Monday stuff

The Canada-Russia Super Series started this morning with game 1 in Ufa, Russia, with Canada posting a 4-2 victory over the Russians. Canada came back from down 2-0 with four unanswered goals. Scoring for Canada were Stefan Legein, Brad Marchand, Sam Gagner, and Kyle Turris.

Steve Mason of the OHL's London Knights was named the starting goalie for Canada ahead of Everett's Leland Irving, but there are 12 other WHLers on the team including the captain and two of the three alternates. Vancouver's Milan Lucic is captain while Calgary's Karl Alzner and Red Deer's Brandon Sutter are alternates along with London's Sam Gagner.

One of the WHL newcomers trying to make the Edmonton Oil Kings is Mark Messier's kid, Lyon. He's a 6'1" defenceman trying to make it as one of the team's five overagers after playing for the NAHL's Texas Tornado last year. He's got his work cut out for him, given that the Oil Kings already have three other overage defencemen with tons of WHL experience - Stamler, Hengen, and Swaby.

Follow that up with some name-dropping of some of the better prospects to make the Oil Kings this year.

Auditions continue in Chilliwack for the right to replace Josh Aspenlind on the top line with Moller and Santorelli.

How is Giants winger Garet Hunt looking these days? Pretty damn good from the sounds of this. He won the junior mens title at a bodybuilding competition on Saturday night.

Brandon has put '89 winger Matt Hallick on the trade block. Sounds like a mutual thing but Hallick has not lived up to the expectations of a 2nd round bantam pick. In 99 career WHL games he has just 3 goals and 15 points.

Regina is close to getting their top four picks from this year's bantam draft signed to contracts. The article also mentions which rookie campers got brought through to the main camp, if you're interested.

Great story from the Everett paper on Brett Chartier, who went undrafted in the bantam draft but is now one of Everett's better prospects. More proof of why kids who aren't picked in the bantam draft shouldn't quit. Also from that article: turns out there won't be three Ryan Whites in the WHL this year after all, as Everett's prospect by that name has decided to stay in Colorado and play midget.

The battle for backup goalie in Prince George appears to be over, for now anyway. Joel Danyluk, 17, is the only goalie remaining for the job after the others in camp were all released. Danyluk will now get to play some exhibition games which could determine whether he gets the job or whether the team needs to start looking at a trade for another goalie.

Good piece on Prince George's new Swedish defenceman, Patrik Magnusson. Sounds like he may be more of a North American style player.

Don't think I've had any Seattle camp news on here yet, mostly because it seems neither of the Seattle papers care to cover the team. Here's a wrap-up from the T-Birds site.

From the blog of Spokane Chiefs beat writer Jessica Brown, new Chiefs import Stefan Ulmer had a rough welcome to North America. The Austrian lost seven teeth (ouch!) after a hard hit in the team's first scrimmage.