Saturday . . .

Today we bring big, big news for hockey fans.

Doyle Potenteau is putting the finishing touches on his baby -- the first edition of DubNation’s magazine.
This has been a long-term project -- and dream -- for Potenteau, who covers the WHL and the Kelowna Rockets for the Kelowna Daily Courier. Potenteau had a vision a long time ago and he is this () close to seeing it to fruition.
Today, Potenteau is providing a taste of what’s to come. Here’s part of what he posted at DubNation, which is linked over there on the right:
“For the better part of the last month or so — or six years since the idea first popped into my head, but, hey, who's counting?!? — I've been putting the final touches on what will be DubNation's first edition. The magazine will come out next week, just in time for the WHL's 2010-11 season. The magazine will be available to everyone, and will be located on DubNation's main website, that being: www.dubnation.ca.
“The first edition will be in electronic format (in PDF format, to be precise), along with every edition thereafter. Best of all, it's free! As a sampler, I'm including two pages in today's post.”
For more, check out Potenteau’s post from today. And make sure you check out DubNation when it’s up. Understand that this is not a two-bit project -- the first edition will run to 30 pages.
Believe me when I tell you that Potenteau has been working on this for a long, long time and I am proud to have been involved, at least in a small way.
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In Friday’s late post, I quoted extensively from a story by John MacNeil of the Prince Albert Daily Herald. It was a terrific story about Marc Mackenzie, the forward with the Prince Albert Raiders, who interrupted a would-be burglar during a break-in on Thursday morning.
MacNeil’s story now is on the newspaper’s website.
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F Roman Wick (Red Deer, 2004-05) is getting some pub in the camp of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators. Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen takes a look at Wick, who was so good for Switzerland at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, right here.
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Another fan, this one from the Pacific Northwest, writes about the Crushed Can:
“I have only been one time, about 15 years ago.
“But, this season I am going on the eastern swing with the TBirds, just so I can go one more time to the Crushed Can.
“I tell people that until you have been there, I can describe it all I want, but it doesn’t really tell you what it is like.
“I sat top row, right in front of Bill Wilms and whomever was calling the game that night since Dan Russell had to do his own show.
“You can tell people that all you can see is the roof and the ice from that seat, you can show them a picture, but until they have sat there, they don’t get it.
“The Crushed Can is the last great hockey rink this league has, and I will miss it so much.
“There is no way they can ever make another rink like that one.”
The first time I read that, I had tears in my eyes. And not from laughing. . . .
Seriously, if you haven’t been there you can’t believe the experience.
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D Jared Cowen, 19, will play this season with the Spokane Chiefs or the Ottawa Senators, who selected him with the ninth overall pick of the 2009 NHL draft. The chances of him playing in the NHL grew Saturday when Ottawa D Filip Kuba had a skate catch a rut and went down, suffering what appears to be a serious injury to his right leg just moments into the first session of training camp at Scotiabank Place. If Kuba is gone for any length of time, you can bet Cowen will be given an opportunity to be on the Senators’ second defensive pairing, behind Chris Phillips and Sergei Gonchar.
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The Moose Jaw Warriors have dealt F Riley Reinbolt, 19, to the Calgary Hitmenfor a conditional 2012 seventh-round bantam draft pick. Reinbolt, who was a sixth-round pick by the Warriors in 2006, is from Calgary. He has played two seasons in Moose Jaw, with 10 points and 98 penalty minutes in 116 games.
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The Kamloops Blazers beat the Cougars 6-2 in Prince George on Saturday night and immediately after the game reassigned G Troy Trombley, 16, to the Alberta midget ranks. The 6-foot-6 Trombley, from Sherwood Park, Alta., was a third-round pick in the 2009 bantam draft and has signed a WHL contract. . . . The Blazers acquired G Jeff Bosch, 20, from the Moose Jaw Warriors on Friday and he’ll partner with G Jon Groehnheyde, 19. . . . Kamloops now has 25 players on its roster, including two goaltenders and eight defencemen. That also includes five players at NHL camps -- D Josh Caron (Minnesota), D Corey Fienhage (Buffalo), D Austin Madaisky (Columbus), F Brendan Ranford (Philadelphia) and F Chase Schubert (Edmonton). . . . Kamloops went 4-2 in the exhibition season, while the Cougars finished 1-4-0-1.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
     
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