By GREGG DRINNAN Daily News Sports Editor
Matthew Needham is about to become the rarest of the rare in terms of WHL players -- a skater who has played 10 regular-season games despite not yet having turned 16 years of age.
Needham, 15, will play the ninth and 10^th games of his WHL career this weekend with the Kamloops Blazers, whose forward ranks have been thinned by injuries.
The eighth overall selection in the 2010 bantam draft, Needham has 32 points in 29 games with the Okanagan Hockey Academy midget team in his hometown of Penticton.
He also six points, two of them goals, in eight games with the Blazers, who are at home to the Chilliwack Bruins tonight and the Vancouver Giants on Saturday night. The Blazers have recalled him for the fourth time this season and he is expected to play in both games.
WHL rules limit a 15-year-old player to five games before his club team has its season come to an end. However, there are exceptions.
For one thing, WHL games played by a 15-year-old during the World Junior Championship and the U-17 World Hockey Challenge don’t count if the WHL team has more than two players in those competitions. Needham played six games with the Blazers while they had four players in Buffalo and Winnipeg.
As well, the WHL may grant an exemption should a team find itself in an emergency situation, which is about where the Blazers find themselves as they will be without four and perhaps five forwards tonight.
When centre Dalibor Bortnak went down with a concussion in the third period of Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to the Tri-City Americans in Kennewick, Wash., the Blazers were left with eight forwards.
Bortnak won’t play this weekend, nor will Jordan DePape, Thomas Frazee or Chase Schaber, all of whom are sidelined with leg-related injuries. Bernhard Keil (shoulder) will be a game-time decision.
The Blazers (21-25-2) go into the weekend in eighth place in the 10-team Western Conference. They are one point ahead of the Bruins (20-20-3), who hold five games in hand.
The Bruins list forwards Brendan Persley (foot) and Jesse Pauls (leg) as out, while swingman Curt Gogol (shoulder) and winger Robin Soudek (knee) are day-to-day.
The Giants (22-19-5) are showing signs of finding their stride after an inconsistent first half. They are 6-4-0 in their last 10 and back atop the B.C. Division, one point ahead of the Kelowna Rockets and five up on Kamloops.
The Blazers returned from the Christmas break to sweep a home-and-home series from the Giants, winning 4-1 there and 6-1 here. Since then, the Blazers are 4-7-0, while the Giants are 5-3-0.
The Giants also have added centre Andrej Stastny to their roster. A 6-foot-4, 215-pounder, he was a teammate of Bortnak’s on the Slovakian team at the World Junior Championship and gives Vancouver head coach Don Hay the big centre he covets.
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Richard Doerksen, the WHL’s vice-president, hockey, has rescinded the spearing major and game misconduct given to Kamloops D Josh Caron by referee Jason Nissen on Wednesday night. Instead, Caron was given a minor penalty, so won’t be suspended.
However, Doerksen didn’t rescind the slashing major and game misconduct handed to Blazers F Ryan Hanes as the third period ran out in Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the visiting Portland Winterhawks.
Doerksen also chose not to suspend Hanes, who hacked at Portland G Mac Carruth. That was Hanes’ first game misconduct of the season; a third game misconduct carries an automatic one-game suspension so long as it didn’t warrant an earlier suspension.
JUST NOTES: Both games start at 7 p.m., at Interior Savings Centre. . . . The Blazers are 4-6-0 in their last 10 outings, but have lost five of six, including three of four at home. . . . The Bruins also are 4-6-0 in their last 10. . . . The Blazers are billing Saturday’s game as Mascot Night and expect as many as 20 mascots to be on hand. . . . Vancouver F James Henry (knee) still is about a month from returning. He was injured in a 4-1 loss to the visiting Blazers on Dec. 27. . . . Vancouver F Spencer Bennett has 14 points, including nine goals, over his last nine games. He and linemates Brendan Gallagher and Brendan Rowinski have combined for 37 points over those nine games, in which the Giants are 6-3-0.
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The Kamloops Blazers are going to be missing a few roster players when the WHL’s regular-season schedule picks up on Monday. In order to help fill the gaps, the Blazers are expected to bring in forward Matthew Needham, 15, from Penticton and defenceman Landon Cross, 16, from Brandon.
Defenceman Brandon Underwood was suspended by the WHL for one game on Tuesday so won’t be eligible to play when the Blazers meet the Giants in Vancouver on Monday. He was suspended for a kneeing major he incurred during a 3-2 loss to the Cougars in Prince George on Sunday. This is Underwood’s second one-game suspension of the season.
The Blazers, who are the WHL’s most-penalized team, now have been hit with 18 games in suspensions this season.
Right-winger Jordan DePape also will sit out Monday’s game as he completes a five-game suspension for a hit on forward Killian Hutt of the visiting Swift Current Broncos on Dec. 10.
Underwood and DePape will be eligible to return Tuesday when the Giants play at Interior Savings Centre. Game time will be 7 p.m.
Two other players -- forwards Dalibor Bortnak (Slovakia) and Bernhard Keil (Germany) -- hope to be playing at the World Junior Championship that opens Sunday in Buffalo. However, neither team has as of yet declared its final roster.
Also missing will be two players in their first WHL seasons. Defenceman Brady Gaudet, who is from Redvers, Sask., and forward Logan McVeigh, from Kenaston, Sask., both will be with Team West at the 2011 U-17 World Hockey Challenge in Winnipeg.
That tournament, for 1994-born players, begins Tuesday and runs through Jan. 4, which means Gaudet and McVeigh will miss at least six WHL games. Team West comprises players from Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
At the same time, the Blazers hope to welcome back defenceman Josh Caron, who hasn’t played since suffering a broken collarbone on Sept. 25. He was injured in the second game of the season, against the Chilliwack Bruins, and hasn’t played since, meaning he has missed 33 games.
Needham, who plays for the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, was the eighth overall selection in the WHL’s 2010 bantam draft. He has played two games with the Blazers the season and scored his first WHL goal in his second appearance. With OHA, Needham has 27 points, including 11 goals, and 45 penalty minutes in 26 games.
Cross was a third-round selection in the 2009 draft. He has 17 points and 52 penalty minutes in 28 games with the midget AAA Brandon Wheat Kings.
Later in the season, the Blazers will have three of their 2010 bantam draft selections playing in the Canada Winter Games in Halifax.
Needham and defenceman Joshua Connolly of Prince George will play for Team B.C., while forward Cole Ully of Calgary will be with Team Alberta.
Connolly, who plays with the major midget Cariboo Cougars, was a third-round pick. Ully, a second-round selection, is with the midget AAA Calgary Flames.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers have returned F Aspen Sterzer, 16, to his team at the EDGE academy in Calgary. In two stints with the Blazers, he has played in seven games. . . . D Sena Acolatse of the Prince George Cougars has been suspended for two games for the match penalty for attempt to injury that he took at the end of Saturday’s victory over the Blazers.

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Blazers trim forward from roster

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The Jesse Sinatynski experiment is over . . . at least for now.
The WHL’s Kamloops Blazers released Sinatynski, an 18-year-old forward, from their roster on Thursday, although he will stay on their protected list.
The Blazers gave the Brandon Wheat Kings a 2011 fifth-round draft pick in exchange for Sitanyski on Oct. 13. He played in three games with the Blazers, scoring one goal, and was a healthy scratch in the other.
A native of Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., Sinatynski is expected to end up with an AJHL team. He was a 13th-round pick by the Wheat Kings in the WHL’s 2007 bantam draft.
“I made the deal the day before the waiver draft,” Blazers general manager Craig Bonner explained, referring to the day when each WHL team had to get down to a maximum of three 20-year-old players. “I didn’t think (Shayne) Neigum was going to be available.”
Neigum, 20, was placed on waivers by the Chilliwack Bruins and the Blazers claimed him.
“I thought we needed one more forward,” Bonner said. “When Neigum became available, we ended up with too many guys again.”
In Sinatynski, Bonner was looking for the player he had watched total 64 points and 154 penalty minutes with a midget AAA team in Fort Saskatchewan two seasons ago.
“He played with a lot of passion,” Bonner said. “I knew he wasn’t a great skater, but he was a real competitive guy.
“The one thing I really liked about him was his passion for the game. He was that kind of player and he made up for his deficiencies with that. It just seems that that has been lost. That happens to some players.”
Last season, with the Wheat Kings as the host team for the Memorial Cup, Sinatynski got into just 27 games, putting up 10 points and six penalty minutes.
“After his year in Brandon, it seems he lost a bit of that competitive edge that we were looking for,” Bonner said. “After watching him, it seems the passion is gone.”
Bonner, now with 24 players on his roster, didn’t want to have an 18-year-old who was in and out of the lineup.
“For his own sake he needs to go back to junior A and play and try to find that passion again,” Bonner said. “Hopefully,  he can go and have some success and we’ll see.
“It’s in his hands what he wants do do.”
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When the Blazers opened training camp in late August, they were faced with a real lack of depth at the goaltending position.
That doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.
The Blazers now hold the rights to nine goaltenders, including Jeff Bosch, 20, and Jon Groenheyde, 19, who are on their roster, and Josh Thorimbert, 18, who is a freshman with the Colorado College Tigers.
Also on the Kamloops protected list are Cole Cheveldave, 17, of the AJHL’s Drumheller Dragons; John Keeney, 17, with the USHL’s Omaha Lancers; Braden Krogfoss, 15, who is playing midget AAA in Cloverdale; Scott Lapp, 15, who is playing midget AAA in Semiahmoo; Troy Trombley, 16, who is with a midget AAA team in Fort Saskatchewan; and, Taran Kozun, 16, with the midget AAA Prince Albert Mintos.
The Blazers placed Cheveldave on their list following the AJHL’s Showcase Weekend early in October, while Lapp earned a spot on the list with a strong performance in the Blazers’ training camp.
“The plan was to draft two goaltenders,” Matt Recchi, the Blazers’ director of player personnel, said. They were only able to draft one — Krogfoss — so a decision was made to “list the best one out of camp.”
“Lapp was real good at camp,” Recchi said, noting that “we kept him through to main camp. He was that good.”
Keeney, who is from Twin Peaks, Calif., is 2-1 with a 1.92 GAA and .927 save percentage in three games with Omaha. He now is partnered with Todd Mathews, 20, who was dropped by the WHL’s Kootenay Ice at the 20-year-old deadline. Mathews, from Covina, Calif., lost his only start with the Lancers.
Thorimbert, from Saskatoon, is one of three goaltenders with the Tigers, the others being sophomore Joe Howe and senior Tyler O’Brien. Howe has started five of the Tigers’ six games and is 2-2-1, 1.99, .928. Thorimbert gave up three goals on 19 shots in winning his one start.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers are at home Saturday, 7 p.m., to the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . F Matthew Needham, the Blazers’ first pick in the 2010 WHL bantam draft, has 19 points, including nine goals, in 18 games with the Penticton-based Okanagan Hockey Academy U-18 prep team. He picked up nine points in his last three games. . . . F Cody DePourcq, who is on the Blazers’ list and also is at OHA, has 21 points, including 13 goals, in 19 games.

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