Happy New Year!

You can bet that the Lethbridge Hurricanes and their fans are holding their breath tonight. That’s because F Zach Boychuk, who has 26 points in 21 games, left the arena in Ottawa on crutches following Team Canada’s 7-4 victory over the U.S. at the world junior tournament. Boychuk reportedly had a cast of some sort on his right ankle. . . . The Prince George Cougars, of course, lost LW Dana Tyrell, their leading scorer, for the season when he suffered a knee injury while playing for Canada in an exhibition game with Sweden on Dec. 19.
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There is a move afoot, led by Hockey Canada, to change the format for the World Junior Championship. It seems nothing is likely to be done before the 2010 tournament, which will be held in Regina and Saskatoon, but there is hope for change before the 2012 tournament in Calgary and Edmonton. Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun has more right here.
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JUST NOTES: The Edmonton Oil Kings have signed D Ryan Dech, the 56th pick in the 2008 bantam draft. Dech is playing for the midget AAA Winnipeg Thrashers and has 13 points in 27 games. He is scheduled to make his WHL debut on Jan. 9 when the Oil Kings meet the Warriors in Moose Jaw. The Oil Kings also expect that F Michael St. Croix, the fourth overall pick in the 2008 draft, will make his WHL debut on that eastern swing. St. Croix also is from Winnipeg. . . . Former Spokane Chiefs F Judd Blackwater, 21, who had been with the ECHL’s Fresno Falcons when the franchise folded a couple of weeks back, has signed with the ECHL’s Stockton Thunder. He had 14 points and 23 penalty minutes with Fresno. Blackwater was a member of the Memorial Cup-winning Chiefs last season.
The Tri-City Americans are in Prince George for a weekend doubleheader with the Cougars. That means Tri-City head coach Don Nachbaur is back in his old stomping grounds. And the Cougars will salute him Friday night in honour of his having been inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame. Nachbaur wasn’t able to attend the induction dinner so the hall’s Neil King will use the occasion to present him with a plaque. . . . Cougars captain Dana Tyrell, who suffered a season-ending knee injury with Team Canada on Dec. 19, also will be in Prince George for both weekend games. Tyrell is scheduled to have surgery in the middle of January in Calgary. . . . With Tyrell gone, D Cameron Cepek is the Cougars’ new captain. The alternates are F Tyler Halliday and F Alex Poulter. . . . Do you get the feeling that TSN analyst Pierre (Old Yeller) McGuire likes John Tavares? And wasn’t it nice of play-by-play man Gord Miller to let us know after the Canada-U.S. tilt that we had just witnessed one of the greatest games we will ever see? Like, we aren’t capable of judging for ourselves, or what? . . . And, by the way, I can think of some better games that I have seen, starting with the 1979 Memorial Cup final, the last Canada-Russia game in 1972, a game in the Crushed Can in Moose Jaw one night when it was Mike Modano against Theo Fleury, the 1989 Memorial Cup final . . . Sorry, Gord, but Canada-U.S. wasn’t in my top half-dozen, maybe not even in my top 10.
Prince George has brought in D Jesse Forsberg, 15, and D David Greyeyes, 17, for the weekend and both will make their WHL debuts. Forsberg was the 11th overall pick in the 2008 bantam draft. Both are from the Beardy’s Blackhawks of the Saskatchewan midget AAA league and played at the Mac’s tournament in Calgary. Greyeyes has 48 points in 26 games and is tied for second in the midget AAA league’s scoring race. Yes, he is a defenceman. He was the 96th pick in the 2006 bantam draft, taken by Swift Current, and played four games with the
Broncos in each of the last two seasons. Forsberg has 31 points with the Blackhawks. . . . Jim Swanson, the sports editor of the Prince George Citizen, also reports that the Cougars have chosen to keep F Marcus Watson, 19, for the remainder of the season. A Californian, he began the season with the Cougars, was reassigned to the BCHL’s Langley Chiefs, and rejoined the Cougars before Christmas.
The Kelowna Rockets have brought in F Shane McColgan and F Max Adolph for weekend games against the visiting Spokane Chiefs and Moose Jaw Warriors. McColgan, the 13th pick in the 2008 bantam draft, made his WHL debut Dec. 16 in Red Deer and scored his first WHL goal the next night in Edmonton. His regular team is the Los Angeles Junior Kings, for whom he has 31 points in 24 games. Adolph, from Saskatoon, plays for the midget AAA Saskatoon Contacts. He was a fourth-round pick in the 2007 bantam draft.
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Happy New Year! There were six games on New Year’s Eve, and they drew 33,487 fans. . . . New Year’s greetings? The games included 32 fighting majors, including two multi-fight situations that the WHL office is certain to frown upon. Ch-ch-ching! It might even be time to start filling the commissioner’s 2009 Christmas shopping fund. . . .
The Calgary Hitmen gave up seven power-play opportunities and killed off all of them as they beat the Oil Kings 4-1 in Edmonton. . . . The Hitmen, who got goals from four players, scored the game’s last four goals. . . . Edmonton G Torrie Jung stopped 34 shots, including a second period penalty shot by F Carson McMillan. . . . McMillan did score his 19th goal into an empty net late in the third period. . . . F Andrew Clark scored twice, giving him 20 goals, and F Scott Glennie added his 20th as the Brandon Wheat Kings beat the Kootenay Ice 3-2 in Cranbrook. . . . Clark also drew an assist on Glennie’s goal, while F Jay Fehr had two assists. . . . The Wheat Kings, who beat the Hurricanes 6-4 in Lethbridge on Tuesday, led 3-0 at 15:08 of the first period. The Ice scored twice in the third period to make things interesting. . . . G Todd Mathews, who was acquired by the Ice after Thomas Heemskerk left the team before practice, made his first start for Kootenay. He gave up three goals on 10 shots and was replaced by Nathan Lieuwen after the first period. Lieuwen stopped all 17 shots he faced. . . . Brandon G Andrew Hayes stopped 34 shots. . . .
G Kurtis Mucha stopped 31 shots and F Oliver Gabriel scored on a second-period penalty shot as the host Portland Winter Hawks doubled the Seattle Thunderbirds 4-2. . . . Gabriel has two goals this season. . . . Attendance for the annual New Year’s Eve battle was 8,432 and the teams co-operated with a small multi-fight situation late in the third period. . . . The Winter Hawks got off to a 4-0 lead before Seattle counted two late third-period PP goals. . . . F Joel Broda, the WHL’s leading sniper, scored three times to lead the Moose Jaw Warriors to a 4-3 victory over the host Chilliwack Bruins. Broda’s 31st goal of the season, at 16:08 of the third period, broke a 3-3 tie. Broda drew an assist on his side’s other goal. . . . Moose Jaw G Deven Dubyk stopped 31 shots as the Warriors were outshot 34-19. . . .
F Byron Froese scored three times and added an assist and F Kellan Tochkin had two goals and three assists to lead the host Everett Silvertips to a 6-3 victory over the Red Deer Rebels. . . . Red Deer scored the game’s first goal and its last two. In between, Everett struck for six in a row, five of them coming in an 11-minute stretch in the second period. . . . Froese, a 17-year-old freshman from Winkler, Man., has 34 points, including 12 goals, in 36 games. He scored three straight goals in the second period, in a span of 8:24. . . . Tochkin, a 17-year-old from Abbotsford, has 42 points, 12 of them goals, in 36 games. . . . Silvertips D Taylor Ellington broke the franchise record for regular-season games played. This was No. 251, one more than Zach Hamill. . . . Everett F Daniel Bartek (knee infection) was back after missing two games. . . . In Kennewick, Wash., C Taylor Procyshen scored twice, the first shorthanded, to lead the Tri-City Americans to a 6-1 victory over the Spokane Chiefs. He has 21 goals this season. . . . G Brett Martyniuk, in his second career start, stopped 27 shots for the victory. . . . Yes, there was a line brawl, this one late in the second period.
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Here are the CHL’s Mosaik MasterCard top 10 rankings for the week, as selected by a panel of NHL scouts (and you are free to wonder how many copies are posted in the Vancouver Giants’ dressing room; team, record, last week’s ranking and number of weeks in rankings):
1. Calgary Hitmen (33-5-1-1) 2 10
2. Windsor Spitfires (30-5-0-1) 1 15
3. Drummondville Voltigeurs (31-4-0-3) 3 11
4. Vancouver Giants (31-2-0-3) 4 13
5. Shawinigan Cataractes (32-8-0-0) 5 12
6. London Knights (27-7-0-1) 6 12
7. Moncton Wildcats (28-3-2-3) 7 14
8. Belleville Bulls (24-11-2-2) 10 7
9. Quebec Remparts (29-8-0-2) - 10
10. Brampton Battalion (22-11-1-1) 9 7
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And a tip of the hat to Mike Riley, the head coach of the No. 24-ranked Oregon State Beavers football team. They beat the No. 18 Pitt Panthers 3-0 in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday. Riley, who is one of the sporting world’s really great people, is 8-0 in his last eight bowl appearances – 3-0 as offensive co-ordinator at USC and 5-0 at Oregon State.