The First Squad

The woman to the left has been busy over the last week as she put 26 players through the paces, watched film of practices, had discussions with players, and weighed all of those factors with a few more intangibles to come up with a team. Karissa Kirkup, the head coach of the very first U18 AAA Brandon Wheat Kings hockey team in the MFHL, has made her choices, and she's ready to lead her players into battle against some of the best players the province of Manitoba can boast. Kirkup will have her players ready by the time September rolls around, but there's a ton of work to do between now and then as she aims to find staff, come up with jerseys, and prepare for a long season. Today, though, the 17 girls chosen by Kirkup who will skate for the very first MFHL Wheat Kings team have been named!

I wrote about the expansion of the MFHL into the Brandon region last week, and everyone I've spoken with has said this will make hockey better in Manitoba by having another team in the western portion of the province playing. There has been no shortage of compliments about the effort shown by Kirkup to not only have the U15 team as good as it was, but for her experience and hockey knowledge continuing to be passed onto the next generation via the U18 AAA route. In short, everyone who has a stake in the game at the U18 AAA female level seems excited about Brandon joining the fun!

Kirkup's team has a good mix of veteran leadership and youthful enthusiasm, it seems, and that should bode well in setting the Wheaties up for future success. A number of players who made the team have MFHL experience while the remainder appear to be high-calbre players from quality U15 programs. Make no mistake that the Wheat Kings will compete in every game this season. Where they finish in the standings will be entirely up to them as they'll have talent at all positions.

Here is your first Brandon Wheat Kings MFHL team by position.

Goaltenders

Name	Last Team	Age	Record	GAA	SV%
Danica Averill	Westman Wildcats	15	13-4-1-2	1.98	.926
Shannon Hees	U15 Brandon	15	13-4-3-3	1.23	.948

It appears that Kirkup decided to go younger in the crease rather than bringing in a veteran, but I like this idea as both Averill and Hees will compete and push one another to be better while being the backbone of the Wheat Kings team for the next few years. Averill's experience with Westman is big when it comes to helping her teammates adapt to the MFHL, but Hees will push for playing time. If teams are built from the net out, Kirkup has an outstanding tandem this year and for the future.

Defenders

Name	Last Team	Age	GP	G	A	Pts
Bailey Anderson	Central Plains Capitals	17	25	0	1	1
Kasia Baranyk	U15 Brandon Wheat Kings	14	30	2	2	4
Devyn Moncur	Westman Wildcats	16	28	0	2	2
Haley Blaine	Westman Wildcats	17	28	1	3	4
Chloe McBeth	Central Plains Capitals	16	28	0	0	0
Chloe Kachur	U15 Brandon Wheat Kings	15	27	2	6	8

The mix of veteran players and younger defenders is evident on Kirkup's blue line. Anderson was an alternate captain with the Capitals last season, and she could be the first captain of the Wheat Kings. Blaine was a pillar of strength on the Westman blue line, and her and Anderson will lead the way. Devyn Moncur and Chloe McBeth may be reunited as they were defensive partners while skating for the U15 Wheat Kings while Chloe Kachur and Kasia Baranyk are going to get opportunities as they gain experience. This should be a fun defensive unit to watch, but they won't back down from anyone.

Forwards

Name	Last Team	Age	GP	G	A	Pts
Paige Crossley	Westman Wildcats	17	28	13	7	20
Madison Blaine	Westman Wildcats	17	27	0	4	4
Ffion Devonald	Hamiota/Rivers Jetskies	16	18	11	12	23
Kaia Stewart	U15 Brandon Wheat Kings	15	28	10	11	21
Sydney Sass	Westman Wildcats	16	11	1	1	2
Kaylee Dittmer	Central Plains Capitals	17	28	3	1	4
Jordan Bell	Central Plains Capitals	17	28	8	6	14
Quinn Twordik	U15 Brandon Wheat Kings	14	27	6	11	17
Kiera Vines	U15 Brandon Wheat Kings	15	28	3	7	10

Again, the mix between veterans and young players takes center-stage again in the forward ranks, but there are some definite bright spots that Kirkup can lean on for scoring. Paige Crossley comes over from Westman as the top scorer at the highest AAA level in Manitoba, and Jordan Bell will be relied on for scoring and leadership after she was an alternate captain for Central Plains last season. Madison Blaine and Kaylee Dittmer will be given larger roles than what they had on their previous teams, and it will be interesting to see how Ffion Devonald adapts in moving from the Rural Manitoba Female Hockey League to the MFHL.

Kaia Stewart was cut from both the Wildcats and Capitals last season, but she was a solid scorer for Kirkup at the U15 level in 2022-23 while Sydney Sass was Kirkup's leading scorer from that same team. Quinn Dittmer and Kiera Vines make the jump to the MFHL where they could surprise teams with their smarts and quickness. Kirkup has a very solid group of forwards that will play well at both ends of the ice.

The 2024-25 schedule for the MFHL will be released later this summer, but a number of teams are already set and ready to play. Five teams have already held tryout camps and announced their teams on the MFHL website and on social media, and it seems Brandon is nearly ready to be the sixth team. Of those remaining who haven't made any hockey plans yet, the Westman Wildcats, Interlake Lightning, and Yellowhead Chiefs are the teams who need to get into a rink and start working.

As stated above, there's still a lot of work to do for Karissa Kirkup, but she has her 17 players that she'll direct on the ice. For those 17 players, there will be a number of firsts that happen next season, but that first game will be the culmination of a lot of hard work and dedication by a number of people. Karissa Kirkup is one of those people, and this blog will be keeping an eye on her team's progress all season long. I'm hopeful that Jules Xavier of The Brandon Sun will be on that beat as well because his coverage this week has been incredible!

Congratulatons to the 17 players named above who are the first U18 AAA Brandon Wheat Kings girls' team in the MFHL!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Drop The Rhetoric

With Mark Scheifele being the first pick of the new Winnipeg Jets in 2011, the one thing that the franchise promised was a "draft and develop" process whereby younger players would spend time in the minor leagues to gain some important experience before graduating to the NHL level where it would be expected that they could step in and contribute. The Jets have seen a handful of younger players enter the lineup and make impacts, but it's hard to explain the number of draft picks who have moved to other teams after not getting an opportunity to make the Jets' roster. Draft and develop? All the Jets seem to be doing is developing players for other teams and leagues.

I say this due to the breaking news that Jets' 2022 first-overall pick Rutger McGroarty has informed the team that he will not sign with the Jets. The news exploded onto the hockey media circuit after the 32 Thoughts podcast, hosted by Jeff Marek and hockey insider Elliotte Friedman, reported that Kevin Cheveldayoff was examining the options when it came to trading McGroarty's rights. If this shakes the earth for the Jets, it might be the wake-up call this franchise needs when it comes to their prospects.

I say that because there have been obvious successes in the Jets' draft history, but there are significant shortfalls as well. While Mark Scheifele and Adam Lowry are the most tenured Jets to have been selected by the team, there are cases like Jacob Trouba and Jack Roslovic who are now doing quality work for other teams. No one is faulting the Jets for moving players who wanted out or for trying to improve their teams, but the number of young players who have expressed a desire to leave after seeing their careers stall in the minor-league system should worry Jets fans.

If you're wondering who has expressed a desire to leave, consider all of McGroarty, Nathan Smith, Kristian Vesalainen, Leon Gawanke, Mikhail Berdin, Sami Niku, and Logan Stanley have all made it clear over their time skating for the Jets organization that they wanted out or wouldn't sign with the club, and there were cases where the Jets simply moved younger players who didn't fit into their immediate plans like Nic Petan, Chase De Leo, Jansen Harkins, Nelson Nogier, and Declan Chisholm. That's an incredible amount of players since 2012 who the Jets spent draft picks on only to watch them play somewhere else or wanted to play somewhere else.

Again, no team keeps all their picks, but what should noted is that five of the players listed above were picked in the first 50 picks. Those are highly-regarded players who are considered as some of the best players in their draft classes, and the Jets have convinced them that there's no room for them in Winnipeg. I agree with with source who told Scott Billick of the Winnipeg Sun, "It's not a good look."

I respect that the Jets have had seasons where they've pushed for first-place in their division where the acquisition of a veteran scorer or defender that could push some of the less experienced players to the pressbox or the AHL. That's expected in the high-stakes NHL where experience still rules over youthful exuberance.

Where I struggle, however, is when you look at the production some of these players have shown while skating with the Jets only to be removed for those experienced players. Cole Perfetti might be the best example of this most recently where his 38 points in 71 games (0.535 ppg) was parked in the pressbox for four of five playoff games while Mason Appleton (.439 ppg) skated in all five games. The Jets likely should have gone with more scoring against the Colorado Avalanche, but I'd argue that Perfetti's defensive awareness is also better than Appleton's awareness which should have put him in the lineup. Yet Appleton skated in all 82 games in the regular season and all five playoff games as the Jets took a first-round exit.

This isn't the first time that the franchise finds itself trying to defend itself from the howls of fans over playing the kids either. In 2015, there was a cry for Nic Petan to play more. It was hard to explain why Ville Heinola wasn't playing with Jets in 2021, and it's even harder today. In 2022, fans wanted more of Morgan Barron playing in a middle-six role. The demotions down the lineup for Perfetti were difficult to watch and harder to explain.

In 2017, Kevin Cheveldayoff told reporters,

"Very fortunate to have the ownership group that we have that shares the same philosophy on how we were going to do this. We were patient with the development of some of our young players. In today's day in age you can't rush them.

"We feel that's going to help them in the long run."

Again, I understand the sentiment here, but the 2017-18 Manitoba Moose produced five NHL players from the group under 25 years-old. Namely, only Mason Appleton skates for the Jets. The others include Brendan Lemieux (CAR), Jansen Harkins (PIT), Tucker Poolman (VAN), and Eric Comrie (BUF). Based on what Cheveldayoff said in December 2017, the Jets are not a "draft and develop" team when it comes to filling gaps on their own roster. Not even close.

2019 saw the Jets develop Logan Stanley into a player who is widely regarded as an NHL seventh defenceman at best. 2020 saw the Jets develop Jack Roslovic (NYR) who was part of the Patrik Laine trade. 2021 saw Cole Perfetti, Dylan Samberg, and David Gustafsson become semi-regulars by 2024, but Declan Chisholm (MIN) is no longer part of the equation. 2022 saw the Jets develop Morgan Barron, but Mikey Eyssimont (TBL) is playing against Winnipeg. 2023 had Kevin Stenlund (FLA) in the Moose lineup, but he is now skating in the Stanley Cup Final with Florida. While all of these players have skated for Winnipeg at times, the fact of the matter is that the Jets developed six players out of the 14 players who ended up as some of thet better Moose players. And if you're reading the names, none of the players the Jets developed and promoted play on their top two lines in 2024.

Do I blame McGroarty for wanting to go to a team where his skills might be more appreciated? Well, if the Jets re-sign Sean Monahan which sounds like their plan, I don't. McGroarty is not a fourth-line center, and I doubt he's going to want to compete for ice time with the likes of Cole Perfetti, David Gustafsson, Rasmus Kupari, and Morgan Barron. That likely means he's going to play in the AHL with the Moose, and it seems that McGroarty is asking for real consideration for a roster spot with the Jets rather than accepting his predetermined fate as the top-line center for the Moose. If that's the plan at Canada Life Centre, I don't blame McGroarty for looking for other options.

You can make the case that McGroarty is putting himself ahead of the team, but that argument is ridiculous in today's day and age where players hold more power to determine where they play than ever before. If he signs an ELC with the Jets, they hold most of the control when it comes to where he plays, and it seems like the AHL might be where we see him. This is the reason why a lot of young players want out of Winnipeg - the chances of cracking the roster simply aren't there, and the Jets have proven time and again that they'll hold a younger player back in favour of a lesser-skilled veteran.

You won't convince me that an Ehlers-McGroarty-Perfetti line wouldn't be absolute chaos for opposing teams to contain in the offensive zone. You can't tell me that a Connor-McGroarty-Lambert line wouldn't be an analytics nightmare for opposing teams. Even a Connor-McGroarty-Perfetti line would be scary despite some of the defensive challenges they'd cause for the Jets, but that's why playing the kids at the NHL level wouold give everyone a better idea at what can be improved and what would send fans clamoring to the ticket booths to buy tickets.

Remember this when you look at the likes of Wyatt Johnson Logan Stankoven on Dallas, Brock Faber and Marco Rossi on Minnesota, Logan Cooley and Michael Kesselring with Utah, Luke Evangelista with Nashville, and Scott Perunovich with St. Louis. All of those players were rookies this season, and they all had outstanding seasons as they became regulars for their teams. We'll see a lot of them next season when they pass through the Canada Life Centre, but one has to wonder if we'll see any of the players the Jets drafted as their next stars.

It seems one player we won't see is Rutger McGroarty which is an absolute shame, so it's time for the Jets to drop the "draft and develop" rhetoric because they might be the worst team in the NHL at practicing what they preach.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Arizona Tire Fires?

It hasn't been a good week for this fellow. If you're not sure who that is, that's current NHL-owner-without-a-team executive Alex Meruelo, and his week went from bad to worse when news broke twice about his little organization that's working to get an NHL team back in the Phoenix area. Public relations people will tell you that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, but the news stories that were reported this week makes me wonder if the NHL would actually consider Meruelo as a potential owner if the five-year grace period expires.

I say this because it was reported on Monday by PHNX Sports' Craig Morgan on Twitter that the Coyotes reportedly laid off employees beginning late last week where those employees "were told they are employed until the end of the month and then will get a severance package that includes an amount equal to an additional paycheck along with healthcare for the month of July."

Considering that there is no Arizona Coyotes franchise in operation, no one should be surprised that the layoffs were coming. How it was done and the little compensation given to those affected employees, though, are what drew the ire towards Meruelo of many on social media. Imagine being told that your job is done at the end of June and all you get is one additional bi-weekly pay statement and four weeks of health insurance? How would you feel if that's the message you got at the end of last week?

Meruelo received $1 billion to hand his franchise over to the NHL in the deal to move it to Salt Lake City. The total cost of his severance package he's offering to his soon-to-be-terminated employees likely won't even break $100,000. If you're doing the math, the optics simply look terrible when you consider everything that's happened over the last few months with this franchise.

The Athletic's Katie Strang reported on April 24, "Employees within the franchise's business side have been told their jobs are safe until the June 27 land auction. Meruelo said on Friday that those jobs will be evaluated over the next 60 days but that his intent 'is to keep everything intact.' Those who remain behind have been told to focus efforts on the Tucson Roadrunners, the Coyote’s AHL affiliate that Meruelo still owns."

And that leads to the next embarrassing gaffe for Meruelo this week. Today, a whole new level of stupidity was revealed by the Arizona State Land Department, and this one's a doozy.

Corina Vanek and Taylor Seely of the Arizona Republic reported today that the "Arizona State Land Department announced Friday it scrubbed an auction for desert land in north Phoenix that the hockey team owner Alex Meruelo eyed for development of a new arena."

Yes, that's the same auction that Meruelo thought he was going to win outright, stating on April 4, "My family and I are committed to winning this land auction and building a transformative entertainment district that will not require taxpayer funding for the first time in Arizona history. We will buy this land, build this development and finish a project that will incur the cost of more than $100 million in infrastructure improvements with no burden placed on taxpayers."

With no auction taking place, there's another commitment on which Meruelo failed to deliver which is almost his modus operandi at this point. Nonetheless, there are some details here that really need to be examined because it seems that Meruelo's team simply does not like to read rule or fine print when it comes to major deals like securing land for an arena.

According to Vanek and Seely, "Phoenix spokesperson Teleia Galaviz said the Land Department asked for an interpretation of the zoning on the site, and the city had determined a sports arena was not allowed under the existing zoning. An arena would require 'approval of a special permit through the rezoning process,' she said."

Doubling down on that statement, "Phoenix Councilman Jim Waring, whose district the proposed arena would be in, said Friday that the Coyotes should 'get a zoning attorney. They don't have one. Get in the city, come up with a plan and go through the process. Then buy it.'"

Imagine being Alex Meruelo for a second here. He spends all this time, energy, and money to come up with designs for a new sports and entertainment complex, he gets a number of people on his team to review the auction details and be prepared for bidding, and he states confidently that he will win the auction for the land... yet he didn't check with a zoning attorney on whether he could actually build an arena on that land? He made his fortune in real estate and construction, but FAILED TO CONSULT A ZONING ATTORNEY. How does anyone at the NHL offices think this is acceptable?

How many gaffes is the NHL willing to let this guy make? He's clearly not qualified to own a professional sports franchise after he was kicked out of Gila River Arena for not paying $1.3 million in taxes, failing to pay players signing bonuses, having the NBA reject him as an owner, having unpaid bills and invoices, and fostering a wholly toxic environment. He not only failed to build an arena in Tempe, but also failed to win the hearts of voters who made it clear they didn't want his arena in their neighbourhood. At this point, Meruelo doesn't seem remotely qualified to run a lemonade stand, let alone a professional sports franchise.

As per Katie Strang of The Athletic, "On March 6, Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly met with Meruelo and asked whether he could look his players in the eyes and give them an honest answer of when they’d have an NHL-caliber home. He told them he could not."

Things only get worse after speaking with David Leibowitz, a former communications consultant for the Coyotes, who told Strang, "I have not witnessed a group more committed to doing things the wrong way and failing to develop any sort of meaningful support in the political community, business community and with the influential stakeholders they need to make this happen."

If I were a conspiracy theorist, the termination notice being given to all his employees a week ago despite telling Strang that everyone was safe until the land auction almost makes me think Meruelo knew that the auction would be called off. I don't subscribe to the conspiracy idea, but that's almost too coincidental in terms of the timing. Nevertheless, Meruelo has stated that he'll push forward with the idea that he'll get his special land permit and start building his arena and entertainment complex despite having no staff to assist him nor any support from politicians and power brokers in the city.

I don't know how the NHL views Alex Meruelo as anything but a problem, and I'd be convincing 31 other owners to cut Meruelo loose if I owned a team. The very obvious and egregious missteps he's shown in his short time as an NHL owner shouldn't be overlooked, and the NHL should be looking to terminate their business with him ASAP based on these latest gaffes. No other league would tolerate this kind of stupidity and embarrassment from one its owners, and yet the NHL sits by quietly in the hopes of securing the Phoenix television market.

If the NHL somehow grants a revival of the Coyotes under Meruelo's watch, there should be one condition for that to happen: rename the franchise as the "Arizona Tire Fires". That's the only way this entire mess will make any sense.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 613

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns to the airwaves tonight from the comfortable confines of the UMFM studio where we'll chat a little puck for an hour. What are we talking about? Well, it's been a busy week in the hockey world that will take us all over the planet as we have stops locally, nationally, and internationally where hockey news is happening. There are still two major trophies to be awarded to teams in North America as well, and our hosts will update those situations tonight on the program! There's a lot to discuss tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Where on the map will hockey take us tonight? Teebz and Jason will provide a few updates on the Stanley Cup Final and Calder Cup Final before jumping into a day of trades, there was a coach dismissed, an assistant GM was promoted, an affiliation was renewed, three teams will meet overseas, a star was honoured, an introduction is needed, an NHL star will be appearing on TV regularly, there's expansion in the province led by a familiar face, some new threads were leaked, and anything else we can get inside the sixty minutes of hockey chatter. Despite it being the first day of summer, the hockey news doesn't seem to slow down as we'll tackle all these stories tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about the finals, the trades, the hirings and firings, the schedules, the accolades, the opportunities, the new clothes, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: June 20, 2024: Episode 613

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Burning Through Teams

When Pierre-Luc Dubois agreed to join Team Canada for the IIHF Men's World Championship in May, I thought this might be the opportunity for him to show the Los Angeles Kings that he could take games and dominate on the ice like many had hoped he would do with the Kings. His nine points was certainly a solid showing, but it wasn't like he proved to be the game-changing player that the Kings wanted when they traded for him. Today, though, he became someone else's problem as the Los Angeles Kings found a way to move Dubois and his bloated contract to another team as Dubois officially was traded for the fourth time in his career before the age of 26.

In a move that had been rumoured for some time, the Los Angeles Kings traded Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Washington Capitals for goaltender Darcy Kuemper. Neither side retained salary in the deal for the players they moved, and both players get a chance to find opportunities where their games may fit better than what happened last season where both players struggled.

For the Capitals, they may have found a centerman who can step in where the once-prominent Nicklas Bäckström skated. Bäckström, as you're likely aware, was the setup man for Alexander Ovechkin for most of the last decade, and they found some incredible chemistry over that time. After Bäckström was injured, the Capitals simply had no one who could replicate those results alongside Ovechkin, and that seems to be the underlying reason for this trade: the Capitals have no one to center their first line.

As the always-revealing Russian Machine Never Breaks blog states, Dubois seems to have found the most success in career playing with Russian players. The only issue I have with that assessment is that both of the Russian players named - Evgeny Svechnikov and Artemi Panarin - are good enough to carry lines on their own. If the thought is to somehow push a 38 year-old Ovechkin to play more like his 28 year-old self, this could be an experiment that goes horribly wrong for the Capitals.

The talking points from GM Brian MacLellan sounded a lot like what both Kevin Cheveldayoff and Rob Blake said when acquiring Dubois. Let's review those statements:

• Cheveldayoff: "Pierre Luc-Dubois is a big hard two-way centreman that makes other people around him better and that's an important factor if you're trying to win."
• Blake: "Pierre-Luc Dubois is an elite two-way center with a unique skillset, and we're excited to have him join the organization and commit to us long-term. Over the last few seasons, he has proven the ability to contribute to all facets of the game and we are thrilled to be able to add a player of this caliber into our lineup."
• MacLellan: "This acquisition brings in a talented 25-year-old with immense potential to become a top-tier center in the NHL. With his size, exceptional skating, and high hockey IQ, we are confident he will thrive in our organization with increased responsibility and opportunity."

With two statements commending his two-way play, it's pretty clear that's not an actual asset that he brings to any team after being traded for the third time in his career. All three GMs were convinced he'd step in, contribute in a big way, and lead those teams to greater heights, but it was clear that he was more of a headache and a passenger with both the Jets and Kings. I can't understand why Brian MacLellan believes he'll be a different player with Washington when he's proven what kind of player he truly is time and time again.

Let's not forget this statement from Kings GM Rob Blake last month.

"We need to make him better," Blake told the Los Angeles Times. "He's had a consistent performance over his career and deviated from that this year. So it's up to us as a staff - coaches and management - to help him become more productive to us."

I guess that falls on MacLellan and Spencer Carbery now, and they'll have to find a way to get Dubois more productive than he's ever going to be if Ovechkin wants to break Gretzky's goal-scoring record. That being said, the logjam down the middle in Washington with Dylan Strome, Connor McMichael, and Nic Dowd being pushed by the likes of Henrix Lapierre down in Hershey means someone will likely need to be moved at some point. McMichael as a winger, perhaps?

The catch, of course, is that none of the three players listed before Lapierre had any success as Washington's top center outside of Strome, but Strome's game didn't mesh entirely well with Ovechkin's game. I'm not saying Strome will be moved to a different spot or traded, but Washington will be in the same position once more if Dubois can't find his apparent potential alongside the Great Eight. Finding a centerman for this generation's greatest goal scorer appears to be the most difficult job on the planet.

That role now falls to the $8 million man in Pierre-Luc Dubois, and MacLellan is hoping that Dubois can find the same chemistry he had alongside Panarin and Svechnikov earlier in his career. A 38 year-old Ovechkin won't have the same skill set that a 17 year-old Svechnikov or a 25 year-old Panarin does, but the Capitals need Dubois to help Ovechkin find a way to have one last gasp of greatness.

After being run out of Columbus, Winnipeg, and Los Angeles, one has to wonder how long Pierre-Luc Dubois will last in Washington. If things don't click with Ovechkin and he's a passenger again this season, that will have been four teams he's burned through with little to show for it. At that point, one has to expect he may be out of chances altogether.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Friendship Series?

There are always teams who play in U SPORTS that head over to Europe to play a little hockey, do some team bonding, and see some of the sights offered by the cities in which they play. From what I understand, the Regina Cougars women's team will spend some time in Finland in August, and it seems a couple more U SPORTS teams are going to make the jump across the pond for a little hockey action. Announced today by the EIHL's Belfast Giants, they'll host and play the OUA's Carleton Ravens and Canada West's Alberta Golden Bears in preseason action in late August and early September this year as all three teams get ready for their respective leagues' action in the 2024-25 season.

According to the release put out by the "Stena Line Belfast Giants", the Giants will play the Carleton Ravens on Friday, August 30 at 7pm local time before taking Saturday off to watch Carleton and Alberta tangle at 7pm local time. On Sunday, they'll be back on the ice to play the Golden Bears at 4pm local time, and this game to finish off the three-team weekend should be a beauty based on how Alberta builds their teams.

Both teams have personnel loosely tied to the EIHL and Belfast. Ravens' Head Coach Mark Cavallin was a Belfast Giant from 2000-02 while Golden Bears' General Manager Stan Marple spent ten years skating for the Guildford Flames. As we know if you're a reader of this blog or listen to The Hockey Show, there are a pile of U SPORTS players who skate in the EIHL currently, so this might be a good primer for Belfast if they're looking for late-season additions once the university season in Canada ends for both Carleton and Alberta.

Steve Thornton, Group Head of Commercial and Hockey at The Odyssey Trust, said, "Over the last few seasons, we've had a lot of success recruiting players who have played in U Sports, including Kendall McFaull, Josh Roach, Steve Owre, and Sam Ruopp, so the quality of the league is clear to see. In addition to the Friendship Four, these games will be the ideal opportunity to showcase our great city and the fantastic setup we have here at the Giants."

Spelling and grammatical mistakes in their release aside, the Giants are a well-run club over in Northern Ireland, and the squad finished in third-place last season with a 28-15-4-7 record before falling in the EIHL championship to the Sheffield Steelers. They are one of the most successful professional hockey clubs in all of the UK, having won six EIHL regular season titles and two playoff championships. As Thornton pointed out, this may be a tryout for the Giants when it comes to some of the players looking at their future as well.

What shouldn't be overlooked is that the Golden Bears missed out on a U Cup berth last season after being a perennial attendee at the National Championship, so I'd expect a hungry, talented Bears team to land in Belfast a few days before August 30. They'll get their legs under them, get a skate or two in, and then get down to business.

They may have their hands full with Belfast who seemingly are reloading in this offseason as well. They added former Detroit Red Wings netminder Tom McCollum, UND standout and Milwaukee Admirals forward Grant Mismash, and former UMD Bulldogs forward Kyle Osterberg already. Joe Cassetti and Zak Galambos from Western Michigan University signed with the club two weeks ago, and former Saskatchewan Huskies defender Josh Roach will wear Giants colours once again. In short, the Giants could win both games with the talent they have, and they still need to fill other key spots in their lineup!

Keep your eyes peeled for social media information on how these games can be watched. I'm hopeful the Giants will broadcast all three games so we can get an early fix of U SPORTS hockey, but we'll have to see what's available come August 30. What I can be sure of, though, is that three teams who have goals of winning their league's respective championships will compete to see who owns Northern Ireland for at least one weekend!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Led By An Incredible Person

The fact that there hasn't been an announcement from the MFHL is rather strange considering that leagues don't often add teams on a regular basis, but it seems that the demands from the southwestern portion of the province were heard by both Hockey Brandon and Hockey Manitoba. While the Westman Wildcats and the Yellowhead Chiefs do a great job in developing Manitoba girls into high-level hockey players, there was certainly a void on the map when it came to the province's second-largest city. That void will be erased this season, though, as Hockey Brandon, Hockey Manitoba, and the MFHL agreed on the approval for the U18AAA Brandon Wheat Kings female team will join the circuit for the 2024-25 season!

The addition the Brandon Wheat Kings pushes the MFHL to nine teams as the Wheaties will compete against the defending champion Winnipeg Ice, the Winnipeg Avros, the Pembina Valley Hawks, the Westman Wildcats, the Yellowhead Chiefs, the Central Plains Capitals, the Eastman Selects, and the Interlake Lightning. Obviously, that means as many as 20 more girls will play AAA hockey in Manitoba this winter which is exciting growth, but it also makes the pool of players that can move onto postsecondary school hockey programs even deeper. If you're a fan of the women's game, this is where a lot of the women playing professionally got their starts in Manitoba!

No one said that starting a new team will be easy as there are hundreds of things that have to be done at the outset before the first jersey is hung in a locker room, but it seems that the Wheat Kings will be led by one of the sharpest minds I've ever encountered in the game as former Bisons sniper Karissa Kirkup has been named as the team's first head coach!

Kirkup's success in the Brandon hockey community is no surprise, and her appointment to this position seemed almost elementary considering the success she's had at the U15 level where she led the Wheat Kings to their third consecutive championship in the 17-team Winnipeg U15 AAA Hockey League this past spring. Having her move up to the U18 level where she'll be familiar with a lot of the players who came through that U15 program could make for a much stronger team this season thanks to that continuity.

Kirkup, however, isn't just looking to rebuild those rosters she watched over at the U15 level. Her requirements at the U18 level sound a lot like how she played the game.

"I'm looking for players with a high compete level every time they are on the ice," Kirkup told Jules Xavier of The Brandon Sun. "They have to be good skaters of course, be able to communicate well on the ice, and have a positive attitude. For me, players need to work hard every shift and have a positive attitude. They need to battle even if they lose the puck... what is your next move without the puck?"

What may slow the Wheat Kings down a little is that some of their best players are playing for other teams after not having a U18 AAA team for so long. Knowing Kirkup, though, her team will make up any differences through hard work and solid team play - two hallmarks of her U15 teams. However, with some U18 AAA teams already having camps to determine their 2024-25 rosters, the Wheat Kings may be starting at the back of the pack in the arms race for elite-level talent this season.

"With this being our inaugural season, the team still has a lot to do to establish ourselves once we have a roster," Kirkup admitted. "It's interesting to see teams having tryouts this early, as you'll have the trickle-down effect as players cut in Winnipeg will look to teams like Eastman and Central Plains to play on."

Who lines up on the roster for Kirkup will ultimately be in her hands, but who attends tryouts is something she's letting Hockey Brandon and Hockey Manitoba sort out when it comes to player transfers. Administrative stuff aside, Kirkup knows her responsibility is also more than just winning games.

"I want to help these girls to the next level, not just what they do on the ice," she told Xavier, "and school and hockey are big stepping stones for players at the AAA level. There has to be balance playing hockey, student life and making friendships."

"You have to value the academic side of your life, not just playing hockey," she continued. "I plan on doing what's best for each individual athlete playing for this team to reach their potential. Where will they be one, two or three years from now? You still have to take your school seriously because hockey can complete your academic goals. Hockey can help that if you realize you're a student first, and an athlete second."

Those are wise words from a woman who knows what it takes to be a champion at the highest academic level this counntry has to offer, and I suspect the U18 Wheat Kings are going to make some noise this season. The MFHL is ultra-competitive with four teams finishing between 18-20 wins last season with five of eight teams finishing with records above .500. Judging the first-year Wheat Kings on wins and losses alone isn't entirely fair, but we should give some weight to how many girls move on to play at postsecondary institutions. That's a point of pride among all the coaches in the MFHL, and Kirkup already has that mindset.

"I will push the girls to be their best and will do everything I can as coach to make it happen," she confidently told Xavier. "As a player I learned a lot of life lessons, and will share those with the girls I'm coaching this season."

Honestly, I'm excited to see where Kirkup leads her team this season. Getting a new team up and off the ground is a huge task for any league and coach, but Kirkup has never shied away from a challenge in her hockey career. She's a brilliant hockey mind, has a keen eye for talent, and is an excellent communicator, so I suspect that the players who suit up under her watch will go on to do incredible things not only in their MFHL careers, but beyond this level of hockey.

For Kirkup, it seems she's just as ready for the challenge, telling Xavier, "I'm excited. This is going to be a lot of fun starting this team."

Congratulations to the city of Brandon who will see the U18 Brandon Wheat Kings, under the guidance of Karissa Kirkup, begin play in the MFHL next season at the J&G Homes Arena in southwest Brandon! Get out and support these women as often as you can before they're off and playing at the U SPORTS, NCAA, or international levels!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Everyone Is Busy

The abode pictured to the left is not HBIC Headquarters, but my house has looked like that at times throughout the build-up to summer. I'm not a fan of letting my grass grow extra long as the effort to cut becomes more laborious, but my schedule for the next week will hinder any plans to stay on top of yardwork needing to be done. Thanks to various commitments by other people, I have something scheduled for every night until next Sunday beginning tonight. I don't fault people for being busy because everyone deserves to have a life, but I suddenly wonder how I'm going to have one if I never have time to make that happen.

I will say that the majority of the commitments I'm now required to attend are baseball games I'm being paid to watch, so I'm not complaining loudly about that part. After all, getting paid to watch baseball is a pretty cool gig and I'm not about to give that up for a night off. That being said, though, I've easily worked the most nights early on in this season, and the idealism of "spreading the shifts around to all" seems to have hit a few snags thanks to people needing time off for their commitments.

Let me be clear that yardwork has never and will never prompt me to take a day off work from any job. The length of the grass was getting longer in previous weeks thanks to the combination of rain and sunlight helping it jumpstart its growth, but I got it all mowed down to a reasonable length for any home owners' association yesterday. No one should consider my house abandoned based on the lawn care and flowerbed weeding I'm keeping for this week. Hopefully.

For the record, I don't live under any HOA rules either. I have nothing against anyone who moves into a community where one exists, but the idea that specific people can determine what you can and cannot do to your property seems rather idiotic to me. Before any HOA people or anyone in an HOA community jumps all over me, I'm not crtiticizing your person, your property, or anything in between; rather, I don't get why anyone can tell me what plants I'm allowed to have in my flowerbed. That seems like madness from my perspective.

Consider this your warning that I won't be watching a lot of hockey this week with both the Stanley Cup and Calder Cup Finals underway. It's almost like the universe is telling me that I should have walked away from this blog on the original end date of when the U SPORTS National Championship ended. In any case, my busy week starts this evening and runs through to and includes Sunday next weekend.

No rest for the wicked, right?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Mental Rest Mattered

I don't think anyone would blame the Hershey Bears if they looked flat last night following their dramatic series win over the Cleveland Monsters. Having led 3-0 in that series, it seemed like the Bears were in completely control until Cleveland rattled off three-straight wins to force a Game Seven. Again, Cleveland would not go away until overtime of that final game in the series, finally allowing Hershey to meet the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the Calder Cup Final.

Even in Game One of the final, the Bears were fired up as the puck was dropped with Joe Snively notching his third goal of the postseason just 75 seconds into the game on an odd-man rush that saw the puck bank in off a defender as the Firebirds looked a little rusty after waiting for nearly a week for their opponent. However, the fatigue may have started to set in after the emotional opening minutes as a puck at the blue line hopped over Snively's stick, allowing John Hayden the opportunity seen in the lede photo as his shorthanded goal tied the game at 6:34.

Ryan Winterton would make it a 2-1 lead for Coachella Valley at the 13:52 mark as they took advantage of a mini 2-on-1 with Jimmy Huntington late on the backcheck. After one period of play, the score showed Coachella Valley with a 2-1 advantage, but it was Hershey with the 10-9 edge in shots. The two mistakes that led to pucks finding the back of the net, though, was something we hadn't seen from Hershey very often this season.

A Winterton backhander started the scoring in the second period as he put Coachella Valley up 3-1 at 9:49, but Hershey would get that one back quickly. A centering pass from Huntington hit the skate blade of a Firebirds defender and landed on the blade of Hardy Häman Aktell who buried his second goal of the postseason just 3:02 after Winterton's goal to make it 3-2. However, the two-goal lead would be restored just 2:20 later when John Hayden won a puck battle inside the face-off circle, turned, and fired home his ninth goal to put Coachella Valley up 4-2 at 15:11. That score would carry into the break with the Firebirds holding a 20-14 edge in shots.

The third period wasn't pretty, but the Firebirds went into lockdown mode as they attempted to ride the two-goal cushion to victory. Hershey did find a little life when Hendrix Lapierre's one-timer from the right face-off dot found twine with 1:56 to play as the power-play marker made it 4-3. The 6-on-5 through the majority of the rest of the game didn't get either side any additional goals as the Firebirds captured victory in Game One By that 4-3 score!

Hershey head coach Todd Nelson was asked if his team looked a little fatigued as the game wore on, but he was quick to downplay that.

"I'm not making any excuses," he told reporters, "but it was a pretty emotional series. We looked mentally tired at times, making mistakes. Puck-decision mistakes. Just not bearing down on passes."

He's not wrong in this case as the first two goals were uncharacteristic of how the Bears played all season, but one had to wonder if the grind is starting to affect the Bears. Yes, Coachella Valley gave up two goals off limbs of their defenders, but they simply executed better and wore the Bears down with their defensive play, limiting Hershey to just nine shots over the final 40 minutes of play.

"When you look at the four goals against, they're all preventable," Nelson said. "A team like Coachella, you have to make them earn their goals because they're a highly talented team, and they can finish. Just like we saw last year. We've got to make it tougher on them."

The Firebirds, however, know that there will be a hungrier Bears team in Game Two, but they'll take this win against a good squad.

"It's not just another win, that's for sure," Firebirds head coach Dan Bylsma told Andrew John of the Palm Springs Desert Sun. "We're racing to get to four wins to win a Calder Cup, and it was huge to be able to come out in a tough place to play and be able to get the win right off the hop in Game 1."

Nothing is decided after Game One, and I expect the Bears will want to answer in Game Two before heading to Palm Springs for three games. Coachella Valley is gunning for a first Calder Cup after losing to Hershey last season, so they'll be motivated for Game Two as well. It should be a beauty tomorrow at the Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania as these two teams dig deep for wins!

By the way, highlights of this game are below!


Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Down In A Hole

I'm not here to throw any additional pressure on the Edmonton Oilers, but they're currently in one heck of a hole when it comes to winning the Stanley Cup. Down 3-0 against the Florida Panthers, someone better figure out how the Oilers can dig themselves out of this hole in which they're sitting. While Alice In Chains sang the song "Down in a Hole", the Oilers are living that reality right now and looking like they have no clue on how to get out of it. We know the Stanley Cup will be awarded by June 24 if this series somehow goes the distance, but this series may not get past Saturday night.

Let's get the obvious numbers out of the way: the Florida Panthers sit one win away from a major parade in Sunrise, and the Oilers sit on the wrong side of history here. Only four times have teams rallied to win a series when down 3-0 in that series as the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, the 1975 New York Islanders, the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers, and the 2014 Los Angeles Kings are those teams. The 2024 Oilers could be the fifth team, but they'd be the second team to rally to win in the Stanley Cup Final if they succeed, joining the 1942 Maple Leafs who only needed eight wins to hoist the Stanley Cup.

If you're a fan of the Oilers, though, you might want to look to December for inspiration. The Oilers had just dropped their third game in a row on December 19 and were looking to reverse their fortunes. They had dropped a 7-4 decision to the Tampa Bay Lightning at home on December 14, saw the Florida Panthers win 5-1 in Edmonton, and lost 3-1 to the New York Islanders on December 19 that left them at 13-15-1 on the season. Something needed to change as they arrived in Newark, New Jersey to face the Devils.

One month and six days later, the Oilers were 29-15-1 as they went on a wild ride with a 16-game winning streak that nearly tied an NHL record. No one is looking for that kind of magic at this point in the season, but Oilers fans are hoping for a quarter of that magic in winning four games in a row.

I'll be honest in saying that no one likes a sweep in a final. You want the two teams to come in hungry, find ways to score goals, make some big plays, and battle down to the final moments before a winner is crowned. Sweeps are anti-climactic. You want to see the two teams who have prevailed over all others in an epic battle, but we seem to be getting a lesson in how to smother one of the best offensive players in the game as the Panthers have used the Canucks' advice to slow McDavid by committee through the first three games.

The Oilers, meanwhile, have to find some of that depth scoring that helped them put together the 16-game run through December and January. Whether Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Evander Kane, Adam Henrique, or Darnell Nurse steps up, someone has to grab the reins while McDavid, Draisaitl, and Hymen are stifled by the Panthers. It won't be easy as this Panthers team is deep and talented, but someone has to break through for the City of Champions.

If there's one thing that should be remembered before Game Four, it's that nothing is over until the final whistle goes. As long as the Oilers still have some fight in them, we may see this series get back to Sunrise for Game Five. Any comeback starts with one win, and the Oilers need that effort in a big way tomorrow. Otherwise, all that dirt they moved in digging the hole they're in will be dumped on top of them as their season ends.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 612

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back tonight with a pile of stories from all over the hockey world as our hosts get you up-to-speed on all the happenings in and around hockey's various leagues and cities. With the Stanley Cup Final gripping two cities and parts of North America as the Panthers and Oilers battle for hockey supremacy, there have been a pile of other things happening behind the scenes and in other corners of the world. A lot of that other news will be discussed tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Teebz and Jason will certainly chat a little about the Stanley Cup Final where the Panthers lead 2-0 as the series shifts to Edmonton, but there's so much more! They'll look at the Kelly Cup Final that wrapped up, the Calder Cup Final which now has finalists, a major resource being bought, a long-tenured coach being let go, a solid hockey mind being let go, a change in branding, an underwhelming first half for one team, one company's effort to destroy jersey sales, a change to one country's laws that may affect its hockey teams, KHL news, and more! As stated, it's another busy show with a ton of stuff to squeeze into the hour, so get yourself ready for some information overload on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat playoff wins, coaching changes, corporate shenanigans, rebranding ideas, player moves, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: June 13, 2024: Episode 612

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Player Of The Year Candidates

Perhaps I just stop caring once the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship ends, but apparently the IIHF awards a Player of the Year award to one player every season. It seems similar to soccer's Ballon d'Or award where the player judged as having the best overall season will win the accolade, but I find it difficult to judge different players playing in different leagues as having the best overall season when the level of competition differs so greatly among those leagues. The IIHF doesn't seem to mind, though, so they're going to name a Player of the Year in both men's and women's hockey in a few days.

The criteria for winning the award come down to two variables:

• Players must have competed in at least one IIHF tournament at any level during the year as well as in a domestic league of the highest calibre for that country.
• Nominees will best exemplify skill, determination, team success, and sporting character on and off the ice during the preceding season.

These criteria will remove players like Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, and Jaromir Jagr from winning the award as none of them suited up in a IIHF tournament this season, but that might be good when one considers that it opens the door to other potential winners who had outstanding seasons. Again, I do struggle in justifying that the level of competition in the Czech Extraliga is the same as the NHL, but I'll leave that up to IIHF voters.

There are six men up for the award this season, including:

• Czech forward Roman Cervenka - captained Czechia to a gold medal at the IIHF World Championship while scoring had 40 points in 47 games with Rapperswil in the Swiss League.
• Czech goaltender Lukas Dostal - named as the IIHF World Championship's best goalie in backstopping Czechia to gold while posting a 14-23-3 record and a .902 save percentage with Anaheim Ducks in his rookie season.
• Swiss forward Kevin Fiala - named as the IIHF World Championship's MVP in helping Switerland win silver while scoring with 73 points with the Los Angeles Kings.
• Swiss defender Roman Josi - named as the IIHF World Championship's best defender in helping Switzerland win silver while posting 85 points with the Nashville Predators.
• Swedish defender Erik Karlsson - helped Sweden win the bronze medal at the IIHF World Championship while scoring 56 points with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
• Canadian forward John Tavares - helped Canada to a fourth-place finish at the IIHF World Championship while recording 65 points with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

As you're likely aware, I get no vote in this competition for this award. Howver, my ballot would show Roman Josi as the winner as the Swiss defender was impressive at the IIHF World Championship while being a Norris Trophy nominee for his work in the NHL with Nashville. Of these six nominees, Josi had the most impressive season both internationally and in a domestic league.

There are seven women up for the award this season, including:

• German goaltender Sandra Abstreiter - named as the IIHF World Championship's best goalie where Germany won four games while playing thee games with PWHL Ottawa with a 3.05 GAA and a .913 save percentage.
• American forward Alex Carpenter - named as the IIHF World Championship's best forward in helping the US win silver while finishing for the overall lead in assists in the PWHL and finishing with 23 points for PWHL New York.
• American forward Kendall Coyne Schofield - finished second in scoring at the IIHF World Championship in helping the US win silver while captaining PWHL Minnesota to the Walter Cup.
• Finnish defender Jenni Hiirikoski - co-led Finland in points at the IIHF World Championship in helping Finland win bronze while captaining Luleå to the SDHL championship.
• Swiss forward Alina Müller - led Switzerland in points in keeping the Swiss on the A-side of the IIHF World Championship while finishing with 16 points with PWHL Boston.
• Canadian forward Marie-Philip Poulin - captained Canada to a gold medal at the IIHF World Championship while finishing with 23 points for PWHL Montreal.
• Canadian forward Natalie Spooner - helped Canada win the gold medal at the IIHF World Championship while finishing with the most goals and most points for PWHL Toronto.

Again, zero votes coming from this blogger, but I was torn between Natalie Spooner's effort this season and Jenni Hiirikoski's outstanding season. As much as Spooner had an incredible World Championship and phenomenal PWHL regular season, her team fell short in the playoffs. Because of this, my ballot would show Jenni Hiirikoski as the winner for her incredible play again this season.

For the record, "[t]he awards will be voted on by members of the media and appropriate members of the IIHF family. Media will account for 70% of the vote while IIHF Family voting will constitute the other 30%." Since the media sucks at voting for most things involving international hockey and women's hockey, I expect the winners of these awards to be deserving, but not the most deserving.

The 2024 IIHF Male Player of the Year will be announced on Monday, June 17 at 12pm ET while the 2024 IIHF Female Player of the Year winner will be announced on Tuesday, June 18 at 12pm ET. We'll see which of these 13 players emerges as the second-ever IIHF Players of the Year at those times!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

A Monster Comeback

I don't think anyone would be surprised that the Hershey Bears would be called the AHL's best team this season and possibly ever with the marks they set this season. The Bears were simply unstoppable in the regular season in posting a 53-14-0-5 record while not losing back-to-back games in regulation over the entire 2023-24 campaign. The postseason, however, is a different animal as any team will tell you, and these Bears looked like they were cruising until this week when the Monsters woke up in the Eastern Conference Final.

Hershey held a 3-0 series lead over the Cleveland Monsters until Thursday when Cleveland rallied for a 3-2 win at home at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland. Hershey looked to regroup in Game Five on Saturday, but a 1-0 lead in the first period was erased by five unanswered goals as the Monsters again defended home ice with a 5-1 win to push the series back to Hershey at a 3-2 count. With Hershey 29-7-0 on the season at home, it seemed like the Bears just needed to get to the Giant Center for things to finish up successfully.

With the game tied 1-1 late in the third period on Monday, it appeared that the Bears were set to defend their title.
Hershey Bears winger Joe Snively scores with 50 seconds left in the third period to put Hershey up 2-1 over Cleveland as that late goal seemed like it would be enough to send the Bears back to the Calder Cup Final for the second-straight year. The defending champion Bears just needed to kill the next 50 seconds, and they'd be playing for their 13th Calder Cup in franchise history.

The Cleveland Monsters, however, had other ideas.
With six skaters on the ice, Cleveland's Brendan Gaunce found room past Hershey's Hunter Shepard with 33 seconds remaining - 17 seconds after Snively's goal - to tie the game at 2-2 and keep Cleveland's season going! Originally credited to Josh Dunne, it was Gaunce's centering pass that appears to have gone off the Hershey defender on all fours in front of Shepard, and the puck came to rest inside the net. The Monsters still had life as overtime loomed!

As we saw in the Kelly Cup Final, any shot may be the game-winner in overtime so could the Bears finally finish off the Monsters or would Cleveland's late tally push them to an overtime win to push the series to a Game Seven in Hershey on Wednesday?

Remember when I said above that any shot may be a game-winner?
In what looked like a harmless shot, defenceman Jake Christiansen's first goal of the playoffs was a big one as that shot got through traffic and eluded Hunter Shepard to find twine as the Cleveland Monsters took Game Six by a 3-2 score over the Hershey Bears! If it seemed like an improbable long shot, the Monsters had forced a Game Seven just five days after trailing in the series by a 3-0 count!

For those wondering, Cleveland's win puts them in some exclusive company as they became just the fifth team in AHL history to send a series to a Game 7 after losing the first three games. The other teams to accomplish this feat include:

• 1960 - Rochester Americans defeat the Cleveland Barons in Round One.
• 1989 - Adirondack Red Wings defeat the Hershey Bears in the Southern Division Final.
• 2011 - Houston Aeros defeat the Hamilton Bulldogs in the Western Conference Final.
• 2013 - Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins defeat the Providence Bruins in the Eastern Conference Semi-Final.

That italicized series above? That's the only series where a team rallied to erase a 3-0 deficit and lose the series. Hamilton rallied to tie the series, but Houston's Jon DiSalvatore scored with 1:13 remaining to push Houston to the 4-3 win in Game Seven to win the series. Clearly, the Monsters are looking to follow the leads of Rochester, Adirondack, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but Hershey will likely do everything in its power to prevent it from becoming the first AHL franchise to post 3-0 series leads and lose the series twice.

Game Seven will be played tomorrow night, and you can catch the game on AHL TV (subscription) and on the NHL Network if that channel is available to you. It will be an epic night for one of these two teams as both the Cleveland Monsters and the Hershey Bears look to book their tickets to the Calder Cup Final!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Queen City Shocker

When someone has been in their job for a quarter of a century, one would hope things are being done right. Sarah Hodges had that tenure as the head coach of the University of Regina Cougars women's hockey team, but it seems things weren't as rosy on the outside as the athletics' department made it appear. In a stunning announcement today, Hodges and the University of Regina reportedly "mutually agreed to part ways" after she had spent the last 25 years as the only head coach of that program. To say this is shocking for most of Canada West is probably an understatement as the pesky Cougars were never seemingly out of a fight for the playoffs and could always be counted on for late-game excitement. It's the end of an era, though, as Hodges will no longer call the shots for the Cougars.

Hodges, as stated above, had 25 years of experience behind the Regina bench after becoming the school's first head for the women's hockey program in 1998-99. That longevity put her in the Canada West record books as she has 588 Canada West regular-season games under her belt, and she found nearly immediate success as Regina won the 2001 Canada West title before falling in the U SPORTS National Championship game by a 4-3 score to the Toronto Varsity Blues. The Cougars played at three National Championship tournaments under her guidance, made the playoffs in 21 of 25 of her years behind the bench, and she was named as the Canada West Coach of the Year in 2015-16.

If you're wondering what led to her leaving the program after all those accolades, there were certainly valleys between the peaks shown in the paragraph above.

For starters, the Cougars haven't won a Canada West playoff game since 2015-16, and they've missed the playoffs in the last two seasons. Those last three seasons saw the Cougars finish in sixth-, ninth-, and eighth-place with that sixth-place finish having them meet the Alberta Pandas who sent them home two games later. In the last three seasons, the Cougars are 18-51-1-6 which is hardly good enough for any league, and there were regular departures from the program long before graduation ceremonies were held. Something wasn't adding up in that final point's case, and it seems that the University of Regina felt the same way.

As Darrell Davis wrote in the Regina Leader-Post, "Lisa Robertson, the university's Director of Sport, Community Engagement and Athlete Development, would not elaborate on the specifics of Hodges' departure, citing 'personnel-related matters' as the reason for confidentiality."

I have absolutely zero proof of any wrong-doing by Hodges at any point in her career, but there have been rumblings in the past about philosophical disagreements between players and the head coach. Whether or not that played any part in today's announcement is for the university to manage, but it seems they went ahead and solved those problems by allowing Hodges to step away from the team.

Hodges released a statement today after the announcement.

"I would like to thank Dick White and Dr. Ralph Nilson for taking a chance on me to lead this program as a young coach, and then giving me the trust and support to do it well and build a successful career.

"I am grateful for every assistant coach who has given me their time and energy for very little reward, and the support staff on campus who have served me and the student-athletes. I am extremely proud of the women who have come through this program to date and feel privileged to have had the opportunity to coach them all. I wish the best to the current players and can't wait to watch this year's batch of recruits develop over the next five years."

It appears that the University of Regina also recognized the effort that Hodges put into getting the program off the ground and running it for 25 years. Lisa Robertson stated,

"We owe Sarah a debt of gratitude for the passion, engagement, and hard work she invested in her student-athletes and the team over the years. Sarah was instrumental in growing this program from its infancy and quickly becoming a national championship contender. Our very best wishes to Sarah as she moves onto the next phase of her career, wherever that may take her."

With Hodges stepping aside, that leaves a massive hole in the program for the first time ever in its history, but the University of Regina also announced today that former Cougars standout Brandy West-McMaster takes over as the interim head coach for the 2024-25 season. She graduated as Regina's all-time leader in goals (80) and points (133), and she was voted as the top player in Canada West in three-straight seasons from 1999-2001. She'll have big shoes to fill in taking over for her former coach, but she brings some solid coaching experience with her after a few stops across Canada.

West-McMaster was an assistant coach for the Saskatchewan U18 program before the Wilfred Laurier University Golden Hawks hired her in 2004 to be an assistant coach for their program. She would only remain with the Golden Hawks for a few months, but she'd find herself at back-to-back Esso Cups in 2010 and 2011 with the Notre Dame Hounds, first as a trainer and again as an assistant coach. She joined the Regina Cougars as an assistant coach in 2011-12 where she'd coach alongside Hodges until 2015, and she's an instructor with Regina's Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies.

Not only was she a fantastic hockey player, but Brandy West-McMaster may have passed on those hockey-loving genes to her daughter as Bailey McMaster committed to the UNB Reds in 2023 where her first season saw her score one goal and two assists in 23 games in the AUS this season. A self-described "two-way player who works hard", McMaster helped the Reds reach the U SPORTS National Championship in Saskatoon this past season, so it seems pretty clear hockey runs deep in that bloodline.

I have no idea what changes Brandy West-McMaster will bring to the Cougars when it comes to systems and strategies, but this was a change I'm not sure anyone was expecting this offseason. Sarah Hodges had been a constant in Canada West since Regina's inclusion into the conference, but the University of Regina decided it was time for a change despite everything Hodges had done for the program.

Best of luck to Sarah Hodges as she moves on with a new chapter in her life, and welcome back to the wild west, Brandy West-McMaster!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Here To Ruin Hockey

As a Penguins fan, I have been conditioned to loathe everything about the Washington Capitals over the many years they've shared a division and rivalry. From their insistence in clinging to the precious hope that Alexander Ovechkin overtakes Wayne Gretzky on the all-time goal-scoring list to their 2018 Stanley Cup victory, watching them play hockey lands somewhere between being eaten alive by sharks and falling into a woodchipper. Needless to say, today's news only makes their existence more intolerable and I hope that the Capitals become cursed for eternity.

If I'm being completely transparent, the entire paragraph above has moments of truth, but is mostly a satirical look at my fan status when it comes to the Capitals. I honestly don't wish ill will on any team, and I certainly don't want to land in the jaws of a shark or the chipper of a woodchipper. Today's news does suck in a big way, though, and the Capitals are entirely to blame for another amazing hockey resource going dark in less than a month's time.

For anyone who has ever looked up a hockey player's contract, CapFriendly is the site where all the information about that contract can be found. It's one of those sites that would rank in the top-five of all hockey resources on the internet, and a lot of the credit for how valuable the site's information has become goes to Dominik Zrim, the website's co-owner and director.

Today, though, it was announced that the Washington Capitals have reached an agreement to purchase the outstanding CapFriendly website, and the website and all its resources would go private after the transaction is completed on what is expected to be July 5. According to Sportsnet's Elloitte Friedman, "sources stressed that both the Capitals and CapFriendly wanted the site to be publicly available and independently operated through the 2024 NHL Draft and the start of free agency".

In multiple reports, it was stated that "NHL teams that had agreements to use their tools/Application Programming Interface (API) recently received notice that these contracts would be terminated" which clearly meant that something was up with the CapFriendly site. After all, having deals with NHL teams gave CapFriendly insight into a lot of the contract details while their API would guarantee a revenue stream. As per The Athletic, "Several teams were interested in buying the site and the owners held discussions with other clubs," so it seems that the site had the "For Sale" sign up for a least a few weeks.

Mark Colley of the Toronto Star wrote, "CapFriendly was preceded by CapGeek, founded by Matthew Wuest, who died of cancer in 2015. In early 2016, CapFriendly merged with Hockey's Cap to create the current platform, which was inspired by CapGeek. It became the NHL's most authoritative resource on salaries for fans and media."

With the Washington Capitals owning the API, they'll have full use of its capabilities while other teams will either have to come up with their own tools or pay the Capitals for access to that tool. I don't fault Ted Leonsis for capitalizing on something that will affect the other 31 teams in his league whereby he gets an advantage, but I do fault him for eliminating one of the best sites for cap-related information on the internet. As a fan, my hope is someone will fill that void, but the previous paragraph shows just how long it took for CapFriendly to become this web-based institution for hockey fans.

Just so we're clear, I don't hate the Washington Capitals, but this transaction today makes it a lot harder to like them. I was already sour over their idea to squeeze billions out of Alexandria, Virginia for a new sports and entertainment complex which took my dislike of them from their years of battles with the Penguins to a new low. I wouldn't say they crossed the line into me hating them as "hate" is a strong word, but it seems like the Washington Capitals are hellbent on doing everything they can to make people dislike them.

Today, they found a new way to ruin hockey for the rest of us.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!