane was born in Lynn Lake, Man., which also is my hometown and the hometown of onetime New York Rangers prospect Steve Andrasick. (Actually, Steve and I both were born in Sherridon, Man., but we grew up in Lynn Lake. To give this a WHL flavour, it’s worth pointing out that Andrasick played for Pat Ginnell’s Flin Flon Bombers in the days of Bobby Clarke and Reggie Leach and Wayne Hawrysh et al.)
If you are planning on attending the Memorial Cup, here’s a bit more from the Wheat Kings’ press release:
Cochrane’s concert will be one of four “ticket” events to take place during the championship. Ticket prices, availability, as well as more news regarding this year’s Memorial Cup entertainment plans will be announced shortly.
Other Memorial Cup ticket events will include the Opening Banquet on Thursday, May 13, the Manitoba Homecoming Kick-off Social on Saturday, May 15, as well as the Canadian Hockey League Awards Ceremony at the Westman Centennial Auditorium on May 22.
The 2010 MasterCard Memorial Cup will be held in Brandon, May 14-23.
(Yes, Taking Note hopes to be there.)
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SOME SCHEDULING NOTES: The Spokane Chiefs will play the Blazers in Kamloops on Tuesday (Jan. 26). That game originally was scheduled for the following night (Wednesday, Jan. 27). Instead, the Chiefs will meet the Bruins in Chilliwack on Wednesday. . . . Those changes were made in order to avoid a conflict with the Olympic Torch Relay that will go through Kamloops on Wednesday. . . . Meanwhile, the game between the Kootenay Ice and the Pats that was to have been played Sunday (Jan. 24) in Regina has been moved to Monday, Feb. 1. Sunday’s game was postponed due to horrid weather conditions. Game time at the Brandt Centre on Feb. 1 will be 7 p.m.
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D Luca Sbisa spent Monday travelling to Portland and is expected to be at the Winterhawks’ Tuesday practice at Valley Ice Arena.
Sbisa, 19, was acquired from the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Jan. 10, the WHL’s trade deadline. He played for Switzerland in the World Junior Championship, where he suffered an abdominal injury. He has since been getting treatment in Switzerland.
If all goes according to plan, Sbisa will play for the Winterhawks on Friday when they meet the Silvertips in Everett.
He later will join Switzerland for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and will rejoin the Winterhawks at the conclusion of the Games.