THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Dustin Cameron (Saskatoon, Prince Albert, 2004-10) signed a one-year contract with the Coventry Blaze (England, UK Elite). He had 22 goals and 25 assists in 72 games with the Trenton Titans (ECHL) last season. . . .
F Shawn Limpright (Moose Jaw, 1998-2002) signed a one-year contract with the Sheffield Steelers (England, UK Elite). He had 28 goals and 53 assists in 65 games for the Rapid City Rush (CHL) last season. That was good enough for fifth place in the CHL scoring race. . . .
D Robert Schnabel (Red Deer, 1997-99) signed a one-year contract with the Manchester Phoenix (England, UK Elite). He had one assist in nine games with Plzen (Czech Republic, Extraliga) before moving to Fassa (Italy, Serie A), where he had five goals and 10 assists in 26 games. . . .
D Tomas Fojtik (Portland, 2003-04) signed a one-year contract with the Basingstoke Bison (England, Premier). He had five goals and eight assists in 25 games for Reims (France, Division 1) last season. . . .
D Paul Albers (Calgary, Regina, Vancouver, 2001-06) signed a one-year contract with Cortina (Italy, Serie A). He had 10 goals and 21 assists in 36 games with the Tohoku Free Blades (Japan, Asia Hockey League) last season. . . .
F Stefan Meyer (Medicine Hat, 2000-05) signed a one-year contract with the Schwenninger Wild Wings (Germany, 2. Bundesliga). He started last season with the Abbotsford Heat (AHL), where he was pointless in six games. Meyer signed with Färjestad Karlstad (Sweden, Elitserien) in early December, getting one goal and six assists in 25 games. Meyer is expected to arrive in Schwenningen early next week. The Wild Wings open exhibition play on Friday, Aug. 17. . . .
D Robby Sandrock (Spokane, Swift Current, Medicine Hat, Kelowna, 1994-99) signed a one-year contract with the Belfast Giants (Northern Ireland, UK Elite). He had two goals and three assists in eight games with Medvescak Zagreb (Croatia, Austria Erste Bank Liga) and one goal and five assists in 20 games with the Schwenninger Wild Wings (Germany, 2. Bundesliga) last season. The Giants announced that Sandrock will also attend the University of Ulster to work on a Master's in Sports Management degree. . . .
F Mark Derlago (Brandon, 2003-07) signed a one-year contract with Anyang Halla (South Korea, Asia Hockey League). He had 22 goals and 22 assists in 44 games for Lausitzer Fuchse Weisswasser (Germany, 2. Bundesliga) last season.
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The Everett Silvertips have started their 10th anniversary celebrations with an alumni weekend.
On Friday night, during an alumni dinner, the Silvertips unveiled a new logo and redesigned uniforms that will be used in the approaching season.
For a look at the new jerseys, click right here.
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D Corbin Baldwin, 21, has signed a one-year contract, including signing bonus, with the AHL’s Houston Aeros. Baldwin, a shotblocker extraordinaire from Winnipeg, played four seasons with the Spokane Chiefs, putting up 66 points in 246 games. The 6-foot-5, 215-pounder also had 379 penalty minutes. He is represented by Turning Point Sports Management. . . . The Aeros are affiliated with the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, and Baldwin was in a Wild development camp earlier in the summer. Originally, he had planned on attending the U of Manitoba and playing for the Bisons.
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USA Hockey’s U1-7 team, under former Kamloops Blazers head coach Barry Smith, beat the Czech Republic 5-2 on Friday to clinch first place in the Five Nations tournament. The game was played in Chomutov, Czech Republic. . . . The U.S., which is 3-0, will play Slovakia today.
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Dean Laschowski, who has been the WHL’s officiating manager, has joined the AJHL has its video review manager. This is a newly created position. According to an AJHL press release, Laschowski “will work with AJHL vice-ppesident George McCorry in the areas of video review, supervision of game officials, and supplementary discipline.”

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Doug Soetaert was fired Thursday as the Everett Silvertips' general manager.
(Photo from the Silvertips' website)

The Everett Silvertips played their first WHL season in 2003-04.
They finished atop the U.S. Division, going 35-27-8-2 (the 8 being ties) and, incredibly enough, getting all the way to the WHL’s championship final where they lost to the Medicine Hat Tigers.
The Silvertips were in their first season in the WHL; the Tigers were in their 34th. In the previous 10 seasons, the Tigers had, in order, been bounced in the first round four times, missed the playoffs five times and lost in the second round once.
I bring this up because the Silvertips fired general manager Doug Soetaert on Thursday.
Soetaert, 55, was named the Silvertips’ vice-president and GM on April 16, 2002, a position he filled until May 16, 2005, when he left to work as the GM of an AHL franchise in Omaha that was hooked up with the NHL’s Calgary Flames. He stayed there one season, then returned to Everett.
Soetaert, a former WHL goaltender, built a franchise that won three U.S. Division titles and a Western Conference championship in its formative years. The Silvertips also finished atop the WHL’s overall standings in 2006-07, when they went 54-15-3.
Two seasons ago, Everett went 46-21-5 and finished in a tie with the Tri-City Americans for top spot in the U.S. Division and the Western Conference. The Americans, however, won one more game (47-46) than did Everett, so was awarded the pennant.
The last two seasons, however, haven’t been as kind to Everett. It was 28-33-11 last season, after which head coach Craig Hartsburg left to join the Flames’ coaching staff. You may recall, too, that the season was disrupted somewhat when Hartsburg left the team to undergo a heart procedure.
This season, under head coach Mark Ferner, the Silvertips are 12-30-9 and may well miss the playoffs for the first time in the franchise’s history.
Prior to this season, Soetaert admitted that he was beginning a full-scale rebuild. This wasn’t a reload. This would be a complete rebuild.
Soetaert now won’t be around to see his plan to fruition.
“Doug's contract was expiring this year, and we've been spending months evaluating our direction," Silvertips president Gary Gelinas told Nick Patterson of the Everett Herald. "We made the decision not to renew his contract. We decided to make the decision sooner rather than later so we could find the right individual to bring in and lead the organization.”
Gelinas also told Patterson that no other changes are expected for the time being.
The Silvertips are owned by Bill Yuill, who sold the Seattle Thunderbirds in order to purchase the expansion franchise for Everett. Gelinas is the franchise’s president and governor.
Firing Soetaert at this particular point in time is a risky proposition and, on the face of it, doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
Soetaert has more than proven himself in this league and, one might have thought, had earned a chance to right the ship.
You also have to wonder how secure Ferner is feeling this morning. He left a situation with the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers in which he could have stayed indefinitely. Under Ferner, the Vipers had made three straight trips to the RBC Cup, the national junior A championship tournament, winning two of them.
With Soetaert gone, assistant GM Zoran Rajcic and Ferner will handle those duties.
Now, with a new GM to come in sometime in the next few months, you have to wonder just how safe the coaching staff will be once this season ends.
As one WHL team official told me last night: “It’s a (crappy) game sometimes.”
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ASK THE COMMISSIONER:
Why only allow players to have until Dec. 31 of the completion of their 21-year-old season to play professional and then force them to make a decision about pro vs. school? Why not give them a full season or two . . . or five? Also, how much is currently in the WHL education fund and how much gets used?
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JUST NOTES: D Corbin Baldwin of the Spokane Chiefs has drawn a two-game suspension after taking a major and game misconduct for a check to the head in a 4-1 loss to the Blazers in Kamloops on Wednesday night. With the score tied 1-1 in the third period, Baldwin laid out Kamloops F Dylan Willick with an elbow to the head. . . . I would love to show that video to OHL commissioner David Branch and ask him what a check like that would be worth in the OHL. . . . Baldwin won’t play against the visiting Victoria Royals tonight or against the host Kootenay Ice on Saturday. . . .
Rose Mary Hartney and Greg (Spike) Wallace are the recipients of the WHL Distinguished Service Award for this season. Hartney, who has worked at Vanier Collegiate in Moose Jaw for 38 years, has been a long-time education advisor to the Warriors. Wallace has been around the WHL for a long while, first in Victoria and now Kamloops. He joined the Blazers as their trainer/equipment manager in 1984 and now is their community and sponsorship co-ordinator. . . .
The Vancouver Giants will wear special sweaters tonight for a game against the visiting Kamloops Blazers. Zip on over to the Giants’ website for a look at the sweaters that will honour Gordie Howe.
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Patrick Roy, the GM and head coach of the Quebec Remparts, has been fined again. This time he’ll pay $5,000 for comments he made concerning Gilles Courteau, the league’s commissioner. That story is right here.
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Writers from The Associated Press have spent the last two months interviewing ex-NFL players about concussions.
Here is how the story, written by Howard Fendrich, Martha Irvine, and Nancy Armour begins:
The helmet-to-helmet shot knocked Tony Dorsett out cold in the second quarter of a 1984 Cowboys-Eagles game, the hardest hit he ever took during his Hall of Fame NFL career.
“It was like a freight train hitting a Volkswagen,” Dorsett says now.
“Did they know it was a concussion?” he asks rhetorically during an interview with The Associated Press. “They thought I was half-dead.”
This is a lengthy and frightening story. It is right here.
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The Globe and Mail has decried fighting in junior hockey. In a crisp, four-paragraph editorial headlined ‘The game’s dark side,’ the newspaper notes that “there is no earthly reason to put teenagers’ brains through a meat grinder to keep purists happy.”
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Brent Peterson, a former player and coach with the Portland Winterhawks, will be inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame tonight prior to a game against the visiting Everett Silvertips. Jim Beseda of the Oregonian checked in with Peterson, who has been battling Parkinson’s disease. And the picture with the story tells it all — a smile on his face and a golf club in his left hand. That story is right here.


 

Blazers take out Chiefs

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Somehow it was only fitting that with Gordie Howe in the building, an elbow would play a prominent role in Wednesday night’s WHL game at Interior Savings Centre.
This game changed when an elbow belonging to Spokane Chiefs defenceman Corbin Baldwin came into contact with the head on the shoulders of Kamloops Blazers forward Dylan Willick at 13:17 of the third period.
Less than four minutes later, the Blazers held a 4-1 lead — that would be the final score — and Spokane had eaten its first regulation-time loss in eight games (6-1-1).
The victory allowed the Blazers (36-11-4) to stretch their lead atop the overall standings to four points over the idle Tri-City Americans (35-12-2) and Edmonton Oil Kings (33-12-6).
Kamloops will play the Giants in Vancouver on Friday night, then travel to Kent, Wash., for a Saturday night date with the Seattle Thunderbirds.
After Baldwin’s elbow levelled Willick, the 6-foot-5 defender was set upon by Kamloops centre Matt Needham, the 5-foot-10 freshman who had scored the home side’s first goal going at his opponent like a bantam rooster.
Just 32 seconds after Baldwin exited — he had been Spokane’s best player — Kamloops centre Brandon Herrod, back after six games on the shelf with a knee injury, beat goaltender Mac Engel through the legs from the left side and the home boys were on their way.
Winger Brendan Ranford, who had been stoned by Engel on at least four clear-cut scoring chances to that point, added insurance just 53 seconds later. Both those goals came with the teams playing 4-on-4, and defenceman Austin Madaisky added a power-play score at 17:05, Spokane’s discipline having disappeared somewhere in the middle of the Blazers’ offensive outburst.
The Chiefs got their goal in the second period from centre Dominik Uher, who was coming off a four-goal night Tuesday in a 5-3 victory over the host Thunderbirds.
Kamloops goaltender Cole Cheveldave finished up with 20 saves, but wasn’t nearly as busy as Engel, who faced 30 shots and saw a lot of traffic as the Blazers skated hard all game.
Obviously, Richard Doerksen, the WHL’s vice-president, hockey, who deals with disciplinary matters, will be talking with Baldwin, who almost certainly will be suspended for a game or three.
It also will be interesting to see how the WHL office deals with the fact that the game wasn’t played to a conclusion.
With there having been three fights in the last minute, and a near line brawl with seven seconds remaining, referees Steve Papp and Matt Thurston chose to let the clock run out without dropping the puck.
The fun began with one minute left in the third period when Spokane forward Darren Kramer, who led the WHL with 46 fights last season and has a WHL-high 20 this season, skated through the Kamloops crease and bumped goaltender Cole Cheveldave.
Blazers defenceman Tyler Hansen promptly danced with Kramer. Hansen has had four bouts this season, two with Kramer. Last season, Hansen had three fights, one of them with Kramer.
With that cleaned up, play resumed and, with seven seconds left, things got ugly in the corner to the right of Engel.
There only were two fights — involving Uher and teammate Dylan Walchuk and the Blazers’ Chase Schaber and Aspen Sterzer — but the officials, obviously concerned with what might follow, chose to bring a premature end to the game.
And that’s not something that happens every day. It used to be a sometime occurrence, but hasn’t been since the days of bench-clearing brawls were brought to an end.
JUST NOTES: Attendance was 4,253. . . . Ranford missed the early portion of the third period as he was getting his left ankle taped behind the Blazers’ bench. . . . Kamloops F J.C. Lipon left after two periods with an upper-body injury. . . . Blazers F Ryan Hanes returned after a 15-game absence with a concussion. He skated in F Tim Bozon’s place, alongside Lipon and Colin Smith for two periods. Lipon’s departure meant some scrambled lines in the third period. . . . Bozon was in Kelowna at the Top Prospects Game. . . . Kamloops had won the first two games of the season series, 6-4 here on Oct. 7 and 2-1 there on Nov. 18. They will play again in Spokane on March 14. . . . The Daily News Three Stars: 1. Needham: Played big against a tough team; 2. D Marek Hrbas, Kamloops: Outstanding; 3. Baldwin: A horse back there until his departure.
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Schenn to stay in L.A.?

It turns out that D Corbin Baldwin of the Spokane Chiefs wasn’t hit with a gross misconduct during their 4-2 loss to the visiting Medicine Hat Tigers on Saturday night. While the online scoresheet did at one time have Baldwin down for a gross misconduct, it has been changed to show that he received a double roughing minor, a misconduct and a game misconduct.
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Chris Walker, the athletic trainer with the Everett Silvertips, writes with news of an auction in aid of Chris Garner, the equipment manager for men’s hockey at the University of Minnesota at Duluth.
“Chris and I went to school together at St. Cloud State and both worked with hockey there,” Walker writes. “Chris is battling cancer right now. He had a bone marrow transplant about two months ago and is now in process of recovering.”
The auction site is right here. When you go there, click on ONLINE AUCTIONS and go to OnLine Chris Garner Benefit Auction. When I visited Monday night, there were 189 items up for grabs, including a whole lot of jerseys from various hockey teams.
And there are links about the auction on Facebook here and here.
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While at the Memorial Cup in Brandon last spring, I came to enjoy the postgame comments of Danny Flynn, the general manager and head coach of the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats. They were the first team out of the four-team competition, but Flynn impressed me with his obvious love and respect for his players and for the game. On Saturday, Flynn became the winningest had coach in that franchise’s history. Neil Hodges of the Moncton Times & Transcript has the story right here.
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Larry McNabb, one of the toughest men ever to play hockey, is battling cancer in Nanaimo. On Saturday night, Don Cherry recalled a bout he had with McNabb during their days in the old Western Hockey League. It’s funny that McNabb doesn’t remember things quite the same way. Walter Cordery of the Nanaimo Daily News has that story right here.
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The Regina Pats reassigned two players on Monday, sending D Travis Sparrow, 19, to the SJHL’s Battlefords North Stars. Sparrow had one point and 46 penalty minutes in 39 games with the Pats last season. This season, he had 13 penalty minutes in 10 games. The Pats also assigned D Landon Peel, 16, to the MJHL’s Swan Valley Stampeders. He had two penalty minutes in four games with Regina this season. Regina now is carrying 23 players, including two goaltenders and seven defencemen. . . . The Pats are at home to the Saskatoon Blades tonight. . . . By the way, the Pats have four victories this season, with three of them over the Swift Current Broncos.
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F Craig Cunningham of the Vancouver Giants is the WHL’s player of the week. He had a goal, eight assists and was plus-6 as the Giants went 3-0-0 during the week. . . . He is atop the WHL points derby, with 31 in 15 games. . . . Mac Carruth of the Portland Winterhawks was nominated as the CHL’s goaltender of the week. He went 2-0-0 with a 0.48 GAA and a .979 save percentage. . . . The QMJHL’s Acadie-Bathurst Titan have hired veteran coach Réal Paiement as their new head coach. Paiement is a true coaching veteran, having already spent 16 years in the league with five franchises. He has a 509-489-52. He last coached the St. John’s Fog Devils (2005-08). With the Titan, he replaces Ron Choules who was fired Wednesday despite a 10-5 record. . . . From the Dept. of Interesting Scheduling: The Portland Winterhawks have a week off after beating the visiting Seattle Thunderbirds 2-1 in a shootout on Friday. And now they are preparing for a doubleheader against the Kelowna Rockets. The teams will play Friday and Saturday, with both games in Portland. . . . Earlier this season (Oct. 8 and 9), the Winterhawks went to Spokane and played a Friday-Saturday doubleheader with the Chiefs. . . . The B.C. major midget league’s Okanagan Rockets are looking for a head coach after Misko Antisin (Victoria, 1983-85) left to sign on as head coach of Engleberg in the Swiss second division. He played pro in Switzerland for 18 years. Rockets assistant coach Brandon West is the interim head coach as manager David Michaud looks for a replacement.
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To listen to Los Angeles Kings head coach Terry Murray, the Brandon Wheat Kings can forget about getting C Brayden Schenn, 19, back from the NHL team.
Schenn, the fifth overall selection in the 2009 NHL draft, was a healthy scratch Monday night when the Kings met the Minnesota Wild in St. Paul, Minn.
Murray told Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times that Schenn "is going to be a real good hockey player. We just need to continually pull him aside and talk to him about his shifts, reviewing the video, putting a focus on the checking part of the game. . . . For Schenn right now, the important part is understanding the checking part of it. The part of the game that we value greatly is playing without the puck and there's some issues and some areas of the game that he's breaking down in our own D-zone coverage. So we'll go back at it and talk and review and practice and get it back in again."
Murray told Elliott the Kings don’t plan on returning Schenn to Brandon. Nor do they plan on returning F Kyle Clifford, 19, to the OHL’s Barrie Colts.
"My plan is to have them contribute as we get into February and March," Murray said.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com
Taking Note on Twitter

Blazers' Caron going from enforcer to defenceman

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Josh Caron, who is threatening to become the WHL’s heavyweight champion, has presented the Kamloops Blazers with something of a conundrum.
Caron, a defenceman who struggled to get ice time last season and early this, has improved so much that he has become more than just another tough cookie.
Head coach Guy Charron “had a pretty good comment,” assistant coach Scott Ferguson said Monday after practice at Interior Savings Centre. “You want your scrapper and physical guy to be a winger. You look at Josh . . . he’s the guy who fights for us but he’s also playing against top lines.”
A native of Campbell River who turned 19 on Feb. 10, the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Caron was a healthy scratch in 11 of the Blazers’ first 29 games this season. However, he has been scratched from the lineup just twice since Charron took over on Nov. 23 and one of those was with a one-game WHL-issued suspension.
“He certainly has made some major strides,” Charron said, adding that Caron definitely is one of his club’s most improved players.
These days, the coaching staff has Caron paired with highly touted Austin Madaisky as the team’s No. 1 shutdown pairing, meaning they usually are on the ice against the opposition’s top offensive line.
That will be the case tonight when the Blazers play host to the Everett Silvertips. Game time at Interior Savings Centre is 7 o’clock.
So what happened to turn Caron from a one-dimensional player into one who just may end up hearing his name called during the NHL draft in June?
“It just comes down to confidence and him getting a chance to play,” Ferguson said. “At the start of the season, most of our back end was trying to find their game and he was included. I remember him sitting in my office and wondering if he belonged.
“He wasn’t playing with the edge he needs to play with. I told him it starts in practice, play aggressive, play mean . . . start playing like that in a game. He took off from there.”
Boy, did he!
Caron has only four points in 55 games, and yet he leads the team in plus/minus, at plus-4. That is all the more impressive when you consider that the Blazers have allowed 45 more goals than they have scored. He also is second in the WHL with 184 penalty minutes — although his penalties have resulted in only 21 opposition power-play opportunities. And he and Saskatoon Blades winger Randy McNaught lead the WHL in fighting majors, each with 20.
“We all know he can fight,” Ferguson said. “That same aggression he brings into scraps he has to bring into one-on-one battles, defensive zone coverage and that kind of stuff. But he has really stepped up his game for us.”
As Caron has developed, Ferguson said he has had to deliver a different kind of message to the player.
“There are nights when I tell him you can’t fight and he’s been good at that,” Ferguson explained. “He’s starting to undersrtand there’s a time to fight and there’s a time to play hockey.”
Like most hockey enforcers, Caron enjoys that part of the game.
“I was playing more of the role of enforcer, which I like to do,” he said. “I like to bring that to the game. But I think I’ve come a long way. My footwork has come a long way. I can keep up with the guys.”
Caron’s progress may well have been set back by a broken ankle he suffered that needed surgery, only to have him break it again. That cost him one season of hockey and helped limit him to 21 games with the Blazers last season.
This season, however, he has worked diligently with Ferguson and fellow assistant coach Geoff Smith, both of whom were NHL defencemen.
“They have helped a lot,” Caron said. “Fergy works with me every day. After practice, we do (defensive) drills, simple passing plays, moving my feet, footwork.”
As much as he enjoys his role as a shutdown defenceman, Caron’s eyes light up when the conversation turns to fistic activity.
“I like to throw the fists a bit, get the crowd going and get pumped up,” he said.
It is a talent that the Blazers’ coaches and players appreciate.
“He’s definitely one of the toughest players in the league,” Charron said. “That has a major impact on your team and on the team you’re playing. Not too many guys are going to want to challenge him. They may, because that’s their role so they have to. But I’m sure that’s a situation they’d be thinking twice about doing because he can hurt them.”
Asked who is the toughest hombre he has encountered this season, Caron replied: “Corbin Baldwin is a tough customer.”
He and Baldwin, a 6-foot-5, 210-pounder who is five days older than Caron, have fought three times this season, including two bouts here on Feb. 17.
In his most recent scrap, Caron went with winger Cameron Abney of the host Edmonton Oil Kings on Wednesday.
Caron said the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Abney “got me right here on the lip with the first punch. That was probably the hardest punch I’ve taken this year.”
The Oil Kings acquired Abney from Everett in January, meaning the Silvertips don’t really have a hired gun in their lineup these days.
Which means Caron likely will stick to playing hockey tonight.
“Good for him,” Ferguson said. “He wanted to get to a spot where he wasn’t just fighting, he was playing, and that’s what he’s doing now. He’s doing both.”
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Meanwhile, defenceman Ryan Funk, the Blazers’ captain, continues to work towards a return from a sprained ankle.
Funk, 20, has missed eight games and won’t play tonight. There has been speculation that he might play Friday against the visiting Vancouver Giants, but it’s more likely that he could return Sunday or March 12. The Prince George Cougars will play here on both of those nights.
The Blazers were beaten 5-3 by the visiting Kelowna Rockets on the night Funk was injured. Since then, Kamloops is 4-4-0-0, with two overtime victories and one via the shootout.
“He’s a big loss, on and off the ice,” Charron said. “He took on such a leadership role with our team. When things slipped, he would do everything he could to turn it around. You miss your captain. Any time your captain is gone for a period of time, you know it’s a loss.”
Charron said they will make sure Funk is healthy before he returns because “you don’t want him to start and he plays a game and then he takes one step forward and two steps back.”
JUST NOTES: According to the WHL website, the Blazers scratched F Jake Trask on Saturday night. However, that is in error. Trask played; F Matej Bene was a healthy scratch. . . . The Blazers have three home games left after tonight, with the next one Friday against the Vancouver Giants.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com