Happy 100th birthday to a Rockets fan

A tip of the cap to the Kelowna Rockets for helping Adeline Cummings celebrate her 100th birthday on Saturday night.
Adeline was a Christmas baby – she actually turned 100 on Christmas Day – and the Rockets feted her Saturday with the Kamloops Blazers at Prospera Place.
Gavin Hamilton, the Rockets’ vice-president of business development, told me: “She is a huge fan and knows all the players and has quite the discussions at the nursing home over who should be traded and who needs to play more, etc.”
The Rockets had her in the arena on Saturday and presented her with an autographed jersey that featured her name and the No. 100 on the back.
“She is amazingly spry for someone that age,” Hamilton said. “The cheer for her was louder than any cheer for us that night.”
The Rockets beat the Blazers 4-3 in a shootout on Saturday.
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So . . . Team Canada has played two games at the World Junior Championship in Ottawa and has won both games by a combined score of 23-1. And tonight it’s Germany’s turn to be the sacrificial lamb before about 20,000 worshippers.
You have to wonder how Canadian Hockey League teams feel about losing their top players for a month when the preliminary games are nothing but laughers.
(Or, if you’re the Prince George Cougars, you have lost your best player, who also is your captain, for the duration of this season. And because of Dana Tyrell’s season-ending knee injury, you can’t even trade him.)
By the sound of things, there is talk behind the scenes about changing the format and, frankly, something is going to have to be done before this turns into something bordering on women’s hockey which, for years now, has been Canada versus the United States.
But when TSN’s well-connected Bob McKenzie starts talking up possible changes with the World Junior Championship, you know something is going on.
Here’s McKenzie on Sunday, while Canada was beating up on Kazakhstan to the tune of 15-0:
“Go to an eight-team tournament. There are six hockey powers in the world – Canada, Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic, Finland and the United States. Then you have two other teams qualify. It could be Slovakia, Latvia, Kazakhstan or anyone else.”
I would argue that at the moment there are two hockey powers in the world at the under-20 level – Canada and the United States. You can count on those two teams being competitive every tournament. The others aren’t consistently competitive with those two teams and therein lies the problem.
But what to do?
Here’s more from McKenzie:
“The only challenge would be the argument that you would have to reduce the number of games played. You can't bring that number down because there’s revenue involved. This is a 31-game tournament. As long as the International Ice Hockey Federation comes up with some sort of format that approximates 28, 30 or 31 games, then it can be done in an eight-team format.”
Yes, in the end, it’s all about the money. This tournament, when held in Canada or close to Canada, is a huge cash cow.
So . . . the bottom line is this: Don’t be looking for a format change any time soon.
As for the players, how do they feel about 15-0?
“It wasn’t even fun,” winger Jordan Eberle of the Regina Pats told columnist Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader-Post.
“Like every hockey player, you’re competitive and you want to have a
competitive game,” Eberle added. “When I say it wasn’t fun, we still enjoyed the game. It was fun in that the crowd kept us in it. It was a good atmosphere.”
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The Swift Current Broncos are losing Elden Moberg, who has been associated with the team since 1991. Moberg will stay on as the team’s assistant GM/director of operations until Feb. 1, at which time he will join Stark and Marsh, a chartered accounting firm, as their chief operating officer. Moberg called the play of Broncos’ games for four seasons, and also served as the club’s marketing and public relations director. He has been the AGM since 2000.