He Was Always There

I want to pass along a big congratulations to Ville Heinola on being part of the Finnish team that captured the gold medal at the 2026 IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship today. He looked confident throughout the tournament playing alongside a number of his friends and countrymen, and seeing him as happy as he is in this image is encouraging given all the struggles he's been through in his time with the Winnipeg Jets. Whether it was injuries, being relegated to the pressbox, being exiled to the AHL, or just simply being unappreciated and undervalued by conservative coaches and management, Heinola deserves to have this golden moment.

Heinola made the Jets' lineup as an 18 year-old defender in his rookie campaign, but the Jets elected not to burn the first year of his entry-level contract. After scoring one goal and five points in eight games, he was sent back to his Finnish club while the Jets preached patience with Heinola. If he was going to reach his potential, the Jets had to make sure he was developing properly in their system.

Insert your Winnipeg Jets "draft and develop" jokes here.

Over the next three seasons, Heinola skated in just 27 games for the Jets, battling for a roster spot with the likes of Logan Stanley, Dylan Samberg, Johnny Kovacevic, Kyle Capobianco, and Declan Chisholm, but never quite getting the ice-time or the pairing that would allow him to do what he does best: skate with the puck, jump into the offensive zone, and play good positional defence. He was never going to be the bruiser in front of the net, but, like Montreal's Lane Hutson, he had incredible skating and vision from the blue line.

In what looked like a change in the philosophy for the Jets, Ville Heinola was poised to make the Winnipeg Jets' roster out of training camp ahead of the 2023-24 season. The only problem was that Heinola fractured his ankle in the final preseason game, setting him back in his NHL dreams. He would skate with the Manitoba Moose when he was able to get back on skates, but that injury plunged him back into the "battling for a roster spot" ranks for the 2024-25 season.

Early surgery in training camp in 2024 put Heinola back on the shelf after it was discovered that his surgically-repaired ankle was infected, but head coach Scott Arniel seemed to indicate that Heinola was going to get his shot with a comment about the defender on November 19, 2024 where he said, "It's been a tough two years for him. I'm probably his biggest fan here. I wanna see him."

Were we about to see the Finn playing regular minutes?

Heinola's biggest fan dressed him just 23 times in two seasons since uttering those comments to the media, so it's hard to believe that Arniel was doing anything but providing lip service. When he was in the lineup, he most often played on the third pairing with players that rarely complimented his style of play, and it constantly felt like the Jets were trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

I can give you seven million reasons why Ville Heinola should be in Winnipeg, and it starts and ends with Neal Pionk. If the Jets were truly going to make a run at key free agents this summer to improve their team overall, moving Pionk's annual $7 million salary and replacing him with Ville Heinola would be a wise move. They play identical games with the puck on their sticks, but Pionk's physical play is replaced by Heinola's better defensive play when looking at the overall package. This shouldn't be a hard sell for management, but it seems like GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is enamored with Pionk.

This isn't about the Jets and their awful asset management, though. Ville Heinola's smile in the lede image should be enough to tell you that a weight was lifted off his shoulders with this gold medal today. He already admitted to Winnipeg reporters that "[i]t's been, mentally, probably the hardest year. It's hard, and I struggle a lot, especially mentally" and that he "hired a mental (health) coach. That was a huge, huge help at the time, just to be able to talk somebody."

Why that person wasn't someone from inside the organization leaves me with more questions about what kind of front office the Jets have, but seeing him fly around the ice for Finland over the last couple of weeks should be enough proof that Ville Heinola won't be back in Winnipeg next season unless visiting with an opposing team. He proved he can be an effective player on a big stage while being effective at both ends of the ice, and that display of skill by the 25 year-old should have GMs thinking low-risk, high-reward contract.

The Jets will enter next season with 30 year-old Neal Pionk under contract for five more years at $35 million despite his obvious defensive lapses. The Jets invested a lot of money in a player who has had one season above 40 points and who scored a career-low 12 points in 51 games last season, but refused to play Ville Heinola in the same role despite him having the same skill set and talents.

For a team that needed better defensive play with a push for offence from their blue line, Ville Heinola was always there. Today's World Hockey Championship gold medal should be all the proof he needs that his mental health will be better with another franchise.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The New State Of Hockey?

When one thinks of Florida, there are some images that come to mind: sunshine, beaches, and Disney World. Of course, those aren't the only things that Florida is known for, and it seems they're making "winning professional hockey chmapionships" into a Florida thing. We know that the Florida Panthers won back-to-back Stanley Cups before missing the playoffs this season, but there's another team that has made winning into an annual event in the state. If you're unaware of the Florida Everblades and their winning ways, now would be a good time to get to know the ECHL team who will one again be the Eastern Conference representative in the 2026 Kelly Cup championship series!

The Florida Everblades have won four Kelly Cups in franchise history, but three of those four championships have been won since 2022. This year will mark the fourth time in the last five years that the Everblades will play for the Kelly Cup, and the team is 4-2 all-time in Kelly Cup championship series with a 19-11 all-time record in those games. Florida lost back-to-back championships in 2004 and 2005 to the Idaho Steelheads and Trenton Titans, respectfully, but won their next four championship series appearances by a 16-3 record.

This year's appearance saw them sweep the Savannah Ghost Pirates in the opening round of the playoffs, defeat the South Carolina Stingrays by a 4-1 series count in Round Two, and they imposed their will on the Wheeling Nailers by winning that series by 4-1 count as well. With just two losses in 14 games, they now await the winner of the ECHL Western Conference Final between the Fort Wayne Komets and the Kansas City Mavericks. Kansas City leads 3-1 in that series with Game Five scheduled for tomorrow in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

If Kansas City were to advance, it would set up the second meeting between these two teams in the Kelly Cup Championship. In 2024, Florida downed Kansas City by a 4-1 series count that saw Florida win three of the four games by three-or-more goals. Fort Wayne and Florida have never met for a Kelly Cup Championship in either side's histories, so we could be in for a new chapter of ECHL history if the Komets can rally against the Mavericks. We'll know more tomorrow.

In 2022, the Everblades qualified for the Kelly Cup Playoffs as the third-best team in the ECHL by points percentage at .653 thanks to the imbalanced schedule that was used this season. Florida then went 16-4 against Greenville, Jacksonville, Newfoundland, and Toledo that saw the Everblades go 7-0 in overtime games over those four series! That's a simply incredible overtime record by any team in any league!

2023 saw the Florida Everblades struggle through the regular season to a fourth-place finish in the ECHL's South Division, and the eleventh-best playoff team as they entered the Kelly Cup Playoffs. However, once the Kelly Cup Playoffs started, the Everblades switched into invincibility mode, going 16-6 while never holding home-ice advantage in any series. Florida went 5-2 in overtime games in this season, but they swept the ECHL's top regular season team in the Brabham Cup-winning Idaho Steelheads in the championship final! For notation purposes, Idaho finished 34 points better than Florida!

The 2024 ECHL season saw Florida finish in third-place in the South Division, four points back of Greenville and two points behind Jacksonville, as the ninth-best team that qualified for the Kelly Cup Playoffs. Florida and Jacksonville would battle through a seven-game series that saw the Everblades rally from a 3-1 deficit to win the series before they eliminated Orlando in five games and Adirondack in six games. That set up a championship series against the Kansas City Mavericks who were the Brabham Cup winners. Five games later, Florida celebrated a Kelly Cup win in beating the ECHL's best regular-season team despite finishing 25 points back of the Mavericks!

After a bit of a surprise upset last season in the Eastern Conference Final by the Trois-Rivières Lions, the Everblades are back after downing Wheeling tonight, and they look every bit as hungry as they did in winning three-straight championships. Clearly, the Everblades have created a bit of a dynasty in a league where player movement is a regular occurrence which says a lot about the team's management and culture when it comes to building a roster. In knowing that, going to the Kelly Cup Finals in four of five years is an impressive feat!

They still need to win one more series to cement their dynasty status, but the Everblades are giving fans every reason to believe that Florida is the new state of hockey. They sit just four wins from setting new ECHL records with a record fifth Kelly Cup, but they're already the most successful pro hockey team in the panhandle state!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Dangers Of Suffering Silently

It's hard to sit here tonight and have anything but compassion and empathy for the Lemieux family. The ovation that Claude Lemieux got before Game Three when he walked down the tunnel with the torch to inspire everyone who loved the Montreal Canadiens was awesome. Therein lies the problem with mental health: it's a pain that no one else sees of feels as we try to make sense of Claude Lemieux taking his own life four days after that magical appearance in Montreal. More than ever, mental health has to be discussed.

For the longest time, he was framed as a villain for how he played the game, specifically in the playoffs where his agitation skills and hockey talents combined into a force that could take over games. The man played over 21 seasons in the NHL, amassing 379 goals and 407 assists in 1215 games. Add in his penalty minute totals of 1775, and he was one of the league's top power forwards for a number of years while playing with Montreal, New Jersey, Colorado, Phoenix, Dallas, and San Jose. Five times, he would hit the 30-goal mark.

The playoffs saw him shine, and that's where Lemieux elevated his game. He went from goal-scoring power forward to an absolute menace for star players, often shadowing them for entire series while still chipping in with his brand of offence. Four Stanley Cups are proof that he was important to teams as he was often lauded for his grittiness, his ability to get under the skin of opponents, and his solid defensive play. In each of the four Stanley Cup seasons where he won, Lemieux never scored less than ten points in the playoffs.

That's what made the news of hearing that the Palm Beach County Sherriff's Office deputies responded just after 3am to the scene of an apparent suicide at the family's furniture store in Lake Park, Florida early Thursday morning. One of his sons discovered Lemieux's body in the rear of the warehouse, and it was confirmed late on Thursday that the victim was indeed the late, great Claude Lemieux.

Lemieux is survived by his wife, Deborah, and his four children, Brendan, Claudia, Michael and, Christopher. I can't imagine the pain and sorrow they're experiencing in this time of loss. My thoughts are with them and Claude's extended family and friends at this time.

I'm not here to lay blame. I'm not here to suggest that someone should have noticed. This is what makes mental health issues so hard to diagnose and treat: it's a silent problem until the person suffering talks about it. Maybe Claude wasn't that person where he shared intimate details about himself. Maybe it was a little bit of pride and old-school hockey thinking that kept Claude from talking about his personal battle. Whatever the case, we may never know now.

With Victor Hedman talking about the struggles he faced, Linus Ullmark opening up about his mental health, and Connor Ingram seeking help for his mental health battles, the stigma that surrounds mental health struggles needs to end. It's not a stretch to suggest that lives are at stake, and it's even more important that retired players are encouraged to discuss mental health openly after their eras in the NHL downplayed any and all mental health issues.

My hope is that, after the required grieving time is taken, the Lemieux family can begin putting the pieces back together. This kind of news can shatter families, and I hope they get the counseling and support they need to work through this tragedy. As I noted on the Victor Hedman article, there are a pile of great resources for anyone seeking help and wanting to talk about their mental battles.

The Canadian Mental Health Association can be reached 24/7 by dialing or texting 9-8-8, there are many provincial resources that can help, the Kids Help Phone has info and resources for younger people seeking help, HeadsUpGuys has mental health resources specifically for men, Indigenous Peoples can get 24/7 help through Hope For Wellness, and the Women's Health Clinic offers assistance to women, Two-Spirit, genderqueer, trans and non-binary people. All of these organizations are incredible at helping those who ask for help.

My heart and thoughts go out to Claude Lemieux's family and friends. Losses on the ice are hard sometimes, but the loss of a legend like Claude Lemieux leaves an unfixable hole in the hockey world.

Whatever his struggle was, it's over. Rest in eternal peace, Claude.

Until next time, raise your sticks high to honour Claude Lemieux!

The Hockey Show - Episode 714

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight with a look at a pile of stories that have emerged in the hockey world over the last week or so. There's news from Europe, news from the southern US, new from Russia, and news from across Canada that needs to be discussed in greater depth as our hosts tackle a number of stories. There are no Survivor: NHL Playoffs exit interviews today as we're saving them for next week, so get ready for a pile of news and discussion about everything happening in hockey on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason jump into the hockey stories by discussing the results at the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship being played in Switzerland including who is being relegated and promoted for next year's tournaments. Beyond those scores and stories, our hosts will discuss Hockey Canada's women's program making changes, an old ECHL team is new again, a more thorough discussion on the Hamilton Hammers, Jordan Tourigny trying to join the musical group Stomp, the Ottawa Charge getting close to announcing what arena they'll play in next season, Russia's return to international hockey, the KHL's winner and an interesting fact, and there was more science revealed about a player we lost last season. It's a busy show with lots to go over, so get ready to roll tonight for 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 UMFM website's 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.

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! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about international results, program changes, reborn cats, disappointing logos, stepping on toes, relocating teams, a returning foe, Russia's winners, head trauma, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Cats Came Back

This might seem like a historical piece abhHL in Augusta, Georgia from 1998 until 2009 in front of rather modest crowds during that era. The Lynx's best season came in 1999-2000 when the team was eliminated in the third round of the Kelly Cup Playoffs, but that history may get a chance to be overwritten by the ECHL's 32nd franchise that will begin play in 2027-28. This new team will be called the Augusta Lynx, but the logo, colours, and branding for these cats will be completely new and wholly separate from the original Augusta Lynx franchise.

Before we get into this new Lynx identity, there's some background that's needed. This new version of the Lynx is owned by former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow and David Hodges, Chairman of 925 Partners. These two collaborated together to bring the Knight Monsters to the southern side of Lake Tahoe, and they'll join forces once again to make this iteration of the Lynx work in Augusta. The team will be managed and operated by Zawyer Sports and Entertainment who has built a massive minor-pro hockey empire in a relatively short time.

As stated, the Lynx failed once in Georgia already as people stopped showing up to games. Every year from 1998-99 until 2005-06, there was a decline in average attendance at Lynx games, and the final four seasons saw them average around 2700 fans. Obviously, that's not going to be anywhere close to being profitable, but it seems that Tebow and Hodges know better than I do. With a metro population of around 611,000 people, there should be enough fans to fill the new 10,500 seat arena currently under construction in downtown Augusta.

Whether or not fans show up for Lynx hockey will be the big question.

A good way to get fans interested in the team is having a good logo, and the logo to the right might just be enough to get casual hockey fans in and around Augusta to buy into this new team! It would appear that the Lynx will play up the "Links" name even more than the previous team by going with the green and yellow colours as the "Lynx" name honours Augusta National Golf Club which hosts The Masters golf tournament every year. The new cat's face on the logo looks more like a lynx does as well, and that playful smirk on the lynx's face should appeal to both kids and adults when it comes to merchandise. This logo is an upgrade over the old one, and that's a good start for this franchise.

The secondary logos seen above are all pretty good as well. Clearly, the lynx face on the left and the wordmark next to it are just the individual pieces of the full logo above, but cat's claw around the state of Georgia is a great secondary logo that likely will be worn on the shoulder of the jerseys. It feels a little like the AHL Bakersfield Condors' talon logo, but I'm not complaining here. The "A" logo on the right seems a little more formal, so we'll see how that gets used.

"We're so excited to bring this team to Augusta and introduce something truly special for our fans," Tebow said on Tuesday. "Our hope is to create an experience that brings families together, builds lasting memories, and reflects the heart of this community."

Co-owner David Hodges seemed to be looking at the bigger picture for Augusta, stating, "Being part of this new chapter in Augusta is incredibly meaningful to us. We're committed to investing in this community and building something that goes beyond the game."

Outside of the logo, there was nothing else shown off by the Lynx today when it came to their brand. The jerseys and mascot will be unveiled at a later date, and the team will announce affiliations and a head coach in the coming months. If you're wondering, the logos above were created by The Barn Creative who, in my humble opinion, did a pretty good job in getting the new Augusta Lynx a brand around which they can build. I may have to get some snazzy merchandise!

The Lynx are back in Augusta beginning in 2027 as the ECHL adds its third Georgia-based team to the map. It's going to take some work to fill that 10,500-seat arena every night, but the branding for the Lynx is the cat's meow! It will be up to Tebow and Hodges to find the right personnel and players to make sure the Lynx are a purr-fect fit and as popular as that big PGA golf tournament is in Augusta, Georgia!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!