Richard, Foreurs beat Oil Kings in 2OT

JUST NOTES:
The Vancouver Giants have received more than 100 resumes as they search to replace Don Hay, who left after 10 years as head coach and now is with the Kamloops Blazers. . . . Jay Janower of Global TV reports that the Giants’ management team has a five-man shortlist that includes three AHL coaches and two coaches who are involved at the Memorial Cup. . . . Janower’s two-minute report is right here.
---
D Anton Cederholm of the Portland Winterhawks has signed a three-year, entry-level deal with the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks. They selected him in the fifth round of the NHL’s 2013 draft. Cederholm, from Helsingborg, Sweden, had 16 points, four of them goals, in 71 regular-season games this season. He had five points, including two goals, in 21 playoff games. Cederholm is preparing for his 19-year-old season with Portland.
---
The ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers have been granted a voluntary suspension by the league’s board of governors, so won’t operate in 2014-15. . . . All Las Vegas players on ECHL contracts became unrestricted free agents with the announcement. . . . The Wranglers weren’t able to find a place to play next season. . . . John Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Sun has more right here.
---
The Indiana Ice won the USHL championship -- the Clark Cup -- on Tuesday night and then skated off into the sunset. . . . The Ice beat the host Waterloo Black Hawks 3-2 to win the best-of-five final, 3-2. . . . The Ice franchise now goes dormant as it wasn’t able to find a place to play in 2014-15. The USHL plans to hold a dispersal draft of players on the Ice roster.
---
THE COACHING GAME:
Paul McFarland is the new head coach of the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs. He had been on the Oshawa Generals’ coaching staff for two seasons as an assistant coach. . . . McFarland, 28, won a Memorial Cup as a player with the Kitchener Rangers in 2003. . . . With the Frontenacs, he replaces Todd Gill, whose contract wasn’t renewed after the team blew a 3-0 lead in a first-round playoff series and lost to the Peterborough Petes in seven games. . . . Doug Graham of the Kingston Whig-Standard has more right here.
---

MEMORIAL CUP
(at London, Ont., all times Eastern)
(all games televised by Sportsnet)
Friday: Val-d’Or 1, London 0 (8,863)
Saturday: Guelph 5, Edmonton 2 (8,842)
Sunday: Edmonton 5, London 2 (8,863)
Monday: Guelph 6, Val-d’Or 3 (8,796)
Tuesday: Val-d’Or 4, Edmonton 3 (2OT) (8,745)
Wednesday: London vs. Guelph, 7 p.m.
Thursday: Tiebreaker, if necessary, 7 p.m.
Friday: Semifinal, 7 p.m.
Saturday: No game scheduled.
Sunday: Final, 4 p.m.
---

TUESDAY’S GAME:
F Anthony Richard of the Val-d’Or Foreurs scored at 1:15 of the second OT period to give his guys a 4-3 victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings. . . . The last game of the round-robin is scheduled for tonight, with the host London Knights meeting the OHL-champion Guelph Storm. . . . The Storm already has clinched a berth in Sunday’s final. . . . A Guelph victory tonight means Edmonton and Val-d’Or will have a rematch in Friday’s semifinal game. . . . A London victory tonight will send the Knights into a Thursday tiebreaker against Edmonton. . . . "Right now, we know our fate. The kids are tired. Both teams battled hard," Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal said on the team’s website. "Both goaltenders played pretty well, I thought, but at the end of the day I thought we deserved the better fate." . . . The Oil Kings outshot the Foreurs, 50-33, and held a 3-2 lead with fewer than four minutes left in the third period. . . . Val-d’Or F Samuel Henley forced OT when he got the puck to the net and slid a backhander along the ice and just inside a post with 4:11 left in the third period. . . . With 15 minutes left in the third period, the Oil Kings held a 34-14 edge in shots, but Foreurs G Antoine Bibeau stood tall. . . . Included in Bibeau’s effort was a stop on a first-period penalty shot by F Edgars Kulda. Edmonton held a 2-0 lead at the time, on goals from F Reid Petryk and F Curtis Lazar, the latter via the PP. . . . "We got out to an early lead and didn't think we were playing all that particularly well, but I think that penalty shot miss by Eddie Kulda might have been the change in the game," Laxdal said. . . . F Shawn Ouellette-St-Amant got the Foreurs on the board at 17:04 of the first period, tipping in a point shot by D Ryan Graves. . . . Edmonton dominated play early in the second period but surrendered a shorthanded goal to Val-d’Or F Pierre-Maxime Poudrier at 9:38. . . . Edmonton F Henrik Samuelsson restored his club’s lead at 5:46 of the third period, but the Oil Kings weren’t able to hold it. . . . Bibeau stopped 47 shots. . . . Edmonton G Tristan Jarry turned aside 29 shots. . . . Edmonton was 1-for-3 on the PP and now is 2-for-16 in three games. . . . The Foreurs were 0-for-2. . . . Val-d’Or played without D Guillaume Gelinas, who suffered a knee injury in Monday’s 6-3 loss to the Storm. Gelinas was named the QMJHL’s top defenceman. . . . Guelph D Chadd Bauman received a kneeing major on the play on which Gelinas was injured. Bauman had yet to be suspended as the sun set on Tuesday’s action.
---

From F Tayler Thompson (@TommyToey) of the RBC Cup-champion Yorkton Terriers: “So now that I'm an RBC cup champ what's the chances we can just forget about those bank payments I owe you guys? @RBC_Canada”

There has never been a subscription fee for this blog, but if you enjoy stopping by here, why not consider donating to the cause? Just click HERE. . . and thank you very much.

Bibeau sharp as Foreurs open with victory; Royals goaltender signs pro deal

G Patrik Polivka (Victoria, 2012-14) has signed a two-year contract with Plzen (Czech Republic, Extraliga). This season with the Royals, he was 2.56 and .915 in 43 games. . . . Polivka, who turned 20 on March 4, is eligible to return to Victoria for one more season, but would have been a two-spotter -- a 20-year-old and an import. . . .


G Leland Irving (Everett, 2003-08) has signed a one-year contract with Avangard Omsk (Russia, KHL). This season with Jokerit Helsinki (Finland, Liiga), he was 2.14 and .922 in 55 games.
---



1. Dan Kinvig of the Abbotsford News reports right here that the CHL had some people conducting a survey in a local shopping centre on Wednesday. However, Jeff Hubert, the WHL’s director of communications, told Kinvig that the purpose of the survey wasn’t to test Abbotsford’s receptiveness to a WHL team. . . . I wonder how many Chilliwack residents happened to be in that particular shopping centre on Wednesday?

2. The news in The MacBeth Report that G Patrik Polivka has signed to play
professionally with his hometown team (he’s from Plzen, Czech Republic) puts G Coleman Vollrath, 19, atop the Victoria Royals’ depth chart. . . . Vollrath had a terrific season (20-8-2, 2.39, .928), really stepping up his game when Polivka missed time in early January and again in early February with a concussion. . . . Michael Herringer, an 18-year-old from Comox, B.C., who was a ninth-round draft pick in 2011, likely is in the Royals’ No. 2 slot, at least at this moment.

3. Wondering what’s in store for the Canadian Hockey League in terms of TV exposure through Rogers Communications over the next few years? Chris Zelkovich of the Eh Game over at Yahoo! Sports has some answers right here.

4. The championship game for the 2014 Memorial Cup is eight days away, but I have no idea what time the puck will drop. On what I believe is the tournament’s official website, there is one place where it has game time as noon Eastern. But I received an email today that contained the entire schedule, with starting times for every game but the final, which is listed as “TBD.” . . . So let’s go with TBD until TV decides when the game will begin.

5. When this season began, F Brendan Ranford was struggling to find playing time with the AHL’s Texas Stars. Things have since changed and Ranford, in his first pro season, is tied for the AHL playoff lead in goals. . . . Alyssa Dombrowski has more right here on Ranford, who played the previous five seasons with the Kamloops Blazers. . . . Ranford got his seventh goal last night as the visiting Stars beat the defending-champion Grand Rapids Griffins 3-2 to take a 3-2 lead in that series. Game 6 is Sunday in Texas.

6. The Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers open the third round of Stanley Cup play today and the puck drops at 10 a.m. Pacific. Thank you, Gary Bettman, and tell me again how TV doesn’t rule your world. . . . Come on! The Canadiens and Rangers in a Stanley Cup game has to be on CBC-TV on Saturday night.

7. The Drummond men now are involved in the ownership of two hockey teams, father Gary with the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes and son Jason with the Regina Pats. Greg Harder of the Regina Leader-Post has Jason’s story right here.
---




The Vancouver Giants have signed G Cody Porter, a North Vancouver native who turns 17 on Sept. 23. . . . Porter played this season with the midget AAA Vancouver-North West Giants (1.75, .942 in five games) and the BCHL’s West Kelowna Warriors (3.55, .875 in 16 games).
---
THE COACHING GAME:
Craig Mohr is the new head coach of the junior B Fernie Ghostriders of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. Mohr is quite familiar with the KIJHL, having coached the Ghostriders in their first two seasons (2004-06) in the KIJHL and also worked with the Golden and Beaver Valley franchises. He also has worked with the midget AAA Calgary North Stars. This season, he was the assistant GM and assistant coach with the AJHL’s Calgary Canucks. . . . He also played 17 games with the Flin Flon Bombers in what was then the WCHL in 1971-72. . . . Mohr takes over in Fernie from Dale Hladun, who now is head coach of the KIJHL’s 100 Mile House Wranglers.
---
The B.C. Major Midget Hockey League has revealed its list of head coaches for 2004-15. If you are interested, that list is right here.
---

MEMORIAL CUP
(at London, Ont., all times Eastern)
(all games televised by Sportsnet)
Friday: Val-d’Or 1 vs. London 0 (8,863)
Saturday: Guelph vs. Edmonton, 4 p.m.
Sunday: London vs. Edmonton, 7 p.m.
Monday: Guelph vs. Val-d’Or, 7 p.m.
Tuesday: Edmonton vs. Val-d’Or, 7 p.m.
Wednesday: London vs. Guelph, 7 p.m.
Thursday: Tiebreaker, if necessary, 7 p.m.
Friday: Semifinal, 7 p.m.
Saturday, May 24: No game scheduled.
Sunday, May 25: Final, TBD.
---

FRIDAY’S GAME:
The Val-d’Or Foreurs’ two stars came through in a 1-0 tournament-opening victory over the London Knights. . . . G Antoine Bibeau, whose NHL rights belong to the Toronto Maple Leafs, stopped 51 shots and F Anthony Mantha scored his 87th goal this season at 16:20 of the first period. . . . Mantha has 82 goals in 82 games for the Foreurs this season. . . . London G Anthony Stolarz, playing his first game in seven weeks after also serving an OHL suspension, stopped 27 shots. . . . The Knights were playing their first game after a 34-day layoff. They were eliminated by the eventual-champion Guelph Storm in the second round of the playoffs. . . . Bibeau stopped London F Bo Horvat on a third-period penalty shot. . . . In Saturday’s lone game, the WHL-champion Edmonton Oil Kings will meet the OHL-champion Guelph Storm.

There has never been a subscription fee for this blog, but if you enjoy stopping by here, why not consider donating to the cause? Just click HERE. . . and thank you very much.