Fighting to save a hockey program

F Justin Maylan (Moose Jaw. Prince George, Prince Albert, 2007-12) signed a one-year contract with Gherdëina (Italy, Serie A). Last season, with the South Carolina Stingrays (ECHL), he had one assist in three games. He also was pointless in four games with the Oklahoma City Barons (AHL). He signed with Herning (Denmark, Metal Ligaen) in November and put up 21 points, six of them goals, in 22 games.
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If Trevor Bast has his way, the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) WolfPack hockey team will live a long and fruitful life.
Unfortunately, the school’s athletic director buried the team last week.
In eliminating the hockey program, Ken Olynyk, TRU’s athletics and recreation director, said: “ . . . due to economics and a lack of a sustainable model, we have no choice but to dissolve the program.”
The hockey program started life in 2008-09. It was a club team that was operated by the Kamloops Collegiate Hockey Society. A source familiar with the situation has told Taking Note that the team was $50,000 in debt.
Bast, however, isn’t about to give up.
“I am determined to start a movement to revive this team,” Bast, who lives in Victoria, told Taking Note on Sunday night.
For the last three seasons, the WolfPack’s head coach was Don Schulz. Last season, the WolfPack went 9-14, finishing fourth in the six-team B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League. TRU then lost out in the first round of the playoffs.
Bast’s son, Des, was the last recruit signed by the WolfPack. The 6-foot-2, 180-pound defenceman’s signing was announced via news release on July 17. Bast, 19, split last season between the SJHL’s Nipawin Hawks and the junior B Peninsula Panthers of the Vancouver Island Junior league.
“It was a bitter disappointment for our entire family when (the program ended), as well as for the other players involved,” Trevor Bast said. “Just to have a chance to play four more years of competitive hockey and for us to cheer him and his team on for four more years is a thrill only a hockey family can relate to. Having that pulled out from under you suddenly leaves a huge void.”
Hockey or not, Des still plans on attending TRU, where he will study architectural and engineering technology, a program his father said “is quite unique and not offered in many places.”
But when Trevor Bast looked at what happened to the hockey program, he said, “I can't help but think this was a completely avoidable situation.”
The way he figures it, $40,000 would have saved the team.
“There is too much money in the hockey world for $40,000 to take down a university program -- club, varsity or otherwise,” he said. “The thing that jumps out at me is the hockey team ran on a $100,000 budget. With a full roster at last year’s player fee of $1,500 that covers approx 40 per cent.
“That leaves $60,000 for the team, the foundation and the university to make up via grants, sponsorship, fundraising, etc. At the end of the day, the announced shortfall was $40,000 and a plan for sustainability was not in place.
“Of those 20 or so players who suddenly lost this team, if eight of them decide to not attend school at all due to this, that is eight too many. That is life- and career-altering.”
Bast is determined to find out whether there is money available for a program such as this.
“There is a sustainable model out there,” he said. “There is money out there in the form of corporate sponsorship and a huge network of multi-millionaire pros from the B.C. Interior. There are great business minds with a passion for hockey and higher education who could lend expertise to creating a sustainable model. TRU has a business and marketing program that is the envy of other larger institutions.”
Starting right now, Bast said, the fight is on try and save the program.
“I, like everyone else, have a lot more ideas and questions than answers right now,” he said, “but the solution is out there and it is worth fighting for.
“I believe this team will be revived and I will do whatever I can to get behind the cause.”
Bast may be reached by email at  trevorbast@gmail.com
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Herb Hand is the offensive line coach with the Penn State Nittany Lions football team. The other day, a player he was recruiting posted something Hand found offensive, so the recruitment drive ended. Right there. . . . There is more right here on the impact of social media on these situations. It should have been headlined: Players beware!
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The always thoughtful William C. Rhoden of The New York Times weighs in right here with his look at the mess Stephen A. Smith of ESPN found himself in after opining on the suspension handed running back Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens by the NFL.
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I find the idea of a divorce lawyer advertising in a minor hockey rink really really funny. pic.twitter.com/VA3EPKLLmS
— Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) August 2, 2014

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Team exec: Mental health awareness 'needs to be bigger deal' in CHL

F Collin Valcourt (Spokane, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, 2010-14) has signed a tryout contract with Hradec Králové (Czech Republic, Extraliga). Last season, with Saskatoon and Prince Albert, he put up 72 points, 28 of them goals, in 71 games. He was pointless in one game with the Abbotsford Heat (AHL). The Hradec Králové head coach is Peter Draisaitl, the father of Valcourt's Prince Albert teammate Leon Draisaitl. . . .
Patrik Sylvegård, the general manager of Malmö (Sweden, Allsvenskan), has told the Malmö newspaper Sydsvenskan that F Kenndal McArdle (Moose Jaw, Vancouver, 2002-09) has retired from hockey. McArdle signed a new contract, one year plus an option year, in June with Malmö. Last season, with Vasteras (Sweden, Allsvenskan), he had 11 goals and 13 assists in 45 games.
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In less than a year, at least three young hockey players, two of them WHL bantam draft selections, have taken their own lives.
And one high-ranking team official says it’s time for the CHL to do more.
“Mental health needs to be a bigger deal,” he told Taking Note on Thursday evening.
Pointing out the work done by TSN’s Michael Landsberg, the host of Off the Record, and Canadian cyclist/speed skater Clara Hughes to “help de-stigmatize” mental illness, the team executive said he “believes the CHL needs to do more in light of these tragic cases popping up across the country.“
“I have seen first-hand how easy it is to hide away and not want to bother anyone with it,” he added, “and also how easy it is to get help if someone they trust and respect can see the signs.”
At the same time, he admitted: “Yes, it’s an easy problem to ignore.”
But, regardless of what happens at the CHL level, he doesn’t plan on ignoring it.
“In light of the recent string of tragedies,“ he said, “we plan on stepping up our mental health awareness options to our players at training camp, and showing them it is not a point of weakness but a point of bravery to seek counsel if it is needed."
With these most-recent deaths it would seem the time has come to do more than whatever already is being done.
It is doubtful we will ever know what drives a young person to take such a drastic step; obviously, this isn’t a simple issue that can be broken down to one thing.
But it seems to have become a much more frequent occurrence in hockey circles, and perhaps it’s time it was discussed more openly. Perhaps it’s time for a national dialogue on the subject.
One mother who is heavily involved in hockey and who has seen her family impacted by mental illness told me this week that she will write Tom Renney, the new president and CEO of Hockey Canada, in an attempt to get that organization more involved in educating its coaches.
A recent situation involving her son “was a debacle,” she said. “Not saying his coach wasn’t a nice person, just uneducated and inexperienced.”
Perhaps she should also write to David Branch, the president of the CHL, and Ron Robison, the WHL commissioner, and Bruce Hamilton, the owner of the Kelowna Rockets who also is the chairman of the board of governors.
There was a time when the media shied away from reporting on suicides; in fact, the subject was all but taboo.
As Steve Ladurantaye, then with The Globe and Mail, reported in December 2011, that thinking began to change, at least in part, in 2009 when Gerry Nott, the editor-in-chief of the Ottawa Citizen, assigned reporters to write stories on two teenagers who had killed themselves in a rural Ontario community.
Nott explained his decision this way:
“With such a significant number of deaths in terms of young people, if this were anything but suicide, we'd write about it incessantly. If there were a preponderance of deaths related to mountain bikes, we'd write stories about it daily, and I take the position that suicide is no different than that. Unless it's on the table respectfully, it's not going to be addressed by the mental-health system or any of the oversight agencies.”
Ladurantaye reported:
“The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that suicide has accounted for 2 per cent of annual deaths in Canada since the late 1970s and the group most at risk is the 15-to-19-year-old population.
“Although rates of adolescent suicide in Canada have declined since the early 1980s, it remains the second-leading cause of death among teenagers, after car accidents. In 2007, the most recent year with available data, 218 people 10 to 19 years old committed suicide.”
There are professionals who are concerned with what they call contagion, which in effect is copying someone else.
While I am most aware of that situation, I am more inclined to agree with Nott. If we don’t have a dialogue about this problem, how will we ever come to grips with it. There has to be a way that we can get young people to understand that ending it all isn’t the answer, that even with the speed bumps we encounter, life still is the most precious thing we have.
Ladurantaye’s story from 2011 is right here.
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Dan Hamhuis, who owns a piece of the Prince George Cougars, was back home in Smithers, B.C., this week. In fact, he appeared at City Council on Thursday. It’s a day the Vancouver Canucks defenceman won’t forget as councillors voted to name a section of First Avenue after him. It’ll be known as Dan Hamhuis Way. Kendra Wong of the Smithers Interior News has more right here.
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The Prince George Cougars have signed F Ethan O’Rourke, a Penticton, B.C., native who was a third-round selection in the 2014 bantam draft. . . . Last season, at the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, he had 35 points, 18 of them goals, in 58 games. . . . O’Rourke’s father Steve is a former WHLer (Tri-City, Moose Jaw, 1991-94), who now is an assistant coach with the Red Deer Rebels. . . . The Cougars have signed three of their 2014 draft picks, with F Justin Almeida of Kitimat, B.C., and D Max Martin of Winnipeg having signed earlier. Almeida was the fifth overall selection; Martin was taken with the 27th pick.
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Joey Perricone, a goaltender who played five seasons (2003-08) with the Moose Jaw Warriors, has gotten into the coaching game. On Thursday, he was named the goaltending coach with the QMJHL’s Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. . . . Perricone, 27, played four seasons with the St. Francis Xavier U X-Men, who play out of Antigonish, N.S. . . . With the Huskies, he will work alongside GM/head coach Gilles Bouchard.
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F Jake Virtanen of the Calgary Hitmen, who had off-season shoulder surgery, is back on skates, but he has yet to be cleared for contact. He’s skating and shooting in Vancouver these days and tells Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province right here that he hopes to be back playing for the Hitmen in early October. Virtanen will attend the Canadian national junior team’s summer camp in Montreal and Sherbrooke next week. He’ll skate but won’t take part in contact drills.
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Former NHLer Jeff O’Neill started an interesting string of comments with this tweet:

Do hockey skates seriously cost 850.00 ?
— Jeff O'Neill (@odognine2) August 1, 2014

If you track down O’Neill’s timeline on Twitter, check out the comments.
The cost of playing minor hockey is becoming a hot-button issue.
On Tuesday, Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post did an interview with Montreal Canadiens star P.K. Subban that included this exchange:
Fitz-Gerald: How much of a threat do you think the cost of playing hockey is to the future of the game in Canada?
Subban: (jumps in quickly) Huge threat. Huge threat, because you’re missing a big part of the population, in terms of being able to afford to play the sport. So what does that mean? That means you’re missing out on talent for the game, you’re missing out on potential interest for the game, you’re missing out on growth for thew game. You’re missing out on a lot of things. When you look at soccer, it’s the most popular sport in the world. Why? Because everybody can play it . . . so everybody feels welcome.
(That complete interview is right here.)
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WaPo Letter to the Editor of the day pic.twitter.com/L3NnApPKc3
— Kevin Reiss (@kevin_reiss) July 31, 2014

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Unifor continuing drive to unionize major juniors

F Tyler Mosienko (Kelowna, 2000-05) signed a one-year contract with the Sheffield Steelers (England, UK Elite). Last season, with Esbjerg (Denmark, Metal Ligaen), he had 43 points, including 16 goals, in 31 games. He also played 25 games with the Alaska Aces (ECHL), putting up 20 points, 17 of them assists. . . .
F Jade Galbraith (Saskatoon, 2000-01) has signed a one-year contract with the Dundee Stars (Scotland, UK Elite). Last season, with the Heerenveen Flyers (Netherlands, Eredivisie), he had 38 points, including 17 goals, in 22 games.
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Rick Westhead, who recently joined TSN as its senior correspondent, has filed his first piece and it deals with Unifor and its bid to unionize major junior hockey. The union, Westhead reports, is to meet today with Ontario’s minister of labour. . . . Westhead’s piece is right here.
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It was Hall of Fame weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y., as the world of baseball saluted a few of its greats. That included Roger Angell, perhaps the best of all the baseball essayists. Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated has more on Angell right here, and you won’t want to miss it.
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Now here’s a real treat. In celebration of Angell, The New Yorker, the magazine for which he writes, has posted links to “eight Angell classics.” Those links are right here.
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The Portland Mavericks were an independent baseball team that lasted just five seasons. But what a five seasons of fun they were! Larry Stone of the Seattle Times chronicles that team right here. The Mavericks, by the way, were owned by Bing Russell. You may have heard of his son, Kurt.
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“After football, hockey is the sport that produces the highest reate of concussion,” notes Dr. Stefan M. Duma, the head of the biomedical engineering department at Virginia Tech. . . . Which is why, as Jeff Z. Klein of The New York Times reports, hockey helmets “may be on the verge of a radical makeover.” . . . Klein’s piece is right here.
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No doubt you are aware of the political unrest in the Russian area of the world. Perhaps you have been wondering how that will impact the approaching KHL season. Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star tackles that question right here.
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TWEET OF THE DAY:

Really really excited to join france national team tomorrow 🇫🇷 and play some hockey games!!! #cantwait #bozysback pic.twitter.com/V9kvlnXQFf
— Tim Bozon (@timbozon94) July 27, 2014

Family in front of me just dropped $2,300 on hockey equipment and sticks, and it all fit in three big shopping bags. Yikes.
— Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) July 27, 2014

There has never been a subscription fee for this blog, but if you enjoy stopping by here, why not consider donating to the cause? Just click HERE. . . and thank you very much.