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D Andrej Meszároš (Vancouver, 2004-05) has signed a one-year extension with Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia, KHL). The team captain, he had four goals and nine assists in 35 games this season. . . .
F C.J. Stretch (Kamloops, 2005-10) has signed a one-year extension with Löwen Frankfurt (Germany, DEL2). This season, he finished third in the league scoring race, putting up 60 points, including 34 assists, in 52 games. . . .
G Patrik Bartošák (Red Deer, 2011-14) has signed a one-year extension with Vítkovice Ostrava (Czech Republic, Extraliga). This season, in 41 games, he was 2.22 and 926, with five shutouts. . . .
F Marek Kalus (Spokane, Brandon, 2010-13) has signed a try-out contract with Vítkovice Ostrava (Czech Republic, Extraliga). This season, with Havířov (Czech Republic, 1. Liga), he had 12 goals and 13 assists in 41 games. . . .
D Tomáš Kundrátek (Medicine Hat, 2008-10) has signed a one-year contract with Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod (Russia, KHL). This season, with Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia, KHL), he had eight goals and five assists in 39 games.
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@Butter_29 @SCBroncos @aleksiheponiemi @T_Steener @TheWHL They need a 'trainer of the year' award.— Regan Bartel (@Reganrant) May 3, 2017
The WHL handed out its postseason awards on Wednesday in Calgary and it turned into the Regina Pats show.
The Seattle Thunderbirds are hoping that doesn’t happen in the championship final, for the Ed Chynoweth Cup, that opens Friday in Regina.
During the afternoon proceedings, a number of Pats were honoured:
F Sam Steel was given the Four Broncos Memorial Trophy as player of the year;
John Paddock received the Dunc McCallum Memorial Trophy as the coach of the year, the second time his three seasons in the WHL that he has won this award;
Paddock also picked up the Lloyd Saunders Memorial Trophy as the executive of the year;
The Pats’ front office was award the WHL Business Award;
The Pats were presented the Scott Munro Memorial Trophy as regular-season champions; and,
Steel picked up the Bob Clarke Trophy as the regular-season scoring champion.
The last time the same man was coach- and executive-of-the-year in the same season? Brent Sutter of the Red Deer Rebels got both awards for the 2000-01 season.
The last time the same man was coach- and executive-of-the-year in the same season? Brent Sutter of the Red Deer Rebels got both awards for the 2000-01 season.
There is a whole lot more on these award winners and others on the WHL’s website — whl.ca.
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Our friends on the HMCS Regina are ready for the WHL Championship Series! Thanks boys! #WHLPlayoffs #REGvsSEA pic.twitter.com/8n5xYfpGdT— #JoinTheRegiment (@WHLPats) May 2, 2017
The Seattle Thunderbirds flew into Regina on Wednesday afternoon to begin final preparations for the Friday night opening of the WHL’s championship series for the Ed Chynoweth Cup.
Last season, the Thunderbirds met the Brandon Wheat Kings in the final, with the Manitoba squad winning the series, 4-1. That series opened in Brandon and was played with a 2-3-2 format. In order to get to Brandon, the Thunderbirds rode their bus to Abbotsford, B.C., then flew to the Wheat City. When the teams flew back, they rode the same charter from Brandon to Abbotsford, then took separate busses to Kent, Wash.
Yesterday, the Thunderbirds flew out of Boeing Field, which I’m told involved a 15-minute bus ride to get there, which beats the two-hour ride to Abbotsford. So the Thunderbirds, you might say, already are ahead of the game.
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The WHL’s bantam draft is scheduled to begin this morning at 7:30 PT in Calgary. There won’t be any running coverage of the draft at this site. They start streaming at whl.ca at 7:30 PT.
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Dale Molnar of CBC News writes:
“Tournament packages have sold for as much $885. The cheapest single-game tickets now on sale are $75, compared to around $20 for the cheapest regular season ticket for a Windsor Spitfires game.”
John Savage, the chairperson of the Windsor organization committee and a co-owner of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, the host team, told Molnar that ticket prices cover costs like flights and hotels for the competing teams.
"Just looking at the work and effort that has to go into this, it's really a break even proposition," Savage told Molnar.
According to financial statements filed in a Calgary court earlier this year, each of the WHL’s 22 teams received $148,913 — a total of $3,276,088 — from the 2013 Memorial Cup that was held in Saskatoon. On top of that, each team got $118,477 — a total of $2,606,494 — from the 2016 Memorial Cup that was held in Red Deer.
Molnar’s story is right here.
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The Southern Professional Hockey League lost a franchise on Wednesday as the Columbus Cottonmouths announced that they will suspend operations, at least for 2017-18. . . . The Cottonmouths had been around for 21 seasons. . . . Jerome Bechard, who played in the WHL with the Moose Jaw Warriors (1986-90), is the Cottonmouths’ general manager and head coach. “The franchise is still there,” Bechard, who has been in Columbus since Day 1 in 1996, told Chuck Williams of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. “The league and ourselves are still working to get an ownership group in here. Obviously, not to play ’17-18, but, hopefully, to come back in ’18-19.” . . . Williams’ story is right here.
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The BCHL’s Surrey Eagles have signed Brandon West to a multi-year contract as their head coach. West has coached in the BCHL for more than six seasons, most recently with the Salmon Arm Silverbacks. He was in his third season with Salmon Arm when he was fired in November. . . . With the Eagles, West, 32, takes over from Blaine Neufeld, the head coach for the past three seasons. Neufeld now is the Eagles’ general manager. . . . It is interesting, too, that Eagles owner Chuck Westgard has taken a hands-on approach again. From a news release: “Three years ago, after having the Eagles win the Fred Page Cup, the Western Canada Cup and eventually lose in overtime in the semi-final of the RBC Cup In Charlottetown, Westgard hired an outside management group to run the team. He has now decided the time is right to get actively involved again.” . . . This season, the Eagles finished 18-36-4-0 and didn’t qualify for the playoffs.
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Ed Patterson will be back for a seventh season as head coach the junior B Kamloops Storm of the Kootenay Junior International Hockey League. The Storm made that announcement on Wednesday. . . . The Storm also added Matt Kolle to its staff as the assistant general manager. . . . Patterson, 44, played in the WHL (1988-92) with the Seattle Thunderbirds, Swift Current Broncos and Kamloops Blazers. There had been some doubt as to whether he would return to the Storm after a change of venue — the team moved from McArthur Island to Memorial Arena — wasn’t greeted with gusto by the citizenry. “It . . . comes down to money,” Storm owner/GM Barry Dewar told Kamloops This Week in March. “If I can’t find a source of revenue to pay Ed . . . then it becomes hard to keep those kinds of talents.” . . . Apparently, Dewar and Patterson found a way to keep making it work. . . . Kolle had tried earlier this year to land a KIJHL franchise for Quesnel, B.C., however other team owners voted down that move in January.
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Former WHL/NHL F Jeff Shantz has been added to the coaching staff at the Edge School in Calgary. Shantz, 43, will be a co-coach, alongside Evan Bak, with the Bantam varsity team that plays in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League. . . . Shantz, from Duchess, Alta., played for the Regina Pats (1990-93), before going on to a pro career that included 642 games in the NHL. He retired following the 2010-11 season, after spending eight years in Europe.
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MONDAY-THURSDAY’S GAMES (all times local):
No Games Scheduled.
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FRIDAY’S GAME (all times local):
Seattle at Regina, 7 p.m. (Game 1)
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replaces Lorne Molleken and David Struch with the Blades. Molleken, the team’s long-time GM/head coach, was released by the team’s new owners, Mike and Colin Priestner, after last season. Struch, a former Blades player and long-time assistant coach under Molleken, got the heave-ho after one season as head coach.
1. F Evan Richardson, a sophomore forward at Boston College, won’t be returning to the Eagles. Richardson, 20, had two goals in four games last season as freshman. From Nanaimo, B.C., Richardson was selected 15th overall by the Swift Current Broncos in the 2009 WHL bantam draft. . . . On Sept. 5, 2012, the Broncos dealt his rights to the Victoria Royals for 1995-born F Justin Spagrud and a conditional second-round bantam draft pick. . . . As of late Monday night, Royals general manager Cam Hope hadn’t spoken with Richardson, who is believed to be thinking about playing junior A or transferring to another school. . . . Of course, he would be welcome to join the Royals and, as Hope told me, “fight for an overage spot with us . . . he’s a skilled player.” . . . The Royals have five 20-year-olds on their roster in D Travis Brown, F Austin Carroll, F Steven Hodges, F Brandon Magee and G Patrik Polivka. However, Hodges has signed with the NHL’s Florida Panthers, while Magee and Polivka have signed with teams in Europe.
2. The Medicine Hat Tigers have signed F James Hamblin, the 17th overall selection in the 2014 WHL bantam draft. Hamblin, from Edmonton, spent the past two seasons with the bantam AAA Edmonton-South Side Athletic Club Lions. Last season, he had 62 points, including 32 goals, in 31 games. . . . Hamblin was one of 21 prospects who attended the Tigers’ weekend orientation camp.
3. The Prince Albert Raiders have traded F Chance Braid, who turns 20 in September, and F Lance Yaremchuk, 18, to the Prince George Cougars for F Jordan Tkatch, 19, and a sixth-round selection in the 2016 bantam draft. . . . Braid, from Chauvin, Alta., has 57 points in 201 regular-season games, all with Prince Albert. . . . Yaremchuk had a goal and two assists in 15 games with the Raiders last season. He also had 
31 points, 15 of them goals, in 20 games with the midget AAA Prince Albert Mintos, who went on to win the Telus Cup. Yaremchuk was a sixth-round selection by the Raiders in the 2011 bantam draft. . . . Tkatch, a second-round pick by the Cougars in the 2010 bantam draft, put up 82 points, 33 of them goals, in 196 regular-season games. He is from Prud’Homme, which is located 110 km south of Prince Albert, where he played for the midget AAA Mintos. Last season, he had 46 points, including 16 goals, in 72 games.
5. When a team loses, it isn’t often that fans give the other team credit. When that happens in Game 7 of a championship series, it rarely happens. More often, the officials get the blame, it seems. So I must say I was quite pleased to get the following via email from a Portland Winterhawks’ fan:
6. F Sam Bennett of the Kingston Frontenacs is NHL Central Scouting’s top-ranked North American skater going into this month’s draft. But at the combine last weekend in Mississauga, Ont., Bennett wasn’t able to do even one pull-up. . . . Yes, that raised some eyebrows. But, as Neate Sager of Yahoo! Canada Sports writes 
8. Hockey Canada has revealed that registration for the 2013-14 season was down 5,600 from the previous season. The number of boys played hockey in Canada decreased for a third straight season. . . . Meanwhile, the number of new players involved in soccer went up by 20,000. . . . Alan Maki of The Globe and Mail delves into why that is happening 
Brandon West has been promoted to head coach of the BCHL’s Salmon Arm Silverbacks. He had been the associate coach under GM/head coach Troy Mick. . . . Mick now is the franchise’s governor, president and general manager. According to the BCHL constitution, a team’s head coach isn’t allowed to serve as governor. . . . Mick and West, who has been with Salmon Arm for three seasons, have worked together through the past two seasons.
Tom Keca won’t be back as the assistant GM/assistant coach with the AJHL’s Fort McMurray Oil Barons. Curtis Hunt, the team’s new GM and head coach, made that revelation on Monday. Keca had been with the Oil Barons for nine seasons. . . . Hunt also said that Ryan Allen, the club’s other assistant coach, will be back. . . . Robert Murray of Fort McMurray Today has more 
The Portland Winterhawks have come a long way in a rather short period of time. And it doesn’t sound like they’re going to be leaving any time soon. . . . Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune takes a comprehensive look 
The Prince Albert Raiders have signed Duane Bartley, their athletic therapist, and Bruce Vance, the business manager and director of marketing, to new deals. Both agreed to contracts that call for two years and an option. Bartley and Vance have been with the Raiders since 2011. . . . The Raiders also have added Prince Albert native Tom Brown to their marketing staff. Brown played four years at Michigan Tech and graduated with a degree in management. Brown played for the midget AAA Prince Albert Mintos who won the Telus Cup in 2006 and 2007. . . . The Raiders, who are without a head coach, have yet to announce the return of general manager Bruno Campese, but my understanding is that negotiations are on-going.
Malcolm Cameron is the new head coach of the Regina Pats, Cameron, an assistant coach for two years, replaces Pat Conacher. Cameron has signed a two-year contract with a club option on a third year. . . . It turns out that Conacher informed general manager Chad Lang on April 26 that he would be leaving the organization. Conacher was with the Pats for two seasons as head coach and had one year left on his contract. . . . Conacher joined the Pats from the staff of the then-Chilliwack Bruins. . . . Prior to joining the Pats, Cameron spent nine seasons coaching in the ECHL.
The Red Deer Rebels have dealt F Joel Hamilton to the Vancouver Giants for a third-round selection in the 2014 bantam draft. . . . Hamilton, who turns 19 on Sept. 9, is from Cochrane, Alta. He had 57 points, including 14 goals, in 114 games with the Rebels over two seasons. . . . He is the younger brother of former WHL F Wacey Hamilton (Medicine Hat, 2007-11).
In the OHL, F Mark Scheifele scored four times in the third period to lead the host Barrie Colts to a 6-4 victory over the London Knights. . . . The Colts hold a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven final with Game 5 in London on Friday. . . . Barrie trailed 3-1 after the second period and promptly scored five times in the third period. . . . Scheifele now has 39 points in 19 playoff games. . . . London head coach Dale Hunter was not a happy camper after the game. “Actually, we played very well,” he said in a postgame news conference. “We had a 3-1 lead, and the last six minutes or so of the second period, they started diving. Belleville warned us about it, that Scheifele, these guys, love to dive and draw penalties. (They got) three in a row and it changed the course of the game that way.” . . . Neate Sager of Yahoo! Sports takes a look 
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