It's July 29th, which might seem just another insignificant day as we fans await the start-up of hockey for 08-09, but it's actually a milestone: the first exhibition games this year are on August 29th, so we're now officially only one month (just 31 days!) away from seeing game action!!
OK, so it's a stretch to get excited about that but we gotta take what we can get during these dog days.
With exhibition action only a month away and many teams due to open training camps in as little as three weeks, we still don't have a regular season schedule and the league says the ETA for that is still over a week away on August 7th. But half the league's teams - Chilliwack, Edmonton, Everett, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, Prince George, Red Deer, Saskatoon, Seattle, Spokane, and Swift Current - have their tentative schedules available on their websites. And even if your team isn't on that list, you can piece together a good chunk of your team's schedule by combining their dates against those eleven teams.
Another thing we'll be able to start following soon is the annual Ivan Hlinka Memorial U-18 tournament in the Czech Republic, which runs from August 12th to 16th. Hockey Canada's selection camp for the players who will represent Canada in that tournament begins August 1st in Calgary and will feature 17 WHLers - Carter Ashton (Lethbridge), Jimmy Bubnick (Kamloops), Jared Cowen (Spokane), Cody Eakin (Swift Current), Stefan Elliott (Saskatoon), Landon Ferraro (Red Deer), Scott Glennie (Brandon), Curtis Hamilton (Saskatoon), James Henry (Vancouver), Ryan Howse (Chilliwack), Evander Kane (Vancouver), Nathan Lieuwen (Kootenay), Matt Mackenzie (Calgary), Brayden McNabb (Kootenay), Garrett Mitchell (Regina), Chase Schaber (Calgary), and Brayden Schenn (Brandon) - plus Medicine Hat Tigers prospect Dylan Olsen from the AJHL's Camrose Kodiaks. So, there should be a healthy helping of WHLers on Canada's team again this year.
On the south side of the border, the Team USA roster for the Hlinka tournament has been set and features one WHLer, defenceman Collin Bowman of the Kelowna Rockets.
Another bit of hockey news here; you'll remember the sudden mid-season death last year of Mickey Renaud of the OHL's Windsor Spitfires. Well, the cause of his death is now official and it was a heart condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which killed him. It's a thickening of a portion of the heart muscle and was also the cause of death of former NHLer Sergei Zholtok, who died during a Russian league game in 2004, and also killed basketball players Reggie Lewis and Hank Gathers, amongst others.
To continue a bit on the HCM angle, HCM also caused the retirement from hockey earlier this summer of Shattuck-St. Mary's hockey player David Carle. Carle (younger brother of Matt Carle of the San Jose Sharks) was diagnosed with HCM after a physical at the NHL draft combine in June and opted to retire from hockey rather than risk premature death. He was expected to be a 2nd or 3rd round pick in June's draft but ended up not being picked after retiring....no surprise there of course. Anyway, Carle was due to attend Denver University this fall on scholarship; the school will still honour his scholarship and he'll attend DU as a student only. Classy move by DU if you ask me.
UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that David Carle actually was drafted after all, in the 7th round by Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay's new owner, Oren Koules, said after the draft that the Lightning knew it was probably wasting a pick but that the kid had worked his whole life to get drafted and somebody should at least do that for him.
Nice move by Tampa Bay....unless one of the kids picked after Carle becomes an NHL star....
The loss of Carle meant DU had an opening for a defenceman this fall, and Portland Winter Hawks prospect Patrick Wiercioch seized the opportunity. Wiercioch had a verbal commitment to Wisconsin for 2009-10 but de-committed to Wisconsin and will go to Denver this fall instead, which no doubt pleases the Ottawa Senators, who picked Wiercioch in the 2nd round in June and didn't want him to waste another year in Tier-II next year. There had been some speculation that Wiercioch may come to the WHL if he couldn't start playing NCAA this fall but obviously that's not going to happen anymore so Portland isn't likely to ever see Wiercioch, who was the key return for the Hawks in the Michael Sauer trade with Medicine Hat in January 2007.
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