Pats have good day at awards bash ... Paddock double winner ... Thunderbirds arrive in Regina

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.

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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There has been some grumbling about ticket prices for the 2017 Memorial Cup that is scheduled to run in Windsor, Ont., from May 19-28.

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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Ex-Storm forward dies in auto accident

By MARK HUNTER
Daily News Sports Reporter
The Kamloops Storm is in shock after a former player was killed in a car accident in Idaho on Tuesday.
Taylor Ward, a forward with the KIJHL team in 2012-13, was killed in a two-vehicle crash Tuesday evening near Rockford, Idaho. Ward, 19, was three months into a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
There were conflicting early reports about whether Ward had died, but Storm owner and general manager Barry Dewar said that he received an email from Ward's father on Wednesday morning confirming the bad news.
"It's sad. He was a good guy and a good teammate," Dewar said. "He will be sorely missed."
Ward, from Vacaville, Calif., came to the Storm after trying out for the BCHL's Prince George Spruce Kings. He appeared in 25 games with Kamloops, scoring five goals and assisting on nine others. He last played on Dec. 14, after which he went home to California to begin training for his church mission.
"He wanted to go home so he could go on his mission," Dewar said. "We totally supported him in that."
Police in Idaho said Ward was a passenger in a vehicle driven by his mission companion, John Floyd, who apparently failed to yield at a stop sign and T-boned a pickup truck. All three people were wearing seatbelts. Both the driver of the truck and Floyd escaped with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police originally announced that Ward had died, but later said that he was in "extremely critical condition" and on life support.
Dewar said he emailed Ward's father upon hearing the news, and got a response Wednesday morning.
"Every member of the church feels the loss of a missionary," read a statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "We are deeply saddened, and share with his family, friends and fellow missionaries in their grief. We extend to them our love, our prayers and our deepest sympathy."
Dewar, whose Storm played host to the 100 Mile House Wranglers last night, said the teams held a moment of silence for Ward.
"All the guys are upset," Dewar said. "It's awful when a young man loses his life."
During his time in Kamloops, Ward billeted with Tracey Louvros, the team's trainer.
There are at least 10 players on the Storm's current roster who played with Ward last season, but none was closer to him than Spencer Schoech, a 20-year-old defenceman from Dublin, Calif.
Schoech, who started last season with the Storm but ended up with the Spruce Kings, recently re-signed with the Storm. He and Ward had spent some time with the midget Tri-Valley Blue Devils in California, and came to the Storm together.
"(Schoech) was shocked to hear," Dewar said. "They were close. . . . He's upset, but he wanted to play (last night)."

mhunter@kamloopsnews.ca


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Priestlay brewing up Storm in Kamloops

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
After a lengthy playing career, Brad Priestlay is in his first season as a head coach.
He already has the language down pat.
Priestlay, the head coach of the junior B Kamloops Storm, has lost the Kootenay International league's top three scorers to graduation. Colten DeFrias, Chase Edwards and Tyler Jackson accounted for 111 of the 236 goals the Storm scored last season.
So where will the goals come from this time around?
“I think it's going to be more of a score-by-committee,” Priestlay said Wednesday night. “Obviously, losing those three top guys is big for any team. I feel with the returning guys and the guys coming in, everybody is going to have a bigger role this season.
“That's where guys who didn't have such a big role last season get a chance to step up and see what they can do.”
Priestlay, 28, has been an assistant coach with the Storm each of the previous two seasons. That move came after a playing career that included four seasons in the WHL and five with the Lakehead University Thunderwolves in Thunder Bay.
He has taken over as head coach of the Storm from Geoff Smith, who stepped aside because of work commitments.
Priestlay and the Storm are into their third day of training camp at Brock Arena and the new coach said he likes what he has seen.
“It's shaping up to be a good team,” he said. “We've got a good mix of returning guys and new guys at camp. It's showing a lot of promise. I think we'll be very competitive, much like we were last season.”
Last season, the Storm finished 35-10-1-6, good for second place in the Doug Birks Division, just one point behind the pennant-winning Revelstoke Grizzlies. The Storm then bowed out in the second round of playoffs, losing in seven games to the Sicamous Eagles.
Priestlay said he's looking for the likes of Blake Culbert, Josh Rasmussen and Briar McNaney to lead the way up front, with Daniel Buchanan and Ryan Skinner doing the same from the back end.
Culbert, who suffered a knee injury late last season, finished with 15 goals, while Rasmussen had eight and McNaney had seven.
Buchanan, however, put up 42 points from the blue-line, while Skinner had 26.
Of course, with WHL and junior A teams just into their training camps, the pipeline of players hasn't really opened up.
“The Western league cuts their guys and the junior A cuts their guys and we get the rest of them,” Priestlay explains. “But as of right now I don't really see a whole lot of change.
“I think by the time the end of exhibition season rolls around we should have a general idea of who we're going to have and what kind of roster we'll have for the home opener.”
The Storm opens its exhibition season on Saturday against the host Chase Heat. Game time at the Art Holding Memorial Arena is 7 p.m.
The regular season is to open Sept. 14 with the Spokane Braves here. The new head coach can hardly wait.
“I'm very happy with the way things are going,” he said. “The tempo has been good and I'm excited to get into some exhibition game and get the season underway.”
JUST NOTES: Veteran Marcus Beesley, 20, is the Storm's No. 1 goaltender. He was 9-3 with a 2.49 GAA last season. . . . The Storm plays its first home exhibition game on Tuesday against the Princeton Posse. Game time at Brock Arena will be 7:30 p.m. . . . A game scheduled for Sept. 9 between the Golden Rockets and the Storm at Brock Arena has been cancelled. . . . Sophomore D Tyson Harvey, 17, hasn't been feeling well and was to see a doctor yesterday. For now, he is being kept away from teammates. . . . The Storm is on the ice today, 8 a.m. to noon, at Brock Arena, but won't skate Friday.

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