Chase in holding pattern . . . Playfair back with Chiefs . . . Hobbs' mother recovering

F Jakub Šindel (Brandon, 2004-05) signed a contract for the rest of this season with the Coventry Blaze (England, UK Elite). He had been released by Kaltern/Caldaro (Italy, Serie A). . . .

F Zdeněk Blatný (Seattle, Kootenay, 1998-2001) has been released by Frederikshavn (Denmark, Metal Ligaen). He had three goals and five assists in five games. His contract had a clause allowing either side to terminate it within the first month. Frederikshavn elected to terminate the contract.

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F Greg Chase remains at home in Sherwood Park, Alta., as he waits for the Calgary Hitmen to trade him. He also is a draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers, who signed him to a three-year contract in September. Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal and Kristen Odland of the Calgary Herald look at the situation right here.

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The OHL's Erie Otters suffered their first regulation-time loss of the season on Thursday when they were beaten 5-2 by the host Niagara IceDogs. . . . Erie F Connor McDavid had his point streak end at 14 games (he has 42 points in 15 games). . . . The Otters' had at least a point in 14 straight games (13-0-1), while Niagara had losts its previous six games.

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The WHL's 20-year-old dance continued Wednesday, this time in the dressing room of the Spokane Chiefs. F Jackson Playfair is back with the Chiefs, who in turn placed F Connor Chartier on waivers. Playfair was traded by the Chiefs to the Tri-City Americans last season. However, the Americans acquired F Richard Nejezchleb from the Brandon Wheat Kings on Wednesday, and that left Tri-City with three 20-year-olds, one over the roster limit. The Americans then put Playfair on waivers. When the Chiefs claimed him, it left them one over the limit, so they placed Chartier on waivers. . . . Playfair had seven points, four of them goals, in 16 games with the Americans this season. Before being traded last season, he had played 89 games with the Chiefs, recording six goals and nine assists. . . . Chartier, a second-round pick by the Chiefs in the 2009 bantam draft, had 71 points, 25 of the goals, in 209 games with Spokane.

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Bob Woods, the general manager and head coach of the Saskatoon Blades, has some history with Mark French, the head coach of the Calgary Hitmen. In fact, the two of them won an AHL championship together. . . . Daniel Nugent-Bowman of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix has more right here.

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Daniel Nugent-Bowman of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix reports that Jackie Hobbs, the mother of D Connor Hobbs, continues to recover from serious injuries suffered in an Oct. 24 head-on collision.

However, Nugent-Bowman writes, that accident didn’t have anything to do with Hobbs leaving the Medicine Hat Tigers on Oct. 30 and asking to be traded.

Hobbs, from Saskatoon, is at home waiting for the phone to ring.

According to Nugent-Bowman, Jackie Hobbs “suffered a broken collarbone, seven broken ribs, a cracked sternum, a chipped vertebrae and a punctured lung . . . She spent nine days in the hospital, but is now recovering well, according to Hobbs's agent Jason Davidson.”

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The latest edition of Elliotte Friedman’s 30 Thoughts is right here. . . . Included is confirmation that, yes, F Kris Versteeg of the Chicago Blackhawks still is interested in purchasing the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

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Cathal Kelly of The Globe and Mail has an interesting take on Alex Rodriguez and his drug situation. Were you in A-Rod’s situation, asks Kelly, what would you have done? Kelly certainly knows what he would have done. Give it a look right here.

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John Forzani, a former CFL player who became a business leader in Calgary, died last week in Palm Springs, Calif. His brain has since been donated to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project. . . . There is no doubt that Forzani experienced brain injuries while playing with the Calgary Stampeders (1971-76), but what makes his situation interesting is that he doesn’t appear to have suffered any cognitive issues in his latter years. He was 67 when he died. . . . Mario Toneguzzi of the Calgary Herald has more right here.

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Sometimes the road has its perks! Team enjoying the TrailBlazers game before tomorrows meeting with @pdxwinterhawks pic.twitter.com/irNhDJ3OrB
— Red Deer Rebels (@Rebelshockey) November 7, 2014

@Rebelshockey Going to a Portland Trailblazers game??? #SanctionsComingSoon
— Not Ron Robison (@NotRonRobison) November 7, 2014

As end nears, the CHLPA has no clothes

As the story of the Canadian Hockey League Players’ Association (CHLPA) began a few months ago, it became evident rather early on that the fledgling organization was lacking in credibility.
In what may have been its first message to the masses, someone from the CHLPA misspelled the name of its executive director. This was in a tweet announcing the name of that executive director.
It has been downhill from there for the CHLPA, an organization that, if nothing else, has shown that you don’t have to be credible in order to gain an obscene amount of publicity via social media.
Someone who said his name was Derek Clarke represented himself early on as the CHLPA’s primary spokesman. He was quick to comment but reluctant to appear anywhere in person.
On Wednesday, Dave Naylor, a former CBC Radio reporter now working for TSN, did some digging and uncovered two men named Derek Clarke. Eventually, the one who apparently was with the CHLPA agreed to meet Naylor at a Montreal hotel on Thursday. Naylor later reported that Clarke refused to appear on camera.
By now there were reports that Clarke actually might be Randy Gumbley, a convicted fraudster with a history of running hockey-related scams.
Former NHL enforcer Georges Laraque was introduced as the CHLPA’s executive director in that August tweet in which his name was misspelled.
That should have served as the canary in the CHLPA’s mine.
By the time the CHLPA imploded on Wednesday and Thursday, the situation had become laughable.
There was Sunaya Sapurji, Yahoo! Sports’ junior hockey columnist, tweeting this yesterday: “I wrote this line today: Laraque said Derek Clarke also exists & is actually a man named Derek Clarke with ‘a family and kids and stuff.’ ”
And then there was this, from Willy Palov, who has written about major junior hockey for a long time with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: “Just spoke with a third highly credible source who says the CHL possesses strong evidence Derek Clarke is Randy Gumbley.”
By late in the business day yesterday, it had been discovered that Derek Clarke — at least a Derek Clarke — and a Glen Clarke were sharing a phone number and email address but neither was returning phone messages.
By now, Laraque, his shovel working hard and the hole getting deeper, was telling Sapurji that Randy Gumbley’s brother, who he said looks a lot like Randy, has been working with the CHLPA.
Seriously!
Through all of this, the CHLPA, via Clarke, had been requesting a meeting with David Branch, who doubles as the CHL president and commissioner of the OHL.
Branch kept asking: “Who are these guys?” But he never got an answer.
So the CHL, in true Hollywood fashion, hired a private eye. No word if it was Thomas Magnum or Jacques Clouseau.
“Our private investigator never did find out who Derek Clarke is,” Branch told Sapurji yesterday.
Earlier in the week, the CHLPA had made a big deal out of the fact it claimed to have signed up the majority of players from one QMJHL team. That turned out to be the expansion Sherbrooke Phoenix.
Late yesterday, Panov reported: “Another credible source said Laraque gathered the Sherbrooke Phoenix players at a hotel earlier this week and informed them the players from the other 17 teams in the Quebec league had already joined the union and asked them to do the same.
“Nineteen of the 23 players allegedly signed cards, but they were asked to keep it confidential. One player eventually broke his silence to Phoenix staff during a team bus ride later that day.”
Meanwhile, players throughout the WHL have been laughing at the stumbling and bumbling. On the weekend, four senior members of the Kamloops Blazers indicated there was no interest in their dressing room in the CHLPA. The story was the same with the Edmonton Oil Kings, Kelowna Rockets, Saskatoon Blades and on and on.
In the hopes of being certified in Alberta, the CHLPA had applied to the Alberta Labour Relations Board on Oct. 5. Kristen Odland of the Calgary Herald reported yesterday that the law firm that had been representing the CHLPA, the Calgary-based Victory Square Law Office LLP, had withdrawn its services.
By late last night, the CHLPA also had lost its law firm in Quebec.
And then, at 7 p.m. Pacific time, came word that Laraque was resigning.
The CHLPA’s sweater, it seems, just continues to unravel.

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