Don Hay, the Vancouver Giants' head coach . . . working
on a new coaching strategy?
(Photo by Dan Elliott / Vancouver Giants)

THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Richard Mueller (Brandon, Saskatoon, Calgary, 1998-2003) signed a one-month contract with the Straubing Tigers (Germany, DEL). The club has the option to extend the contract for the duration of the season. Mueller was on a two-week unpaid try-out contract he had signed last week. He had three goals and one assist in 18 games with Ingolstadt (Germnay, DEL) and five goals and five assists in 15 games with Eispiraten Crimmitschau (Germany, 2.Bundesliga) last season.
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OK. Here’s one that you absolutely have to read. You may even want to bookmark the blog address and revisit it from time to time.
The blog is titled: Eastside Stories — Diary of a Vancouver Beat Cop.
This particular entry details the visit made earlier this week by Tim O’Donovan, the Kamloops Blazers’ communications and media co-ordinator, and six of the team’s veteran players.
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You may be wondering about the photo accompanying this compilation of notes and stuff. That is, of course, veteran Vancouver Giants head coach Don Hay in the suit and tie and some hockey gear. What is he doing, you ask? He was taking part in a photo shoot for BC Business Magazine. . . . The Giants open at home to the Victoria Royals on Friday night and then visit the B.C. capital on Saturday. If you were wondering, the Giants will have to over-night in Victoria as the last ferry to mainland on weekends leaves Sidney by the Sea at 9 p.m. So the Giants will catch the ferry Sunday at 7 a.m. . . . The Kamloops Blazers will play doubleheaders in Victoria on Nov. 29-30 and Jan. 27-28. Rather than bus in the day before the first game, the Blazers will go in the day of the game. They then will spent two nights there before catching the ferry the morning after the second game. . . . By the way, Vancouver F Michael Burns will miss both those games with Victoria after being hit with a two-game suspension for a kneeing major he incurred in a Saturday exhibition game.
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It will become official tonight.
The Crushed Can is dead; long live the Crushed Can!
The Brandon Wheat Kings will meet the Moose Jaw Warriors tonight to open the WHL’s 46th regular season, and they’ll do it in Mosaic Place, Moose Jaw’s brand new multi-purpose facility.
The game will be televised on Shaw. The pre-game festivities will include appearances by former Warriors captains Mark MacKay, Mike Keane and Spencer Edwards.
Moose Jaw will be without D Joel Edmundson, who came back from the camp of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues with an ankle injury. He likely will sit for two weeks.
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The Saskatoon Blades have claimed F Jesse Paradis, 20, off waivers from the Warriors.
Paradis has 70 points and 173 penalty minutes in 239 regular-season games, split between the Kelowna Rockets and the Warriors.
His arrival in Saskatoon leaves the Blades with four 20-year-olds — the others being F Darian Dziurzynski, who is in camp with the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, F Jake Trask and G Adam Morrison.
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The Columbus Blue Jackets are to return some players to junior teams today, meaning D Austin Madaisky will be on his way back to the Kamloops Blazers. The Portland Winterhawks, however, shouldn’t be expecting F Ryan Johansen back. It’s expected that Johansen, the fourth overall pick in the 2010 NHL draft and perhaps the team’s most highly touted prospect, will get a long, long look.
Meanwhile, among those on the way back are F Mark McNeill, Chicago to Prince Albert; F Brad Ross, Toronto to Portland; F Josh Nicholls, Toronto to Saskatoon;
D Dylan Buselius, Nashville to Medicine Hat; F Cole Grbavac, Dallas to Medicine Hat; G Tyler Bunz, Edmonton to Medicine Hat; D David Musil, Edmonton to Vancouver; D Brandon Davidson, Edmonton to Regina; D Colton Jobke, Minnesota to Kelowna; D Josh Caron, Minnesota to Kamloops; D Troy Rutkowski, Colorado to Portland; F Michael Ferland, Calgary to Brandon; F Brooks Macek, Detroit to Calgary; F Victor Rask, Carolina to Calgary; D Keegan Lowe, Carolina to Edmonton; D Joey Leach, Calgary to Kootenay; F Patrick Holland, Calgary to Tri-City; F Brody Sutter, Carolina to Lethbridge; F Turner Elson, Calgary to Red Deer; and F Jordan Weal, Los Angeles to Regina.
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JUST NOTES: The NHL’s San Jose Sharks have assigned F Curt Gogol, 20, of the Victoria Royals to their AHL affiliate, the Worcester Sharks. Gogol has signed with the Sharks so is eligible to play in their organization. . . . The Sharks also assigned D Sena Acolatse to Worcester. He played out his eligility last season with the Prince George Cougars. . . . The Lethbridge Hurricanes got F Brody Sutter back from the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday, meaning the WHL team now has four 20-year-olds on its roster. The others are F Cam Braes, F Austin Fyten and G Damien Ketlo. . . . As was mentioned here the other day, G Deven Dubyk didn’t play for the Medicine Hat Tigers in a 3-2 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings in St. Alberta, Alta., on Sept. 5. The on-line game sheet originally indicated that he did play. That now has been corrected. It seems Kenny Cameron’s name should have appeared on the game sheet, as it now does. . . . Cameron and Dawson MacAuley are neck-and-neck in the scrap to back up Tigers’ starter Tyler Bunz. . . . It would appear that the BCHL has delivered a message as it has suspended Penticton Vees F Logan Johnston for 20 games. Johnston, a 20-year-old who is from Penticton and into his fourth season with his hometown team, delivered a hit in a Saturday exhibition game that broke the jaw of Coquitlam Express F Cody Michelle.
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The Edmonton Oil Kings have cut some ticket prices by 30 per cent. With the Oil Kings generally seen as a team on the rise with an abundance of young talent, it will be interesting to see how the Edmonton-and-area marketplace responds to this move. Cam Tait of the Edmonton Journal has more right here.
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As only he can do, Roy MacGregor of The Globe and Mail suggests that the NHL could cut down on fighting simply by trimming the number of players allowed on team rosters. MacGregor was in the MTS Centre in Winnipeg on Tuesday night as the Jets and Columbus Blue Jackets engaged in two first-minute fights. His piece is right here.
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For today’s good read, we give you a scintillating piece written by former WHLer Brent Severyn (Seattle, Brandon, Saskatoon, 1983-86). Severyn was a pretty good defenceman during his WHL career. In order to get into the NHL and to stay there, he became an enforcer. He now has told his story to Sports Illustrated and it is more than a little engrossing. It is right here. Don't miss this one!

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

COLIN SMITH

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
An honours student, Colin Smith was honoured to be honoured Wednesday at the WHL awards luncheon in Calgary.
Smith, who just completed his second season with the Kamloops Blazers, was named the WHL’s scholastic player of the year and was presented with the Doc Seaman Memorial Trophy.
“It was a little nerve-wracking, to say the least,” said Smith, who will turn 18 on June 20. “But it was nice.
“Not too many times do we get rewarded for schoolwork — it’s more on ice. It’s always nice to get recognized in other ways.”
Forward Adam Lowry of the Swift Current Broncos was the Eastern Conference nominee.
Smith is scheduled to graduate with honours from Vimy Ridge Academy in his hometown of Edmonton next month. During the season, he attended Valleyview Secondary.
The Blazers now have had three players win the WHL’s scholastic award. Defenceman Scott Niedermayer won it for the 1990-91 season, while goaltender Devan Dubnyk was the winner for 2003-04. Niedermayer and Dubnyk both went on to be named the CHL’s scholastic player of the year.
On the ice, Smith put up 50 points, including 21 goals, as he played in all 72 of the Blazers’ regular-season games. While the Blazers didn’t make the playoffs, Smith went on to play for Canada at the IIHF U-18 world championship in Germany. He had three points, two of them goals, in seven games as Canada finished fourth.
Seeing some of Europe for the first time, he said, “was really good. It was a cool experience.”
On top of that, he felt he played “pretty well.”
“I tried to play a role and thought I did a pretty good job,” Smith said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the result we would have liked. But it was an unbelievable experience otherwise.”
Up next for Smith is the NHL draft.
His play improved markedly in the season’s second half and NHL Central Scouting certainly was paying attention as his ranking went from No. 130 at midseason to 96 in the final seedings.
He wasn’t invited to the NHL scouting combine and won’t be attending the draft in St. Paul, Minn., June 24 and 25.
“I don’t have too many expectations,” he said. “I’m more worried about the work after and next season.”
Smith is the highest-ranked of the three Blazers who showed up on Central Scouting’s list.
Defenceman Tyler Hansen came in at No. 131, while centre Dylan Willick was at No. 164.
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WHL award winners, announced Wednesday in Calgary (runner-up in parentheses):
Player of the year — G Darcy Kuemper, Red Deer Rebels (F Tyler Johnson, Spokane Chiefs).
Rookie of the year — D Matt Dumba, Red Deer Rebels (F Sven Bartschi, Portland Winterhawks).
Goaltender of the year — Kuemper (James Reid, Spokane).
Defenceman of the year — Stefan Elliott, Saskatoon Blades (Tyson Barrie, Kelowna Rockets).
Most sportsmanlike player — Johnson (Elliott).
Scholastic player of the year — F Colin Smith, Kamloops Blazers (Adam Lowry, Swift Current Broncos).
Coach of the year — Don Nachbaur, Spokane (Jesse Wallin, Red Deer).
Executive of the year — Lorne Molleken, Saskatoon (Mike Johnston, Portland).
Humanitarian of the year — F Spencer Edwards, Moose Jaw Warriors (D Jeff Einhorn, Chilliwack Bruins).
Marketing/Communications award — Mike Moore, Calgary Hitmen (Brian Sandy, Tri-City Americans).
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As well, the Swift Current Broncos were named the scholastic team of the year, while Matt Kirk was saluted as the league’s top referee. . . . Nachbaur has won the coach-of-the year award three times and has been with a different team on each occasion. . . . Only Pat Ginnell, who was named top coach on four occasions, has won the award more than Nachbaur. . . . This is the ninth straight season in which an Eastern Conference player  has been honoured as the WHL’s player of the year. The last Western Conference player to take the honour? D Dan Hamhuis of the Prince George Cougars in 2001-02.

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

A fond farewell . . .

A look at the Moose Jaw Civic Centre from a scout's vantage point. This photo
was taken by Wade Klippenstein, the assistant GM and director of player
personnel for the Prince George Cougars, while attending a recent playoff game
between the Warriors and Kootenay Ice.
(Photo courtesy Wade Klippenstein)

(The Moose Jaw Civic Centre — aka Crushed Can — was home to its final hockey game Sunday night. The Moose Jaw Warriors will move into a new downtown multiplex in time for next season. Matthew Gourlie of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald wrote a feature on the old girl and has graciously allowed it to be used here. We thank him for that.)

By MATTHEW GOURLIE
Moose Jaw Times-Herald

MOOSE JAW — Architect Joseph Pettick was trying to find a cost-efficient modern solution to the problem of heating a hockey arena — he felt a low, concave roof would keep the ice cool and the fans warm by funneling the heat upwards.
The design was meant to channel heat, but it ended up creating it, too — even on nights when you could see your breath inside the building. With its quirky bounces, small ice surface, steep stands and a ceiling that trapped noise and energy, Pettick had unwittingly designed a powder keg of a hockey rink.
“The fans are so close to the action,” offers Peter Loubardias of Rogers Sportsnet, who once was the radio voice of the Regina Pats so is quite familiar with the building. “When they’re involved in Moose Jaw, it’s loud. You’re right on top of the kids and I think the kids really, really feed off it. They can feel it. Almost everybody in that whole building is so close to the ice surface no matter where you are. With the roof the way it is — being so close to the ice — the noise just stays in there.”
The Moose Jaw Civic Centre played host to its final hockey game on Sunday night. But when it is talked about — and surely the old Crushed Can will be talked about by nostalgic hockey fans for years to come — the concave roof and the noise level in the building won’t ever be forgotten.
“When people walk into the place, they say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ But that’s part of its charm. That’s why the legend will never die. It is so outrageously different,” says Kelly Remple, who was the Moose Jaw Warriors’ marketing director for two seasons and was the chair of the Trans-Canada Clash alumni games.
Different. Often derided. More often beloved. The Crushed Can is a Picasso in a hockey arena landscape being taken over by paint-by-numbers.
Brian Costello, the senior special editions editor at the The Hockey News, has never been in a coffin, but he imagines the experience might be similar to being in the Civic Centre.
“You feel like you can reach up and touch the ceiling wherever you were sitting. It’s a weird feeling,” says Costello, who covered the Swift Current Broncos for the Swift Current Sun in the late ’80s.
It’s a building that makes a strong first impression.
Current Warriors captain Spencer Edwards recalls being a 16-year-old rookie with the Red Deer Rebels when he first set foot in the rink. After a long bus ride, the Rebels unloaded their gear through a darkened concourse and down the side stairs.
“I hadn’t really seen the rink yet,” Edwards remembers. “We went straight to the dressing room. A lot of people don’t know it, but the visiting dressing room is pretty nice here. It’s a lot nicer than some of the newer buildings in the league.
“We put away all of our gear and walked out to the rink and I was shocked. I had never seen anything like it in my life.”
There may, in fact, be nothing like it.
Pettick was inspired by the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright to become an architect.
With the angles and curves of the Civic Centre and the SaskPower building in Regina, Wright’s inspiration is evident in some of Pettick’s most iconic work. When it opened, the arena looked modern and space-aged — like a tail fin on a ’59 Cadillac.
The sloped roof is the rink’s most notorious feature, but it’s far from its only quirk. The ice surface is officially listed as 194 feet long — only six feet short of regulation — but it’s hard to find anyone who really believes the listed 85x194 dimensions.
Along with the cozy confines came the lively boards and erratic bounces. Rare is the rink that has a personality, but there were nights when it felt like the Crushed Can was trying to help the home side.
In last season’s playoffs, a Chad Suer dump-in took a hard left turn off a stanchion without losing speed. The shot had a CGI quality to it as it made a beeline for Calgary goalie Martin Jones, hit him and ended up in the net.
In the Warriors’ first home game after the 2006 car accident in which forward Garrett Robinson was so badly injured, Warriors defenceman Jesse Zetariuk watched one of his dump-ins take a friendly hop into a vacated net.
Once the playoffs started and the days grew longer, the setting sun would even peek into the building, bathing the lower seats on the east side in sunlight.
Of all of the mythical qualities of the rink, none was as pronounced as the way momentum would rapidly build.
Earlier this season, the Pats had quited the local crowd with three early goals. The Warriors promptly scored four goals in less than five minutes to grab the lead before the end of the first period.
“It’s the momentum. With the atmosphere and the fans behind you, that momentum is easy to keep building upon,” explains Mark MacKay, the original Warriors captain. “On the other end, it’s hard for the opposing team. It pushes them down.”
Loubardias says in his five seasons calling games with the Pats, he frequently saw a superior Pats team fall victim to a seven- or eight-minute run of Warriors momentum and lose in the Civic Centre.
“When that team gets going in that building and they get on a roll, they are no fun to deal with — and they’ve never been any fun to deal with,” says Loubardias.
“I always loved the passion there. When the games were good and the people were really involved, it really was a special, special place to go to a game.
“What makes Moose Jaw special and what makes that building special is that that team is so important to that community. The people liked hard, physical, tough hockey and thrived on it. It will always be a real special place to me and I will be sad to see it go.”
The passion spills over from time to time as well. And that, too, is part of the building’s lore.
There was the night Brandon Wheat Kings defenceman Theran Yeo was jumped by a group of fans in the tunnel as he exited the ice. And the night Pats fans knocked Puckhead, the Warriors’ mascot, to the ground. Puckhead got some quick medical attention but returned to action. One night later, the Pats’ mascot, K9, was a healthy scratch for fear of retribution.
It was a bench-clearing brawl in 1984 that kick-started the Pats-Warriors rivalry. Remple recalls being a wide-eyed 12-year-old standing at the glass, taking in all of the mayhem.
“I wish all of the new generation of fans in southern Saskatchewan could have been to a Pats-Warriors game in the ’80s,” Remple says. “It’s hard to explain to people, but the level of excitement and enthusiasm — and just the decibel level — was in a different universe than it is now.”
There are those who argue that there’s a good reason why there aren’t any other rinks like the Civic Centre. Its steep stairs are treacherous. The lineups to use its washrooms can be endless. There’s little room to move on the concourse that runs under the stands. The rink is showing its age. It can be tropical or freezing inside — sometimes in the span of the same week.
It’s not the most pleasant spectating experience for the fans, but those who played there have always loved it.
“Since I’ve been involved with the alumni, every single player I’ve ever talked to says they absolutely loved the games in there,” says Remple. “The amenities may not be quite up to par. But the 2 1/2 hours of actual hockey? They loved it.”
Of course, the Civic Centre is merely a building — concrete and steel, for the most part. MacKay believes the building is special because of the people who have spent more time in it than any player — the fans who have dutifully backed the Warriors through good times and bad.
“Any hockey player loves the fact that the people are involved. The fans are right on top of the ice. They’re loud,” says MacKay, who was a 20-year-old in the Warriors’ first season in Moose Jaw.
“We didn’t win a ton of games that year, but the ones we did win, they made it special for us. They made us feel special. Their support through hard times was so important.”
They knew how to make visiting players feel special, too, though not in quite the same way. After Regina forward Frank Kovacs declined to fight Warriors tough guy Kent Staniforth, then-Warriors head coach Lorne Molleken called out the Pats’ captain and called him “yellow” in the media.
“Molleken was no dummy,’’ Kovacs says. “He clicked into that and it was a good trade for him to have me sitting in the penalty box with Kent Staniforth.
“So I was in a tough spot. Do I fight Kent Staniforth and sit in the box or do I turn away from a fight offer? Well, I can’t win, right?”
Instead he was serenaded by the Warriors fans. Constantly. For more than a season.
“The way the rink is built, the fans are right on top of you. Everywhere you went, there were fans on top of you,” Kovacs says. “So when someone says something against you like ‘yellow! yellow!’, well, you hear it. It’s not like it’s up in Section 500 in the nosebleeds. It’s all right there. And one person says it and the whole crowd gets into it because you can hear it so easily.”
If anything, Kovacs says, he enjoyed the heckling and the odd profanity from the crowd. He says the rink was a good test for a hockey team because you had to show up every night when you played in Moose Jaw.
“You had to be ready for a good game coming in there or else you were going to get crushed,” says Kovacs. “I loved playing in Moose Jaw. It’s a great character hockey rink. That’s a great place to play.”
As hard as it was for most visiting teams to play in the Civic Centre, it could be a welcoming place, but only on the most significant of occasions.
After the Dec. 30, 1986 bus crash in which Swift Current players Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff died, the Broncos returned to the ice for the first time in Moose Jaw.
“On the way to that game it was such a sullen feeling on that bus,” recalls Costello. “When the team and the players walked in that arena, it was pretty special — especially when they came in for the pre-game warm-up and the anthem. It was quite an amazing ovation for them. You don’t see that for the visiting team — at all — anywhere.”
The Civic Centre opened in the fall of 1959 with a gala performance by legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, an event that was attended by then-Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas. It later played host to the 1983 world women’s curling championship.
With the Moose Jaw Canucks (WCHL and SJHL) and then the Warriors its primary tenants, the building became synonymous with hockey. A lot of great players passed through its doors and its rich history is in evidence on every wall with framed photos of Moose Jaw’s hockey past.
“There’s so much history,” Edwards says. “Even just walking through, you can tell that not only has it been around for a long time, but a lot of important people have walked in and played in this building.
“There’s no atmosphere like it. The noise level in the building on a playoff night or a Regina night is second to none in the league, for sure.”