F Brad Voth (Medicine Hat, 1996-2002) signed a one-year contract extension with the Cardiff Devils (Wales, UK Elite). He had 22 goals and 16 assists in 50 games for the Devils last season. This will be Voth's seventh season in Cardiff. . . .
F Jade Galbraith (Saskatoon, 2001-02) signed a one-year contract with the Braehead Clan (Scotland, UK Elite). He had 28 goals and led the league with 65 assists in 58 games for the Nottingham Panthers (England, UK Elite) last season. . . .
F Derek LeBlanc (Brandon, Calgary, 2003-07) signed a one-year contract with the Belfast Giants (Northern Ireland, UK Elite). He had 25 goals and 25 assists in 66 games with the Rapid City Rush (Central Hockey League) last season.
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Bob Tory, the general manager of the Tri-City Americans, certainly isn’t on a summer vacation.
Tory completed his second major trade in two days Friday, this time acquiring D Mitch Topping, 18, from the Victoria Royals.
In exchange, the Americans gave up F Justin Spagrud, 16, and a second-round selection in the 2013 bantam draft.
The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Topping, who is from Red Deer, played the last two seasons with the Chilliwack Bruins, who relocated to Victoria following the 2010-11 season.
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| Former Chilliwack defenceman Mitch Topping now is a member of the Tri-City Americans. |
Topping becomes the sixth experienced defenceman on Tri-City’s roster along with Sam Grist and Zach Yuen, both 18, Drydn Dow, 19, and Matt MacKenzie and Brock Sutherland, both 20.
It is doubtful that both MacKenzie and Sutherland will spend the season with the Americans, who have five 20-year-olds on their roster.
They had six before dealing G Drew Owsley to the Prince George Cougars on Thursday. The Americans got back G Ty Rimmer, 19, in that exchange. The Americans also gave up a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2013 draft, while picking up a third-rounder in 2012 and a fifth in 2013.
Spagrud was a third-round pick by the Americans in the 2010 bantam draft. He is from Gull Lake, Sask., the hometown of Roger Aldag, the great Saskatchewan Roughriders offensive lineman who is in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Spagrud had 16 points, including nine goals, in 36 games with the midget AAA Swift Current Legionnaires last season. He also played for Saskatchewan at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax in February.
In his draft season, Spagrud put up 62 points, 35 of them goals, in 26 games with the bantam AA Swift Current Kabos Raiders.
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If you’re a WHL fan, or just a hockey fan, you are going to want to come out and watch the Everett Silvertips when they are in your town in the approaching season.
Why?
Because of defenceman Ryan Murray.
Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal has a look at Murray right here.
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Corey Carlson, who played on the Vernon Lakers when they won the 1989 BCHL championship, was killed last weekend when two small planes collided in mid-air north of Anchorage. Carlson’s wife and two young daughters also died.
Roger Knox of the Vernon Morning Star has more right here.
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Gotta think that the commissioners of major junior hockey’s three leagues about choked on their morning cereal when they read a piece by the afore-mentioned Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal on Dougie and Freddie Hamilton, who are hoping to become only the second set of brothers ever to play together on Canada’s national junior team.
Included in Matheson’s piece is this gem:
Dougie said he didn’t study much during IceDogs’ road bus trips in the Ontario Hockey League circuit.
“A lot of people say players bring their laptops and binders on the bus to do school work, but I’ve never seen it. I think that’s what the league says to convince the people to come.
“I try to get it done before, so I don’t have to worry about it,” said Dougie. “I just do my best and those are the marks I get. In school, I’m there to work and learn. Same as the rinks.”
Read the entire story right here.
Gotta think Paul Kelly of College Hockey Inc. has hit cut, paste and send a few times on that one.
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THE COACHING GAME:
Mark LeRose, who did a stint as an assistant coach with the Everett Silvertips, has joined the coach staff of EC Red Bull Salzburg, which plays in the Austrian elite league. LeRose, 41, will work with Red Bull Salzburg, which has Pierre Page as its head coach, and with the U-20 club. . . .
Lyle Mast is the new goaltending coach with the Tri-City Americans. Mast, who has coached goaltending for more than 25 years, spent the last two seasons working with the Edmonton Oil Kings, and had worked with the U of Alberta Golden Bears since 2007. He is the owner of Optimum Reaction Sports, a goaltender training company that researches and develops programs through biomechanics related to the position. . . . Former WHL/NHL goaltender Olaf Kolzig, who owns part of the Americans, worked with the goaltenders last season but now is working with the NHL’s Washington Capitals, thus the need for another coach in Kennewick. . . .
Derek Lalonde is the new head coach of the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers. He spent the last five seasons as an assistant coach with the U of Denver Pioneers. he takes over from Eric Rud, who now is an assistant coach with the Colorado College Tigers.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
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