Monday . . .

THE MacBETH REPORT: D Matt Kinch (Calgary) signs with Wolfsburg (Germany DEL) for the rest of this season. He played three games with Worcester (AHL) this season, getting two assists.
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F Ian Duval of the Moose Jaw Warriors is the Boston Pizza WHL player of the week. He had seven points, including five goals, as the Warriors won three times, all on the road, last week. . . . Red Deer Rebels G Darcy Kuemper is the WHL’s nominee as the ADT CHL goaltender of the week. He was 2-0-0-0 with a 0.50 GAA and a .980 save percentage.
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D Jesse Craige of the Chilliwack Bruins has been out since Oct. 12 because of a broken jaw. But he recently sat down to dinner of steak and a baked potato. So, yes, he is getting closer to a return. That won’t happen, however, until sometime in January because the Bruins really want to cut down on the odds of his getting hurt again. When Craige, who has been skating, was injured, the Bruins were 5-4-0-0; they now are 10-21-2-2. . . . So what’s it like with a broken jaw? “It was absolutely awful,” Craige told Eric J. Welsh of the Chilliwack Progress. “You can’t talk, so you can’t socialize. You can’t eat, and because of that you’re grumpy because you’re hungry. You can’t train too hard because you don’t have energy because you don’t eat. You can’t skate too hard because you can’t breathe. There are so many things I never thought of until I had a broken jaw.”
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Meanwhile, Welsh reports that Chilliwack F Jadon Potter is at home in Hoey, Sask., recovering from a neck injury he suffered in a home game on Nov. 21. “I’m actually doing pretty good,” Potter told Welsh. “I went for X-rays the other day and everything looks to be normal or healing right. The odd day I’m pretty sore and can’t really do much and there are other days where it’s better and I can get out and walk around a bit. It’s a pretty slow process right now.” . . . Potter, who was the Bruins’ captain and leading scorer when he was injured, will wear a neck brace until late in January. “It’s two parts stuck together with Velcro flaps,” Potter explained to Welsh. “I have to change my clothes with it on and shower with it on and go to sleep with it on. There’s a Velcro lining that has to be changed once in a while, and to do that I have to lay down on a flat surface and not move. The neck brace is not my favourite thing in the world.”
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It’s doubtful if anyone had a crappier Monday than Moose Jaw Warriors D Travis Hamonic. He went to bed in Ottawa with dreams of Canada’s national junior team dancing in his head. He managed about two hours sleep before the phone rang in his hotel room and he got the bad word. Yes, he had been cut. . . . So he flew from Ottawa to Regina, only to discover that none of his luggage or equipment made it. . . . And then, once he arrived in Moose Jaw, he found out that his truck wouldn’t start. “I’m disappointed that I didn’t make the team, but I’m not disappointed in myself,” Hamonic told Matthew Gourlie of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald. “I thought I left it all on the ice, but at the end of the day I just didn’t fit into what they had in mind.” . . . Hamonic is 18 so likely will have another chance to make the Canadian team in a year.
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The Medicine Hat Tigers meet the Chiefs in Spokane on Tuesday night, and you have to think there will be some Christmas greetings being exchanged. Spokane F Blake Gal and Tigers F Taylor Gal are brothers, while Chiefs’ F Levko Koper and Medicine Hat F Josh Koper are cousins. . . . Who knows what kind of game it will turn out to be? After all, the Tigers are without C Tyler Ennis (Team Canada) and D Tomas Kundratek and F Zdenek Okal, who are at the Czech national junior team’s camp, while Spokane is missing G Dustin Tokarski, F Drayson Bowman, F Mitch Wahl and F Tyler Johnson. Tokarski is with Team Canada; the other three are with Team USA. . . . As well, associate coach Shaun Clouston is running the Tigers’ bench as GM/head coach Willie Desjardins is an assistant coach with Canada’s national junior team.
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If you’re looking ahead to the 2009 NHL draft, you may be wondering who are the WHL’s top 10 prospects. You can take a look at a list compiled by Glen Erickson, who writes for Hockey’s Future. Erickson piece is right here.