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| Cam Lanigan, here in a game against the Seattle Thunderbirds on Friday in Everett, is one of five goaltenders still in camp with the Portland Winterhawks. Lanigan was claimed off waivers from the — you guessed it — Kamloops Blazers over the summer. (Christopher Mast / Mastimages.com) |
D Craig Weller (Kootenay, 2000-02) signed a contract for the rest of this season with Ingolstadt (Germany, DEL) after a successful tryout. Weller was with Villach (Austria, Erste Bank Liga) last season, getting five goals and six assists in 45 games.
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Best wishes to Rob Morphy, a veteran hockey scout, who is in a Vancouver hospital after having received a visit from a scalpel-wielding surgeon or two. . . . Rumour has it the NHL season is on hold and won’t start until you’re up and around, big guy.
Morphy, who is from Kamloops, signed on in June to work as the director of scouting and head scout for the BCHL’s Salmon Arm Silverbacks.
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The biggest hockey story of Wednesday had nothing to do with the NHL’s impending lockout. No, it had everything to do with a report out of Boston on the Boston University Terriers’ hockey team.
The report came out of an internal investigation and showed, according to an Associated Press report, that “a culture of ‘sexual entitlement’ exists among some BU men’s hockey players.
The university’s president commissioned a task force after two alleged sexual assaults occurred last season.
The AP report is right here, and there’s a bit more right here from boston.com.
Anyone involved in the management of any team at a level where players are idolized in their community needs to take a good look at this report for obvious reasons.
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The Prince George Cougars have signed F Aaron Boyd, a Winnipegger who was a second-round pick in the 2012 bantam draft. He had 35 points in 30 games with the bantam AAA Winnipeg Hawks last season. Boyd played in two victories at the Edmonton Oil Kings’ tournament in St. Albert, Alta., last weekend. In other words, the Cougars are 2-0 with him in the lineup. . . . Boyd will play midget AAA this season, for either the Winnipeg Hawks or Winnipeg Thrashers.
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Jason Peters of the Prince George Citizen reports that the Cougars are down to two goaltenders — Devon Fordyce, 18, and Brett Zarowny, 17. . . . Ty Edmonds, 16, was released from camp after the Cougars finished play in St. Albert. . . . Fordyce backed up starter Drew Owsley last season, going 2-8-1, 4.30, .875. Owsley played out his eligibility last season. . . . Zarowny played for the midget AAA Leduc Oil Kings. . . . "It will be a good battle between the two of them to see who can earn the right to start most of the games," Cougars head coach Dean Clark told Peters. . . . Fordyce was a sixth-round pick in the 2009 draft; Zarowny was taken in 2010’s third round.
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The Victoria Royals have dealt F Justin Spagrud, 17, and a conditional second-round bantam draft pick to the Swift Current Broncos for F Evan Richardson, 18. . . . Spagrud, a third-round pick by the Tri-City Americans in the 2010 bantam draft, is from Gull Lake, Sask., which is just a stone’s throw from Swift Current. In fact, I can’t mention Gull Lake without pointing out that it is the hometown of Roger Aldag, the Hall of Fame offensive lineman who had such a great career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. . . . Last season, Spagrud had 36 points and 48 penalty minutes in 31 games with the midget AAA Swift Current Legionnaires. . . . A year ago, Victoria acquired Spagrud and a second-round pick in the 2013 bantam draft from Tri-City for D Mitch Topping. . . . The Broncos selected Richardson, who is from Nanaimo, with the 15th overall pick in the 2009 bantam draft, but he has yet to play in the WHL. Last season, he had 55 points in 48 games with the BCHL’s Powell River Kings. He also has played for the BCHL’s Victoria Grizzlies and Alberni Valley Bulldogs. . . . The 5-foot-8, 170-pound Richardson has committed to Boston College. The conditional draft pick the Broncos received pays off only if Richardson plays in Victoria.
“Evan is not expected to report to our camp, but if he has a change of heart, we’d welcome him,” Cam, Hope, the Royals’ GM, told Ron Rauch of the Victoria Times Colonist. “Everybody’s plans do change and he is just the type of player that is worth having on your list.”
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The Calgary Hitmen have dealt D Keaton Lubin, 18, to the Regina Pats for a conditional sixth round pick in the 2014 bantam draft. Lubin, from Okotoks, Alta., was a third-round selection in the 2009 bantam draft. He had one goal in 36 games with the Hitmen in 2010-11 and one assist in 14 games with Calgary last season.
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Former NHL F Jeremy Reich is into the coaching game. He has signed on as assistant GM/assistant coach with the AJHL’s Canmore Eagles. Reich, 33, is from Craik, Sask. He played in the WHL with the Seattle Thunderbirds and Swift Current Broncos (1995-2000). While in Swift Current, he was teammates with Andrew Milne, who is the Eagles’ GM/head coach. . . . “I’ve known Jeremy for the past 15 years and he will be a huge addition for the Canmore Eagles hockey club this year,” Milne said in a press release. “He’s played at the highest level possible and knows what it takes to be successful in hockey. His professional experience will be a great asset on the practice rink, in the dressing room and on the bench.” . . . Reich last played in the NHL in 2007-08 when he was in 58 games with the Boston Bruins. Last season, he played in Germany. . . . Kurtis Jones, a four-year assistant, remains with the Eagles. However, Jones also works as an electrician so hasn’t been able to give the Eagles as much as he would have liked.
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The Portland Winterhawks are down to four 20-year-olds after having released F Jason Trott. . . . Trott, from Anmore, B.C., had five points in 36 games with Portland last season, after getting three pints in 32 games in 2010-11. . . . His departure leaves the Winterhawks with G Mac Carruth, G Cam Lanigan, D Troy Rutkowski and F Taylor Peters as the four 20-year-olds in camp. . . . Carruth, however, has signed with the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks and may well start the season in their organization. . . . The Winterhawks still have three other goaltenders in camp, as Carruth and Lanigan are joined by holdover Brendan Burke, 17, Brendan Jensen, 19, and Jarrod Schamerhorn, 17. . . . G Adin Hill, 16, was the sixth netminder in camp but has returned home to Calgary where he is expected to play for a midget AAA team.
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F Jesse Mychan, 20, of the Tri-City Americans is expected to play his first game of the exhibition season on Friday against the visiting Seattle Thunderbirds. Mychan, who joined Tri-City in a trade from the Everett Silvertips last season, suffered a severed Achilles tendon during the first round of last spring’s playoffs and subsequently underwent surgery.
“He is back and healed up,” Tri-City head coach Jim Hiller told Annie Fowler of the Tri-City Herald. “You can see the work he has put in in the meantime. He’s dropped 23 pounds and that ties into his frame of mind. He’s into it fully.”
Mychan is one of five 20-year-olds on the Americans’ roster, the others being D Drydn Dow, F Justin Feser, F Jordan Messier and D Derek Ryckman.
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Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province reports that the Vancouver Giants will salute Joe Sakic on Feb. 1 when the Kelowna Rockets visit Pacific Coliseum. . . . Sakic, 43, is a native of Burnaby, B.C., who won two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche. He will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Nov. 12. . . . Sakic played two seasons (1986-88) with the Swift Current Broncos. He survived the Dec. 30, 1986 bus crash that claimed the lives of four teammates.
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Here is the start of an Associated Press report that was filed on Wednesday:
“A study of former NFL players finds they were unusually prone to dying from degenerative brain disease, the latest indication that repeated blows to the head may cause serious trouble later on.
“The death rate from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease combined was about three times what one would predict from the general population, researchers reported.”
That story is right here, and it includes a comment from Dr. Robert Cantu, the co-director of the center at Boston University that studies CTE.
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