Patrick Holland of the Tri-City Americans fights through traffic in an attempt to get a shot off on Saskatoon Blades
goaltender Andrey Makarov on Wednesday night in Kennewick, Wash.
(Photo by John Allen / AridAcres.com)

THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Derek LeBlanc (Brandon, Calgary, 2003-07) requested and was granted his release by the Belfast Giants (Northern Ireland, UK Elite) for personal reasons. He had four goals and nine assists in 12 games for the Giants this season. . . .
G Dusan Salficky (Tri-City, 1990-91) has been loaned by Litomerice (Czech Republic, 1.Liga) to Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic, Extraliga) for at least one game. Salficky has yet to appear in a game this season. Last season, he had a 3.88 GAA and a .885 save percentage in 12 games with Plzen (Czech Republic, Extraliga), a 2.73 GAA and a .927 save percentage in nine games with Litomerice, and a 1.14 GAA and a .963 save percentage in six games with Slovan Ustecti Lvi (Czech Republic, 1.Liga).
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F Austin Connor, who was acquired by the Vancouver Giants from the Prince Albert Raiders on Monday, has chosen to retire. The Raiders, instead, have sent the Giants a fourth-round pick in the 2013 bantam draft. The Raiders got F Teal Burns and F Tyler Hart in the deal, with D Arvin Atwal going to Vancouver.
Connor, who is from Beechy, Sask., has decided he would rather farm than play hockey.
Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province has that story right here.
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Rob Vanstone, in the Regina Leader-Post: “The WHL is transmitting mixed messages. While vowing to crack down on headshots, with the laudable goal of reducing concussions, the league refuses to provide specific injury information on its website. Instead, the site typically refers to upper- and lower-body injuries. In this case, the WHL’s collective big brains should give their heads a shake.”
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Vanstone, continued: “Let’s amend that: They should give their upper bodies a shake.”
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I am told that D Matt Benning of the AJHL’s Spruce Grove Saints has been offered a scholarship to Minnesota-Duluth, starting with the 2013-14 season. Benning is the son of Brian Benning, a defenceman with the Portland Winterhawks and Kamloops Blazers for parts of two seasons (1983-85). The younger Benning was a second-round bantam draft pick by the Kootenay Ice in 2009. His rights were dealt this summer to the Tri-City Americans, but he chose not to report as he wanted to keep his NCAA options open. It would seem that the NCAA option now has materialized.
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JUST NOTES: The Tri-City Americans have assigned F Justin Gutierrez to the NAHL’s Wichita Falls Wildcats. Gutierrez, who turns 16 on Dec. 22, was pointless in one game with the Americans. He is the younger brother of former WHLer Moises Gutierrez. . . . Rick Brodsky, who owns the Prince George Cougars, is a co-owner of the Wichita Falls franchise. . . . Head coach Don Hay of the Vancouver Giants will be the head coach of the WHL team that will meet a touring Russian side in the annual Subway Super Series. He will be assisted by Ryan Huska of the Kelowna Rockets and Lorne Molleken of the Saskatooon Blades. Of course, Hay also is head coach of Canada’s national junior team, and Huska is one of his assistants. . . . The WHL team will meet the Russians in Regina on Nov. 16 and in Moose Jaw on Nov. 17. . . . Greg Mayer of the Regina Pats, Curtis Amiot of the Moose Jaw Warriors and Jamie LeBlanc of the Swift Current Broncos will serve as the WHL team’s training staff.
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Some Wednesday highlights:
In Edmonton, D Griffin Reinhart scored his first two goals to lift the Oil Kings to a 2-1 victory over the Moose Jaw Warriors. . . . Reinhart forged a 1-1 tie at 13:20 of the second period, while on the PP, then got the winner at 18:28 of the third. . . . F Michael St. Croix assisted on both Edmonton goals. . . . Moose Jaw took 50 of 82 penalty minutes. . . . Edmonton held a 42-18 edge in shots. . . .
In Red Deer, the Rebels scored the game’s last three goals, the final one into an empty net, and beat the Kamloops Blazers, 4-2. . . . All three goals were unassisted efforts, with F Tyson Ness and F Chad Robinson erasing a 2-1 deficit with goals 24 seconds apart early in the third period. . . . F Turner Elson got the empty-netter at 19:41. . . . Red Deer’s Patrik Bartosak, the CHL’s goaltender of the week, stopped 30 shots. . . .
In Everett, the Brandon Wheat Kings got two goals and an assist from each of F Darian Dziurzynski and F Paul Ciarelli and beat the Silvertips, 8-2. . . . There have been reports that Dziurzynski scored three goals, but the online scoresheet shows him with two. . . . F Brenden Walker and F Michael Ferland each had a goal and two helpers. . . . Brandon G Brandon Anderson stopped 30 shots. He’s 2-0 since being acquired Sunday from the Lethbridge Hurricanes. . . . Dziurynski has three (or four) goals in two games since being acquired from the Saskatoon Blades, also on Sunday. . . . Brandon F Mark Stone had a goal as he ran his season-opening point streak to 11 games. . . . The Wheat Kings were without F Bruno Mraz, who left Tuesday’s game against the Seattle Thunderbirds after hitting his head on the boards. . . . The Silvertips had three players leave with injuries — D Ryan Murray, F Josh Birkholz and F Ryan Harrison. . . . Murray, one of the WHL’s top defencemen, left in the first period after taking a hit from Stone. Murray was on crutches after the game. . . . The Wheat Kings next play Friday in Medicine Hat against the Tigers. That game will mark the second time the Clouston brothers have clashed as head coaches. Cory is in his first season as Brandon’s head coach; Shaun is the Tigers’ second-year head coach. . . . Rob Henderson of the Brandon Sun notes that the two met on Jan. 3, 2003, when the Kootenay Ice, with Cory running things, beat the Tri-City Americans, with Shaun as head coach, 4-1, in Kennewick, Wash. . . . It’s believed that the only other brothers to have opposed each other in the WHL was the Sauters, Doug with the Calgary Wranglers and Mike with the Lethbridge Broncos, in 1979-80. . . .
In Kennewick, Wash., F Justin Feser scored twice and set up another as the Tri-City Americans got past the Saskatoon Blades, 5-2. . . . Feser’s second goal, at 18:00 of the third, gave the Americans a 4-2 lead and F Brendan Shinnimin iced it with an empty-netter 38 seconds later. . . . Tri-City G Ty Rimmer stopped 33 shots, three fewer than Saskatoon’s Andrey Makarov. . . . The Blades have lost three in a row in the U.S. Division after opening the swing with a victory in Everett. . . . The Americans will spend the weekend in Prince George. Tri-City won last season’s series 2-1-0-1, but the Americans hold a 20-3-0-1 edge since 2005-06.
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Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News has been following the impending sale of the NHL’s Dallas Stars. Tom Gaglardi, the majority owner of the Kamloops Blazers, is hoping to purchase the Stars out of bankruptcy and there is an important deadline arriving on Saturday.
Heika’s latest piece is right here.
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A report in the Estevan Mercury indicates that the four western Canadian junior A leagues are seriously considering abandoning the RBC Cup and starting up their own championship.
Why?
“According to the document,” the newspaper reports, “a major reason for the change is to get away from Hockey Canada’s overbearing rules for hosting tournaments, which restrict profit for the host community by forcing them to change most or all of their advertising to Hockey Canada sponsors.
“The document cites ‘Hockey Canada exclusivities’ and ‘administrative fees for event management’ among the reasons for taking this initiative.”
The Mercury’s complete story is right here.

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THE MacBETH REPORT:
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.

Former Chilliwack defenceman Mitch Topping now is a
member of the Tri-City Americans.

The eighth overall selection in the 2008 bantam draft, Topping had 16 points in 71 games last season, following a 13-point freshman season.
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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