Wednesday notes

Couple things today....

First, the 2010-11 WHL season kicks off tonight with the first preseason games. Swift Current visits Moose Jaw, and Saskatoon visits Prince Albert. Expect to see very few vets dressed for anyone in either game.

Training camp is also underway now for all but two teams, and those two teams get at it tomorrow. I've got current camp rosters for 14 teams below, and I guessed at the rosters for three others. Portland says they'll release a roster later today, and the other four teams are just getting started so there's nothing for them yet. We beat this horse to death this time last year, but I am once again disappointed that some teams (including a couple who didn't do it last year either) choose not to inform their fans of what's going on at camp. Traffic on this blog is up more than 50% in the last two days since I posted the rosters. Fans want to know this stuff and the teams that don't think this is important are snubbing their fans. What's the big secret? When the vast majority of teams see no problems with releasing rosters and cuts, I don't get why the rest don't do the same.

One other bit of news - the WHL will hold two outdoor games this year but today they announced another "special" game, which will thankfully be played indoors. The Kamloops Blazers and Vancouver Giants are going to play a regular season game February 12 in Whitehorse, Yukon. The game will be a Kamloops home game as it replaces the home game previously scheduled for Kamloops on that date. The average low temperature in Whitehorse in February is -19 C (-2 F), so this is definitely an indoor game....the game will be shown on CBC in Canada, as part of the network's annual "Hockey Day In Canada" festivites which also includes showing three NHL games....so they're showing four live hockey games that day.

The WHL has previously played preseason games in Yellowknife, NWT before, so this will not be the most northerly WHL game ever....but it will be the most northerly regular season game for sure.