Red Deer has invited two new overagers to camp, is the revelation from the Red Deer Advocate's camp preview. The new guys are forwards Adam Ross of Edmonton and Ryan Fuller from San Jose, CA. Ross played the last two years in the QMJHL while Fuller comes from the NAHL's Texas Tornados. Neither of them brings past numbers that would indicate they are likely to be big scorers in the WHL but they do provide some junior hockey experience and to a team that will be very short on that. Whether either of them even make the team will have to depend a lot on the NHL status of J.D. Watt, Brett Sutter, and Kirill Starkov.
At the other end of the overage picture, Everett released two of theirs, Damir Alic and Jesse Smyke, over the summer. Everett Herald writer Nick Patterson had that story on his blog today. So, the Tips actually have six guys (Campos, Crowley, Fiala, Gendur, Reekie, Sonne) competing for the three spots and not eight.
The Blades say they will not have a rookie camp this year and will instead bring just 74 players to main camp next week. They'll run three days of scrimmages and then pare down to about 26 players on Sept 1st. Considering they'll probably carry 24 players or so during the season, that's basically their team right there and that is a really, really short training camp. Three days to look at all your prospects of all ages and pick your team? It might be easier for them though since they have so many veteran players coming back that there really aren't a lot of spots open and some of the ones that are open are pretty well spoken for already.
Jesse Dudas is back in Prince George and says his glass body is healthy. The guy has the ability to be one of the better d-men in the league but he can't stay healthy. He missed 28 games in 04-05, 48 games in 05-06, and 40 games in 06-07. He has spent more games injured than he has played in his three years in the league. Add to that the quiet questions about how badly he WANTED to be healthy, and......any bets on how long into the season he suffers another season-ending injury?
Gregg Drinnan of the Kamloops Daily News has an excellent wrap-up of the current import situation around the league on his blog. Looks like a few 2007 import picks are no-shows: one each in Brandon, Chilliwack, Kelowna, and Regina.
There's tons of training camp stories available today from the various team sites, local newspapers, etc, etc. Not much very interesting so far though, as most stories are the usual "we're going to be better this year, our vets need to step up, we have an opening here and here and here" bland blah blah blah. Listening to coaches and G.M.'s spout that crap straight out of "Boring Interviews for Dummies" has to make sportwriters want to pound nails into their eardrums. Fortunately, with many teams opening camps today or tomorrow, there should start being more interesting news coming out. Who's cut, who's looking good for earning spots, which returning players did more ribs than reps this summer, etc, etc.
UPDATE: Moose Jaw has inked #1 overall bantam pick Quinton Howden to a WHL education contract. Story here.
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