Well, I was wrong about the outcome of the Evan Pighin hearing with Hockey Canada: he has been cleared to play for Victoria of the BCHL. Hopefully we'll hear the story of how this decision was reached soon, because unless the WHL agreed at the meeting to release Pighin to the BCHL, this is a very, very bad precedent for the WHL. Players at the WHL (or any level) who sign agreements to play for a certain team or in a certain league shouldn't be free to walk away and switch teams without getting a release....it will be chaos if they are. So hopefully this decision was reached after a negotiated release of Pighin from his WHL commitment. We'll see.
In other WHL news, the Regina Pats have sent overage forward Scott Doucet home for "conduct unbecoming of the team" over the weekend. Apparently he got into a verbal dispute with the coaching staff, and his Pats career is now over. The Pats will try to trade him to another team, as he has some value. He's an excellent faceoff man and probably good for 40-50 points so there's going to be some interest out there despite this dustup with the Pats, I'm sure.
After he's gone, (and if the Pats don't get another overager back in return) I wonder if the Pats will be interested in trying to bring back Kirt Hill. Doucet beat out Hill for an overage spot on the Pats after Hill suffered a broken wrist in a fight with Doucet in the Pats' intrasquad game. Hill is currently in the USHL but maybe he'd be interested in returning to the WHL.
3 comments:
Uh, Mr. Parker? That's Portland on the line regarding Mr. Doucet. Shall I put the call through?
just a couple of observations.
Doesn't seem to be as much importance/reliance on overages the last few yrs. Is the league getting younger?
Also same goes for Euro's, GM's don't seem to care much about getting a Euro, maybe too much maintenance.
Not sure why you are surprised by the outcome. An agreement typically only applies to the league it is signed in. It doesn't appear the BCHL and WHL have a legal/formal player transfer agreement in place. I could be wrong on this.
This case is unusual as I think of the BCHL as a feeder league for the WHL for most of the time. Somebody going the other way when the WHL team wants him is kind of odd.
Oh well.
Post a Comment