A-Rod vs. Yanks: The rich eating the super-rich

D Ryley Miller, who played most of five seasons with t he Barndon Wheat Kings, has signed with the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers. Miller, who completed his junior eligibility last season, wrapped up last season with the MJHL’s Dauphin Kings. In 241 WHL games, he had 37 points and 537 penalty minutes. . . .

The Brandon Wheat Kings are down to three 20-year-olds with the decision by F Jason Swyripa not to return for a fourth season. Instead, Swyripa, a Calgary native who played 200 games with the Wheat Kings, will activate his WHL scholarship and plans on attending Brandon University. He had 61 career points, including 23 last season. . . . Swyripa’s decision leaves Brandon with F Jens Meilleur and Chad Robinson and D Rene Hunter as its 20-year-olds, at least for now. . . .

The Medicine Hat Tigers have signed D David Quenneville, the 10th overall selection in the WHL’s 2013 bantam draft, to a contract. Quenneville, whose brother John plays for the Brandon Wheat Kings, has spent the last two seasons with the Edmonton-South Side Athletic Club Lions in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League. Last season, he had 72 points, including 34 goals, in 32 games. . . .

F Taylor Makin, who played three seasons in the WHL (Prince George, Vancouver, 2009-12), has decided to continue his hockey career with the Acadia Axemen of Wolfville, N.S. . . . Makin, now 21, played one game with the Vancouver Giants last season before joining the AJHL’s Brooks Bandits and helping them to the national junior A championship. . . .


The Kelowna Rockets are anticipating that 180 prospects will attend their rookie camp that begins Wednesday at Prospera Place. Of the 12 players selected by the Rockets in the 2013 WHL bantam draft, it’s beieved that only D Cal Foote, a late 1998, won’t be in attendance. He was the 43rd overall pick in the 2013 bantam draft. Foote, the son of former NHL D Adam Foote, is sidelined by injury.
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The Everett Silvertips, who open camp on Thursday, have three European skaters in town already. D Mirco Mueller of Switzerland, who was a freshman last season, and F Waltteri Hopponen and F Ivan Nikolishin of Russia all are in Everett and ready to go. . . . Mueller was first-round selection by the San Jose Sharks. Because he was a first-round pick, the Silvertips were allowed to make two selections in the 2013 CHL import draft. They now will have to wait until the Sharks decide on Mueller’s future before making a decision on which two will play in Everett this season. . . . Nick Patterson of the Everett Herald has more right here.
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The OHL’s Guelph Storm has hired former NHLer Todd Harvey as an assistant coach, while moving assistant coach Chris Hajt into the post of assistant general manager. . . . Harvey will work with head coach Scott Walker, while Hajt will assist general manager Mike Kelly.
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SOME GOOD READING:
Sarah Lyall's stint as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times is up after 18 years in London. She has written a crackling good piece reflecting on it all and that is right here.
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Nathaniel Penn has written a terrific piece for GQ, titled: The Violent Life and Sudden Death of Junior Seau. It is terrific and it is right here.
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Even if you are tired of the A-Rod saga and all that goes with it, you should give Bruce Arthur of the National Post a read.
“Some people say they’re bored of the A-Rod saga, which is understandable but misguided,” Arthur writes. “This is delicious. This is the rich eating the super-rich. This is the Yankees, who have missed the playoffs once since 1995, bumbling along with a lineup so strange that Lyle Overbay is third on the team in total bases and playing a series of vagrants and character actors at third base, and also A-Rod.”
Arthur’s piece is right here.

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Sutter staying in Switzerland

THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Boyd Kane (Regina, 1994-98) signed a one-year contract with Medvescak Zagreb (Croatia, KHL). He had 15 goals and 22 assists in 74 games as captain of the Hershey Bears (AHL) last season. . . . Kane joins former Hershey head coach Mark French with Medvescak Zagreb. Kane was the Bears’ captain for two seasons while French was the head coach. . . . Dave Sottile of pennlive.com has more right here.
D Dave Sutter (Seattle, 2010-12) signed a one-year contract with Red Ice Martigny (Switzerland, NL B). He had no points in three games with Genève-Servette (Switzerland, NL A) and had three goals and nine assists in 43 games on loan to Red Ice last season. For those who are inclined to practice their French language skills, The Red Ice press release, with picture, can be found right here.
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The 2013 Hockey Coaches Conference, which is scheduled for Aug. 9-11 in Burnaby, B.C., has adjusted its calendar due to Hockey Canada’s decision to ban body checking from the peewee level and below. The conference now will include an on-ice presentation that will address these changes. The on-ice session will be led by Derek Popke and Yogi Svejkovsky of the Vancouver Hockey School, both of whom are well known in Lower Mainland minor hockey circles. Both also will be available in a question-and-answer session after the on-ice portion.
 . . . There is more right here.
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The CHL held its 2013 import draft on Wednesday with the Vancouver Giants using the first overall selection on D Dmitri Osipov, a 17-year-old from Russia. His agent is Ritch Winter of Edmonton, who has told media that Osipov will report. "He could have made a lot of money in the KHL,” Winter told Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province. “Tells you all you need to know."
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The Spokane Chiefs released F Mikulas Rimmel, an 18-year-old Czech, prior to the import draft. He had seven points in 42 games with the Chiefs last season.
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The Portland Winterhawks released Russian D Kirill Vorobev prior to the draft, which allowed them to select Swedish D Anton Cederholm, who was a fifth-round selection by the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday. . . . Vorobev played in 53 games with Portland last season.
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The Everett Silvertips made two selections in the import draft, despite having D Mirco Mueller on their roster. Mueller, 18, was selected by the San Jose Sharks with the 18th pick in Sunday’s NHL draft. . . . A CHL team that has a European player selected in the first round of the NHL draft is allowed to have three imports on its roster. In this instance, should Mueller return to Everett from San Jose, the Silvertips would have to drop an import. On Wednesday, Everett added the CHL rights to Finnish F Waltteri Hopponen and Russian F Ivan Nikolishin.
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Three teams — the Everett Silvertips, Portland Winterhawks and Saskatoon Blades — were involved in Wednesday trades that will impact their 20-year-old situations.
The Blades dealt F Shane McColgan, 20, to the Winterhawks and D Matt Pufahl, 20, to the Silvertips.
McColgan was dealt for a seventh-round pick in the 2014 bantam draft and a third-rounder in 2015. From Manhattan Beach, Calif., McColgan is preparing for his fifth WHL season. He played three seasons with the Kelowna Rockets before being dealt to Saskatoon last summer. He had 66 points, including 19 goals, in 69 games last season. In 281 career regular-season games, he has 268 points, inlcuding 84 goals.
Pufahl, who is from Saskatoon, went to Everett for D Ayrton Nikkel, 18. Everett also gets a fifth-round selection in the 2015 bantam draft. Nikkel, from Kelowna, was a second-round selection by the Blades in 2010. He was dealt to the Brandon Wheat Kings as part of the deal that involved F Brayden Schenn at the 2011 trade deadline. Brandon later traded him to Everett. He had nine points and 117 penalty minutes last season. . . . Pufahl had 43 points in 69 games last season, with 25 of those points coming via the PP. He was a fourth-round selection by the Red Deer Rebels in the 2008 bantam draft.
Pufahl’s arrival leaves Everett with four 20-year-olds, the others being F Manraj Hayer, Reid Petryk and Josh Winquist.
The Blades now have four 20-year-olds to compete for the three spots — F Erik Benoit, F Nathan Burns, D Graeme Craig and F Collin Valcourt.
The defending-champion Winterhawks also announced that F Joey Baker, 20, has left the organization in order to “pursue educational opportunities.”
His departure leaves McColgan as Portland’s only 20-year-old player.
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The CHL’s goaltender of the year will be back in the WHL for another season. The NHL’s Los Angeles Kings have told the Red Deer Rebels that G Patrik Bartosak will return for his 20-year-old season.
Bartosak was a fifth-round selection by the Kings in Sunday’s NHL draft.
“I talked to him at noon (Wednesday) and he’s good with it,” Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter told the Red Deer Advocate. “He understands the decision. He knew all along that this was an option.”
According to the Advocate: “The Kings have goaltenders under contract at each level of the organization and will wait a year to sign Bartosak.”
With Bartosak and F Dominik Volek on the Rebels’ roster, Sutter took a pass on yesterday’s CHL import draft.
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The Seattle Thunderbirds were the only other WHL team not to participate in the import draft. They expect to have Russian F Alex Delnov, 19, and Latvian F Roberts Lipsbergs, 19, back for their second seasons. . . . Lipsbergs led the Thunderbirds last season in goals (30) and points (58), while Delnov had 49 points, including 20 goals.
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The OHL’s London Knights have “agreed in principle” wih Sportsnet on a reality TV show that would be fashioned after On The Edge, the show in which cameras followed the Saskatoon Blades during the just-completed season. . . . Morris Dalla Cost of the London Free Press has more right here, but it doesn’t sound as though the cameras will have as much access to the Knights as they did with the Blades.
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Three forwards off the roster of the Portland Winterhawks have been named to the U.S. U18 select team that will play in the Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament next month. Paul Bittner, Keegan Iverson and Dominic Turgeon are the lone WHL players named to the 21-man roster. . . . Bittner is from Crookston, Minn., while Iverson is from St. Louis Park, Minn., and Turgeon is from Cherry Hills, Colo. . . . F Chase Phelps of Edina, Minn., who is on the Lethbridge Hurricanes’ protected list, also was named to the U.S. team. He has been at Shattuck St. Mary’s for three seasons. . . . The Ivan Hlinka tournament is scheduled for Breclav, Czech Republic, and Piestany, Slovakia, Aug. 5-10.
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THE COACHING GAME:
Steve Spott is leaving the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers to take over as head coach of the Toronto Marlies, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs. Spott has spent 14 seasons in the OHL, 10 with Kitchener and four with the Plymouth Whalers. . . . Spott replaces Dallas Eakins, now the head coach of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. . . .


Paul Fixter is the new head coach of the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves. He takes over from Trent Cull, who has signed on as an assistant coach with the Syracuse Crunch, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning. . . . Cull had been the Wolves’ head coach for three seasons. . . . Fixter joined the Wolves this summer after five seasons on the staff of the Kitchener Rangers.
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From Matthew Gourlie (@Matt Gourlie) of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald: “I'm not saying the CHL Import Draft is rigged, but... Niagara pick Alex Mikulovich has had his team listed as Niagara on twitter for days.”
The OHL’s Niagara IceDogs selected Mikulovich in the second round of yesterday’s CHL import draft.


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