Injury bug biting Americans . . . Remembering Herb Brooks . . . Hitmen rise to top

When the Tri-City Americans filed their injury report with the WHL office on Monday, it included both their goaltenders, two defencemen and three forwards. Under ‘additions,’ the Americans listed the names of four affiliate players who have been brought in as the teams attempts to get through this adversity.
F Parker Bowles, who leads the Americans in assists (31) and points (44), and D Carter Cochrane are out indefinitely. Both have shoulder issues and might be done for the season.
F Braden Purtill is out for up to six weeks.
Richard Nejezchleb, who may be the most gifted offensive player on the roster, and D Dylan Coghlan both were listed as day-to-day, but they played last night against the visiting Portland Winterhawks.
G Eric Comrie, one of the best at his position in the WHL, will watch for up to three weeks, while G Evan Sarthou’s status has yet to be determined.
Last night, the Americans gave the start to G Nicholas Sanders, who has been with the midget AAA Calgary Buffaloes. He was a sixth-round pick in the 2013 bantam draft.
Casey Kaiser, a 19-year-old from Richland, Wash., backed up Sanders. Kaiser made his first WHL appearance and start Saturday in a 7-2 loss to the visiting Calgary Hitmen.
The Americans also have recalled F Zack Andrusiak, from the junior B North Okanagan Knights of the Kootenay International Junior League; F Parker AuCoin, from the midget AAA St. Albert Raiders; and F Morgan Geekie from the Yellowhead Chiefs of the Manitoba Midget AAA League.
Aucoin was the 15th overall selection in that 2013 bantam draft, while Geekie was taken in the fifth round.
AuCoin made his WHL debut last night; Andrusiak and Geekie were scratched, as was freshman F Max James.
Tri-City didn’t show D Brandon Carlo on its injury report, but he missed his third game last night since taking a puck to the head. Carlo played for the U.S. at the 2015 WJC.
Bob Tory, the Americans’ general manager, has been working in the WHL since at least 1982, including stints with the Prince Albert Raiders, Portland and Kootenay Ice. He told Taking Note that he has never experienced anything like this season.
“This is the worst year yet,” he stated in a text. “One year in Kootenay we were hit hard but nothing like this, and not one is a concussion.”
On top of it all, Tory pointed out, that the Americans have had others players “out long term before this who have returned. And others who have had two long-term injuries this season.”
Through it all, the Americans are clinging to the Western Conference’s second wild-card playoff berth, five points ahead of the Prince George Cougars.
“I hope we can hang on for playoffs,” Tory said. “The kids are trying.”
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Mike Priestner, the owner of the Saskatoon Blades, was in Saskatoon on Tuesday so he and GM/head coach Bob Woods chatted with season-ticket holders during a luncheon. . . . The Blades won’t be in the playoffs, but that doesn’t surprise Priestner, who believes the rebuild is going in the right direction. . . . He also said the franchise is losing money. “We’re not losing a bunch of money. We’re losing some money,” Priestner said. “It was expected coming in. I didn’t think the crowds would be where they’re at. I probably thought they’d be in that 4,800 to 5,000 range.” . . . Daniel Nugent-Bowman of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix was there and his story is right here.
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Tim Speltz, GM of the Spokane Chiefs.

 Tim Speltz, the general manager of the Spokane Chiefs since 1990, has been added to Hockey Canada’s Program of Excellence management group for 2015-16. He will work in support of the U-20 program, which primarily involved the Canadian national junior team that will play in the 2016 WJC in Helsinki, Finland. . . . Speltz is no stranger to Hockey Canada, having worked with the management group for the Canadian U-18 team that won gold at the 2014 Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament. . . .  Bruce Hamilton, the owner and general manager of the Kelowna Rockets, worked with the U-20 program for 2014-15.
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You know it’s baseball season when fans of the Chicago Cubs crawl out of the snowbanks and try to convince themselves that, yes, “this is our year.” . . . Dan Epstein, who is not related to Theo Epstein, is a Cubs’ fan and he has a readable piece on this subject right here.
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The Prince George Cougars continued their trek to Kent, Wash., by stopping in Williams Lake, B.C., on Tuesday. After a day of skating with minor hockey players, signing autographs and making friends, the Cougars presented a cheque for $1,500 to the local minor hockey association. The Cougars, who meet the Seattle Thunderbirds in Kent on Friday, will spend today in 100 Mile House. . . .
If you haven’t seen this right here, it’s definitely worth a read as TSN’s Bob McKenzie remembers the late Herb Brooks.
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TUESDAY’S GAMES:

B.C. DIVISION: All five teams had the day off.
U.S. DIVISION: Portland (12 games remaining) won on the road and now is three points behind idle Everett, which leads the division. . . . Tri-City (11) lost at home and remains in possession of the Western Conference’s second wild-card spot. Tri-City is a point behind idle Spokane (14) and five ahead of Prince George (11).
EAST DIVISION: Swift Current (12) won at home and is a solid third, eight points behind Regina (13) and 12 points ahead of Moose Jaw (12), neither of whom played.
CENTRAL DIVISION: Calgary (12) won on the road and moved into sole possession of first place in the division, two points ahead of idle Medicine Hat (12). . . . Kootenay (11) picked up a loser point on the road and now holds down the Eastern Conference’s first wild-card spot by five points over idle Edmonton (12). Kootenay is four points behind idle Red Deer (13), which is third in the division.
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In Swift Current, the Broncos trailed 5-2 early in the third period but roared back to beat the Kootenay Ice 7-6 in a shootout. . . . Broncos F Jake DeBrusk scored the only goal of the four-round shootout. . . . Ice F Tim Bozon gave his side a 5-2 lead with his 28th goal at 9:20 of the second period. . . . F Coda Gordon, with his second of the game and 21st of the season, cut the deficit to 5-3. . . . DeBrusk then got his 36th goal at 14:03 and D Ayrton Nikkel tied it with his second goal of the season at 16:23. . . . The Ice wasn’t done, though, and took a 6-5 lead on F Levi Cable’s 26th goal at 17:13. . . . It was left for Broncos F Colby Cave to force OT with his 28th goal at 18:35. . . . F Luke Philp scored his 27th goal and added three assists for the Ice, who got three assists from F Sam Reinhart. . . . The Broncos (30-25-5) have won three in a row. . . . The Ice (31-27-3) is 3-0-2 in its last five. . . .

In Kennewick, Wash., F Oliver Bjorkstrand scored twice and F Nic Petan had four assists as the Portland Winterhawks beat the Tri-City Americans, 6-4. . . . Bjorkstrand, with goals in nine straight games, has 45 goals, one off the WHL lead. . . . Petan has eight assists over his last two games. In fact, in his last six games, he has a goal and 13 assists. . . . Portland F Miles Koules broke a 4-4 tie with his 24th goal at 14:32 of the third period. . . . That came after F Beau McCue had pulled the Americans into a 4-4 tie with a shorthanded goal at 10:09. . . . G Nicholas Sanders made 41 saves for the Americans, 17 more than Portland’s Adin Hill. . . . Tri-City was 2-for-4 on the PP; the Winterhawks were 0-for-3. . . . The Winterhawks (36-20-4) have points in six straight (5-0-1). . . . The Americans (27-31-3) have lost two in a row. . . .

In Kent, Wash., the Calgary Hitmen continued their unbeaten road trip as they dropped the Seattle Thunderbirds, 3-2. . . . Calgary F Chase Lang broke a 1-1 tie with his 24th goal at 5:47 of the second period, just 4:26 after F Jake Virtanen had tied it with his 17th goal. . . . F Terrell Draude gave the visitors a 3-1 lead at 2:35 of the third. . . . Seattle F Roberts Lipsbergs got his 10th goal at 19:00 of the third. . . . According to TBird Tidbits, the Hitmen now have won six straight games in Seattle/Kent, with two of the victories coming in OT. Calgary last lost there on Oct. 26, 2002. . . . Calgary (37-18-5) is three games into an 11-game road trip and has won all three games. Overall, it has won five straight. . . . Seattle (31-22-7) had won its previous two games.
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WEDNESDAY’S GAMES

(all times local)
Medicine Hat at Brandon, 7 p.m.
Kootenay at Regina, 7 p.m.
Swift Current at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.
Red Deer at Edmonton, 7 p.m.
Calgary at Portland, 7 p.m.
Victoria at Kelowna, 7:05 p.m.
Everett at Spokane, 7:05 p.m.
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Just heard a lady in the lobby say "I'm STILL vibrating!!". @SCBroncos
— Leigh Duquette (@LadyKat75) February 25, 2015

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Looking at WHL coaching changes . . . Remembering Robin Williams

Dave Struch, who spent the past eight seasons on the coaching staff of the Saskatoon Blades, may be in line for a change of direction in his career. Daniel Nugent-Bowman of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix has that story right here.
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As you will be aware, 10 of the WHL’s 22 teams have changed head coaches since the end of the 2013-14 season. Larry Fisher, who writes for the Kelowna Daily Courier and thehockeywriters.com, takes a look at all of the changes right here.
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The Saskatoon Blades have signed F Lukus MacKenzie, who was a third-round selection in the WHL’s 2014 bantam draft. From Calgary, MacKenzie played last season at the Edge School. He had 66 points, including 21 goals, in 59 games with the bantam AAA team. . . . The Blades open training camp on Aug. 21 at the Legends Centre in Warman, Sask.
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The Medicine Hat connection with the Vancouver Canucks grew by one more on Monday when the NHL team added Perry Pearn to its coaching staff. Pearn was the head coach of the Medicine Hat Tigers in 1994-95. . . . Former Tigers captain Trevor Linden is the Canucks’ president, while Willie Desjardins, a former Tigers GM and coach, is Vancouver’s new head coach. Doug Lidster, who also worked with the Tigers, is on the Canucks’ coach staff, too. . . . Pearn, 63, has worked as an assistant coach in the NHL with the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets. He was with the Jets for the past two seasons. He is a native of Stettler, Alta.
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The legs feed the wolf.
Herb Brooks, who loved nothing more than to sit in the stands of the Crushed Can in Moose Jaw and talk hockey, died in a car accident 11 years ago yesterday. USA Hockey remembers right here.
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I look at this picture and I can't stop laughing. Last night,
History in Pictures (@HistoryInPics) tweeted this 1980
photo of Robin Williams in action with the Denver
Broncos cheerleaders.

The great Robin Williams left us on Monday morning and it seems that he took his own life. Williams, 63, had been battling severe depression, according to his publicist.
Yes, we knew there were drugs and alcohol, but who saw this coming? If ever there was proof that you can’t tell a book by its cover when it comes to mental illness, Robin Williams may be it.
Perhaps the death of Williams, as bright a star as there has been in years, will spur change in the way that a lot of society continues to look at and deal with mental illness. We can hope.
The New York Times’ obituary is right here.
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There’s a piece right here on Robin Williams that first appeared in Rolling Stone on Feb. 21, 1991. There were shadows in his life even then.
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“You are the kindest country in the world,” Robin Williams once said of Canada. “You are like a really nice apartment over a meth lab.”
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Here, from jokes4us.com, is a taste of the Robin Williams we loved so much:
“God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.”
“Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Politics: Poli, a Latin word meaning many; and tics meaning, bloodsucking creatures.”
“In England, if you commit a crime, the police don’t have a gun and you don’t have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say Stop, or I’ll say stop again.”
“Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money.”
“Do you think God gets stoned? I think so… look at the platypus.”
“If it’s the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?”
“My God. We’ve had cloning in the South for years. It’s called cousins.”
“You’ll notice that Bush never speaks when Cheney is drinking water.”
“You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married (say) ‘It’s the same sex all the time.’ ”
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KIDNEY WALK:

The 2014 Kidney Walk and Kidney Run is scheduled for Kamloops’ Riverside Park on Sunday, Aug. 24.
My wife, Dorothy, who underwent a kidney transplant on Sept. 23, will walk 2.5 kilometres in support of the Kidney Foundation. That, in itself, is a miracle. A year ago, she couldn’t have walked 100 metres without stopping to rest.
I will join her, as will our son, Todd, and his girlfriend, Joanna, who live in Burnaby, B.C.
If you would like to be part of Dorothy’s Team, feel free to donate by clicking right here and then going to ’Sponsor a Participant’.
The response on Monday was terrific. I just wish you all could have been here to listen to Dorothy as folks like you made donations.
“I am so lucky to have such support,” she said on more than one occasion. The other favourite is: “I am so blessed.”
Yes, we are.
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Is the @NHL taking notice of how many folks have traveled down from Canada to Seattle tonight for Mariners-Blue Jays game?
— Thom Beuning (@ThomBeuning) August 12, 2014

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Richard Doerksen, the WHL's vice-president, hockey, presents the Scotty Munro
Memorial Trophy, which goes to the regular-season champion, to a representative
of the Portland Winterhawks late in the regular season. Just wondering, but might
that be Mike Johnston in disguise? (The picture arrived via Twitter on
Wednesday evening. Nice to know someone has a sense of humour.)

THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Jeremy Williams (Swift Current, 2000-04) signed a one-year contract with Västerås (Sweden, Allsvenskan). He had six goals and nine assists in 28 games with Sierre (Switzerland, NL B) and 17 goals and 13 assists in 24 games with Eispiraten Crimmitschau (Germany, 2. Bundesliga) this season. . . .

F Brad Moran (Calgary, 1995-2000) signed a one-year contract with Linz Black Wings (Austria, Erste Bank Liga). He had five goals and three assists in 37 games with Växjö (Sweden, Elitserien) and five goals and 10 assists in 14 games with SaiPa Lappeenranta (Finland, SM-Liiga) this season. The head coach of Linz is Rob Daum, who coached, either as the head man or as an assistant, with Prince Albert, Swift Current, and Lethbridge.
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Dennis Lehane, the author of Mystic River and Shutter Island, just to name two terrific books, is from Boston. He has written a piece for The New York Times that is headlined Messing With the Wrong City. . . . It is good and it is right here.
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F Adam Lowry of the Swift Current Broncos is the Eastern Conference’s player of the year. Lowry, who has played for the AHL’s St. John’s IceCaps since the WHL season ended, signed with the parent Winnipeg Jets of the NHL earlier this week. He was a third-round selection in the 2011 NHL draft. . . . Lowry, a son of Victoria Royals head coach Dave Lowry, had 88 points, including 45 goals, this season. As Bruce Luebke, the radio voice of the Brandon Wheat Kings, pointed out on Twitter, Lowry scored 21.8 per cent of the Broncos’ goals and was in on 42.7 per cent of them.
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The Western Conference’s player of the year will be revealed today. I wasn’t given a vote, but had I, it would have gone to Tri-City Americans F Justin Feser.
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I’m not about to pretend that the late Herb Brooks and I were friends, but we did spend a few intermissions talking hockey in the late, great Crushed Can in Moose Jaw. He loved nothing better than to while away the time talking about our game. . . . So I was pleased to see that St. Cloud State University has announced it will rename its National Hockey and Event Center in honour of Brooks. The facility is to be known as the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
From College Hockey News: “Brooks coached the 1986-87 Huskies (25-10-1) to third-place at the NCAA Division III Men's Ice Hockey Championship. And, acting on a promise he made to the late hockey great John Mariucci, Brooks worked with St. Cloud State officials to elevate Husky Hockey to a NCAA Division I program. He also helped secure construction funding for the arena that bears his name. . . . The $14.7-million renovation and expansion, including a four-story atrium, expanded suites, club-level seating and more, is expected to be complete by mid-June. A campaign to fund remodeled locker rooms and a training area for men's and women's hockey is under way. Plans call for additional suites, club lounges and further development of a concert and event-ready facility.”
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Sunaya Sapurji of Yahoo! Sports takes a look right here at Travis Green, the 42-year-old interim head coach of the Portland Winterhawks, as he prepares to take his (and Mike Johnston’s team) into the Western Conference final against the Kamloops Blazers.

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The QMJHL’s Acadie-Bathurst Titan recently changed hands for $3.4 million. The P.E.I. Rocket now is for sale and is said to have a price tag of $3.5 million hanging from its cap. Speculation in hockey circles is that a WHL owner was approached to see if his team was available and he said, yes, for $9 million. Hmmmm. . . .
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F Markus McCrea, 21, has committed to attend Selkirk College and play for the Saints, who are located in Castlegar and play in the B.C. Intercollegiate League. McCrea, from Canyon Lake, Calif., spent three seasons (2008-11) with the Everett Silvertips. He has played the last two seasons with the USHL’s Lincoln Stars and Youngstown Phantoms, totaling 38 goals, including 22 goals, in 108 games. McCrea plans to enroll in Selkirk’s Business Administration program.
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Who will be the No. 1 selection in the NHL’s 2012 draft? “To me, (Seth Jones) is as clear-cut a No. 1 as you can be,” former NHL GM Craig Button told Kevin Allen of USA TODAY Sports. . . . Jones, of course, is finishing up his first major junior season with the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks. . . . Allen’s complete story is right here.
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In Red Deer, the Rosetown Redwings beat the Kenora Thistles 8-0 in Allan Cup play. The Rosetown roster is full of former WHLers, starting with head coach Keegan McAvoy and including the likes of F Shane Endicott, D Derek Endicott, F Dean Beuker and F J.J. Hunter. . . . Greg Meachem of the Red Deer Advocate reports that today’s quarterfinals feature Rosetown (1-1) against the Stony Plain Eagles (0-2) and the Fort St. John Flyers (1-1) against Kenora. . . . The Clarenville, Nfld., Caribous (2-0) and Bentley Generals (2-0) are through to the semifinals. . . . The championship final is to be televised by TSN on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. MT.
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THE COACHING GAME:
The Spokane Chiefs announced Wednesday that assistant coach Jon Klemm is leaving the club “citing the desire to be closer to his family.” . . . Klemm was the Chiefs’ captain when they won the Memorial Cup in 1991 and later went on to an NHL career that included two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche. He returned to the Chiefs as an assistant coach in 2009 and has filled that position for four years. . . . According to a Chiefs’ news release, Klemm “will return to Dallas after getting married this summer. His four teenage children live in Chicago.” . . . "I will get more opportunities to see my kids and see my son play hockey. I haven't seen him play in three years. This move gives me flexibility in the winter months," Klemm said. . . .

The OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs have moved assistant coach Darren Keily to director of hockey operations — he also is assistant GM — and signed Jeff Reid as assistant coach. Reid, who has a lot of junior B and junior C coaching experience, has worked in the OHL as an assistant coach with the Owen Sound Attack (2007-10). He will work alongside head coach Todd Gill, who has completed two seasons with the Frontenacs.
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The WHL’s playoff situation:
EASTERN CONFERENCE
THIRD ROUND
Edmonton (1) vs. Calgary (3)
Series opens tonight in Edmonton; all games on Shaw TV, with Dan Russell calling the play.
Kristen Odland of the Calgary Herald sets the scene right here.
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WESTERN CONFERENCE
THIRD ROUND
Portland (1) vs. Kamloops (3)
Series opens Friday in Portland.
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WEDNESDAY’S GAMES:
No games scheduled.
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CHECKING-FROM-BEHIND COUNT (16):
None

CHECKING-TO-THE-HEAD COUNT (5):
None


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