Thursday notes

Bunch of notes on happenings around the league the last couple days....no post yesterday because I used my time to work on my WHL stats database utility, so I'll soon be able to flood this blog again with the obscure and irrelevant stats you all love to hate (or hate to love?).

I believe there are now three goalies, full-time WHLers in 07-08, who are now sitting at home awaiting trades this fall. Chilliwack's Matt Esposito never even came to their camp, while Kelowna's Torrie Jung was sent home the other day and now comes the news that Kamloops and 07-08 backup James Priestner have agreed to part ways. Priestner has gone home to Edmonton to wait for a trade which may be coming in the next day or two.

I'm wondering where all these guys are going to end up....I don't think there's a team in the league that doesn't have an experienced starting goalie and the only teams I can think of who might be interested in upgrading their current #1 goalies might be Edmonton and Everett, and maybe Chilliwack. There's 15 teams who currently have unproven backup goalies though so perhaps some of them are interested in Priestner as their backup. But how many teams are interested in the 19 year old Esposito or Jung as backups?

Speaking of players who didn't report to Chilliwack, the Evan Pighin situation has now involved the WHL office and commish Ron Robison is not happy about it. Things between the BCHL and WHL are going to get real ugly....the two leagues have not been on good terms for a long while and this isn't going to help.

Another suspended player, Everett's Jordan Mistelbacher, has been allowed to return to the Silvertips. Mistelbacher and former Everett defenceman Tyler Kieffer were sent home during training camp for breaking team rules, believed to be a curfew violation. Kieffer was later traded to Medicine Hat, while the Tips have apparently decided to give Mistelbacher a third chance.

Meanwhile, Kieffer still has not reported to the Tigers after telling the team he was going home to Minnesota to get his stuff and would be there late last week. Something's up here....

And speaking of players going home, Prince Albert import Tomas Voracek has decided to go home to the Czech Republic to be with his mother, who has cancer. The Raiders are supportive of his decision even though there is no set return date for Voracek. Makes me wonder if Voracek was influenced by the death from cancer of teammate Ryan Aasman's father last week....if his mom's in bad shape, perhaps seeing the Aasman family situation made him remember that you don't get a 2nd chance to spend time with them once they're gone.....hope it all works out for the Voracek family.

Two WHL vets have been cut loose in the last two days as well. First it was Moose Jaw parting ways with 18 year old defenceman Ty Ariss; Ariss was a 2nd round bantam pick at one time but has never really developed very much since joining the WHL at 16. No idea why, but he just hasn't and obviously Moose Jaw no longer feels he is a WHL calibre player. And the other cut is (apparently, not confirmed anywhere yet though?) Vancouver overage forward Chris Cloud, whose name no longer appears on the Giants' whl.ca roster. Cloud is believed to be headed back to Manitoba to play Jr A for the Waywayseecappo Wolverines.