2010-11 road warriors

With the release of the official 2010-11 WHL schedule yesterday, it's time again to do something I've done here on the blog for the last couple years, and that's figure out how much travelling each team in the league does.


I've taken each team's schedule and calculated the distance they must travel from one game to the next, whether that is to the next city on a road trip, or whether it's going back home for a home game, or back home for a few days before heading out to the next road game, etc, etc. 

The chart below shows each team's estimated travel for 2010-11 in both kilometers and miles. Also included are the increase/decrease - in kilometers - from their 2009-10 travel, as well as where they ranked on travel in 2009-10 and 2008-09. 

		km	miles	change (km)	09-10 rank	08-09 rank
1.	Prince George	29816	18531	3288	3	3
2.	Brandon	28548	17743	-3504	1	1
3.	Kootenay	28124	17479	1810	4	2
4.	Edmonton	26931	16738	-695	2	4
5.	Spokane	26856	16691	1026	5	6
6.	Prince Albert	26785	16647	958	6	8
7.	Swift Current	25757	16008	1577	9	13
8.	Tri-City	25602	15912	2069	11	12
9.	Portland	25451	15818	-297	7	9
10.	Kamloops	25393	15782	2574	14	7
11.	Lethbridge	24957	15511	2132	13	11
12.	Medicine Hat	24825	15429	2344	16	20
13.	Red Deer	24465	15205	1744	15	5
14.	Saskatoon	24441	15190	1405	12	17
15.	Regina	24111	14985	4891	22	22
16.	Vancouver	23096	14354	1600	19	19
17.	Calgary	22941	14258	-1115	10	16
18.	Everett	22447	13951	1843	20	18
19.	Moose Jaw	22425	13937	683	18	14
20.	Kelowna	22346	13888	-2755	8	10
21.	Seattle	21913	13619	2086	21	21
22.	Chilliwack	19231	11952	-2526	17	15

As you can see, the four most-travelled teams have not changed in the last three years - it is always Brandon, Edmonton, Kootenay, and Prince George in some combination. Safe to say that this is because those are the teams most isolated from their closest competition. Edmonton being on that list always surprises me because they are actually fairly close geographically to a couple of their divisional rivals....but I guess overall they are far enough from enough teams to add up to a big mileage total.


On the other hand, Chilliwack has it the cushiest - they travel 2700 km less than their nearest competition at the bottom of the list. I couldn't believe that disparity when I saw the numbers the first time, so I recalculated Chilliwack to make sure it is right. It is.


To put things in another perspective there, Chilliwack travels 10,600 km less this season than Prince George does. Assuming the buses average 100 km/h on the road, that is 106 hours less travel time for the Bruins than for their divisional opponent up north. That's almost 4.5 complete days less on the bus.

Go west, young men

Yesterday saw a goaltender head from Saskatchewan to B.C.; today it's two defencemen in a pair of trades between East and B.C. division teams.

The first deal is between Prince Albert and Kelowna, and sees overage defenceman Brendan Wall heading to the Rockets for a 2011 7th round bantam pick.

The second deal is a swap of 19 year old defencemen between Moose Jaw and Kelowna and sees Kevin Smith heading to the Rockets, while Collin Bowman goes to the Warriors in return.

Broncos overage move

Swift Current resolved their goaltending issue today, shipping overage goaltender Morgan Clark to Prince George for a 2011 7th round bantam pick.

Clark was in competition with fellow overager Mark Friesen for the goaltending job in Speedy Creek. The Broncos obviously weren't going to keep two overagers in net, so now the job is Friesen's and they can work in a rookie goalie like Austin Smith as the backup....or Joni Ortio if he does come over from Finland. Although Ortio wouldn't come over to be the backup, I'm sure.

For the Cougars, Clark now gives them competition with 19 year old Hudson Stremmel for the #1 job there. Perhaps they keep both those guys as their tandem, or perhaps the loser of the #1 battle gets shipped out in favour of a younger goalie as backup....but that's what camp is for after all...

UPDATE: the Cougars' press release about the trade clarifies their situation - Stremmel has decided not to return to the WHL next season and will instead remain home in Reno, NV, to pursue his education. So, I guess Clark is the starter in P.G. now, with a rookie backup to be decided in camp....

A 2nd outdoor game?

The WHL's #1 reporter, Gregg Drinnan, has unearthed the fact that the WHL is actually planning TWO outdoor games this season. The second game is not finalized yet and as such may not happen, but it certainly sounds like they are pretty far along in the planning for it anyway.

So, the Calgary-Regina game may not be the only one.....in fact, it may not even be the first one, depending on when the "second" game gets scheduled in.

Gregg threw out Regina, Edmonton, Vancouver, Portland, and Kamloops as possible locations. Maybe it's just me but Vancouver and Portland can't be serious candidates due to the mild winter weather there. Vancouver is one of the warmest cities in Canada in winter and (according to Environment Canada) on average has only five days a year with temperatures below freezing. Portland is even further south and also has daily average lows of above freezing. So while it is possible that these cities could have adequately cold weather to support an outdoor rink on game day, it's pretty risky as more likely you are looking at having temperatures of well above freezing. It definitely could not be done without an ice plant to keep the ice frozen and once you do that you might as well put a roof on it....it's not really a "real" outdoor game when you're using artificially frozen ice, is it?

And yes, I know the NHL installs an ice plant for all their outdoor games and so the game in Calgary will have one....doesn't change the fact that they don't need to use that plant to keep the ice frozen if the weather is already doing that for them.

Regina and Edmonton make sense as they are known for their cold weather in the winter - every city in the Eastern conference is fine for those reasons actually. Kamloops also tends to have winter temperatures slightly below freezing, so it'll probably work there too. Wherever it ends up, I just hope they stick to putting it in places with actual winter weather.....lets not make the spectacle any goofier than it already is. Remember the NHL played an exhibition game outside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas once too....is that what we want to see again?

Outdoor game announced

The WHL and the Calgary Hitmen made official today what many of us have known/suspected for a while: the WHL will play its first outdoor game this coming season, on February 21 at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. The Regina Pats will provide the Hitmen's opposition for the afternoon game.

The NHL will be holding an outdoor game there the previous day, between the Calgary Flames and Montreal Canadiens, so the WHL will not have to go through the expense of setting up a rink in the football stadium - the NHL will take care of that and the WHL will simply use it the next day before it is torn down.

Personally, I think the outdoor game concept is getting a little overused already but it's still fun to see the WHL get involved. I'm sure many of the players in the league played on frozen ponds or outdoor community rinks when they were growing up so there's a connection there. But perhaps the outdoor game idea can be put to bed in the near future....it's not going to be interesting that much longer.

Now, we hope for a good -30C prairie winter day for the NHL game, followed by a nice Calgary chinook to warm things up to a pleasant -5 or so, or even 0 for the WHL game the next day.....

One other bit of WHL news to pass along, this one from the Tri-City Americans. Defenceman Eric Mestery has decided to retire from hockey rather than play next season as an overager. Mestery's decision will reduce the players competing for overage spots on the Americans down to probably four.

Team Ontario picked

Hockey Canada yesterday named the 22 players that will represent Canada at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial U-18 tournament in the Czech Republic later this month.

To the surprise of nobody who follows the WHL, the team that a famous person once dubbed "Team Ontario" cut 7 of the 11 WHLers trying out, leaving just four western boys on the team - defencemen Myles Bell (Regina Pats), Ryan Murray (Everett Silvertips) and Duncan Siemens (Saskatoon Blades), and forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Red Deer Rebels).

The head coach is from the OHL. Even better, there are THREE players on the team from the OHL team he coaches. He's got almost as many of his own players on that team as he does from the entire WHL. That better be one hell of an OHL team he has there. They finished 2nd last overall in the OHL last year so I doubt it.

Four of the WHL cuts - forwards Michael St. Croix, Ty Rattie, Adam Lowry, and Colin Smith - had better seasons points-wise last year than all but two of the nine OHL forwards who did make the team. Heck, they even took a forward who played Jr A in Ontario last year ahead of any of those WHL guys. St. Croix lead his WHL team in scoring last season but apparently he's not better than a kid who played Jr A.

Team Ontario, indeed.

Gopher to Everett?

And a third bit of news today, this one a link cobbled from the Pipeline Show's blog (link over there on the right). The University of Minnesota announced today that '91 forward Josh Birkholz has left the program. Birkholz, a 2009 3rd round pick of the NHL's Florida Panthers, was about to be suspended by the school for unspecified rules violations, and apparently has opted to leave school instead.

His WHL rights are held by the Everett Silvertips, so we should probably expect him to land there, in the absence of him signing of an NHL contract with the Panthers anytime soon.

The Gophers are also likely losing defenceman Nick Leddy, who is apparently on the verge of signing with the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks. Leddy's WHL rights are owned by the Tri-City Americans, so his situation might also bear watching from a WHL fan perspective. From all accounts out of Chicago though the Hawks think Leddy is very close to being NHL ready so perhaps he ends up in the AHL instead of the WHL, if he doesn't make the Chicago roster. We'll see.

BTW, this is the 1000th post on this blog.....personally I'm kind of surprised to have made it this long without losing interest. I still enjoy blabbing about the WHL though....

Ice coach named

And the new head coach of the Kootenay Ice is......

....Kris Knoblauch.

Kloblauch is a former Ice player (96-99), who has been an assistant coach with the team for the last three years.

Update: the hiring of Knoblauch represents a 180 degree shift in the team's position since May, when they opined in print that he was not ready to be a head coach yet. I'm guessing his readiness to be a head coach increased every time one of the other top candidates accepted a job elsewhere?

Another trade

2nd WHL trade in as many days today, and this is no small deal either.

Prince Albert sends 18 year old forward Ryan Harrison to Medicine Hat in exchange for 17 year old forward Todd Fiddler, 18 year old defenceman Austin Bourhis, and a 2012 4th round bantam pick.

Immediate big winner of this deal, at least on paper, is Medicine Hat because they get the only current WHLer out of the trade, and Harrison is a guy who should be a 25+ goal, 80+ point player for the next 2 or 3 seasons.

Prince Albert is gambling on some prospects, but Fiddler is a definite blue-chip guy, having won the Saskatchewan AAA midget league scoring title last year with 93 points in 40 games as a 16 year old. Bourhis played Jr A last year in Yorkton as a 17 year old, putting up 21 points and 139 PIM in 56 games there. Both Fiddler and Bourhis played one game each for the Tigers last season as well.

So, P.A. could win this deal long-term if Fiddler and Bourhis (and/or the draft pick too) all become impact WHLers. For now though, the Tigers got the only sure thing in the deal.

Ferraro on the move

The Rebels have resolved their Landon Ferraro problem today: they have traded him to Everett.

The deal is the 19 year old Ferraro and a conditional 2012 5th round bantam pick to the Silvertips, for 19 year old forward Byron Froese and a 2012 3rd round bantam pick. (I'm guessing the Silvertips get the 2012 5th rounder if Froese plays for Red Deer as an overager in 2011-12.)

It's not a bad deal for Red Deer - Froese actually outscored Ferraro in both of the last two seasons, although Ferraro played slightly fewer games both years and probably would have outpointed Froese both years had he stayed healthy. So the Rebels get rid of a guy who didn't want to be there, pick up another 19 year old forward who is reasonably close in point production, and get a 3rd round pick to make up the difference.

For their part, Everett will no doubt be looking to see Ferraro take advantage of a fresh start by becoming the 50 goal man he likely has the ability to be....

Updated: Most successful franchises

Last summer I did a post about who were the most successful WHL franchises over the last five years. I got a request last week to update that with the past year's results, and here we are.

As with last year, I am defining "success" by the number of playoff series a team has won; I think that's a fairly reasonable barometer to use since a team that finishes first overall in the regular season but bombs out in the first round of the playoffs did not have a "successful" year by anyone's standards, while a team that just squeaked into the playoffs in 8th spot but won the title certainly did have a successful year.

So, here's how everyone has done in the last five years, ordered by playoff series wins:

	09-10	08-09	07-08	06-07	05-06	Total	Missed	Finals	WHL Champs	Mem. Cup
Vancouver	2	2	1	3	4	12	0	2	1	1
Calgary	4	3	2	2	1	12	0	2	1	0
Medicine Hat	1	1	0	4	2	8	0	1	1	0
Kelowna	1	4	0	--	1	6	1	1	1	0
Tri-City	3	1	2	0	0	6	0	1	0	0
Spokane	0	1	4	0	--	5	1	1	1	1
Brandon	2	2	0	1	0	5	0	0	0	0
Lethbridge	--	1	3	--	0	4	2	1	0	0
Moose Jaw	0	--	0	--	3	3	2	1	0	0
Everett	0	0	0	1	2	3	0	0	0	0
Seattle	--	0	1	1	0	2	1	0	0	0
Prince George	--	0	--	2	0	2	2	0	0	0
Saskatoon	1	0	--	--	1	2	2	0	0	0
Portland	1	--	--	--	1	2	3	0	0	0
Kootenay	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
Swift Current	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
Regina	--	--	0	1	0	1	2	0	0	0
Chilliwack	0	--	0	0	n/a	0	1	0	0	0
Kamloops	0	0	0	0	--	0	1	0	0	0
Edmonton	--	0	--	n/a	n/a	0	2	0	0	0
Red Deer	0	--	--	0	--	0	3	0	0	0
Prince Albert	--	--	--	0	--	0	4	0	0	0

Clear gap at the top, with Vancouver and Calgary having 12 series wins apiece, and then a drop-off down to the next team with 8. 

At the bottom, there's five teams who haven't won a series at all in the last five years. We can probably cut Chilliwack and Edmonton a little bit of slack since they haven't even been in the league for all of those years. But, Kamloops, Red Deer, and Prince Albert have....and Prince Albert has even missed the playoffs for four of those five years.

Tuesday notes

Two more bits of news from the WHL this morning....

Biggest story is that Moose Jaw Warriors G.M. Jeff Truitt resigned this morning in order to take a job with the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL. The Warriors still have a head coach - Dave Hunchak - but will need to hire a new G.M. now.

By my count, there are the following head coach/G.M. openings around the league:

Kootenay: coach
Medicine Hat: coach (expected to be Shaun Clouston)

Medicine Hat: G.M.

Moose Jaw: G.M.

Medicine Hat has a press conference in about an hour's time in which they will (speculation) announce Willie Desjardins is leaving and that Clouston is the new coach. They may also name a new G.M.....guess we'll have to wait and see.

The other bit of news is that overager Dan Iwanski has told the Everett Silvertips that he will not return to the WHL next year and will instead pursue his post-secondary education. Iwanski's departure drops the Silvertips down to five overage candidates, two of whom - Radko Gudas and Thomas Heemskerk - are expected to play pro. So, the 'Tips may be down to just three O/As now....which means no cuts from that group.

One more note

One bit of WHL news I forgot to include in this morning's post....

It looks like Landon Ferraro and the Red Deer Rebels are going to part ways before the fall, if Ferraro has anything to say about it. I think we all knew there were problems there when he was made a healthy scratch for the Rebels' last playoff game back in March but Ferraro made some comments to the Detroit Free Press over the weekend that spell out his unhappiness with the Rebels and coach Jesse Wallin.

Could be an interesting situation to watch.....if he is healthy, Ferraro is possibly a 50 goal man next year on a good team. Red Deer, meanwhile, is poised to take a step forward next season and move into the ranks of the league's top teams; so, they're probably not really wanting to move Ferraro at all, and if they do move him they probably don't want prospects and picks for him. More likely they'd want similar established players who can help them next season the way Ferraro would.

Ferraro is a one-year player, so whoever trades for him will probably be a team that fancies itself a contender next year. Who out there might be interested?

And another thing to think about....the 1991 forward group is not as deep as the 1990 group was, so the value of a good 1991 forward is probably higher than the prices we saw being paid for 19 year olds last year. Given that, Ferraro could be pretty expensive to acquire....

Monday notes

Couple things this morning, both poached from Gregg Drinnan's far-superior blog. Seriously, if you read both of our blogs and you ever read my blog before reading his, you're doing it backwards.

First, the Edmonton Oilers have loaned Finnish winger Toni Rajala to the Finnish club Ilves Tampere for the 2010-11 season. Rajala played for the Brandon Wheat Kings last year but since he was not drafted from the WHL there is no requirement that he remain in the WHL until he's 20 like there is for players who were drafted from this league. So the Oilers could send him wherever they liked (he signed a contract with the Oilers last summer) and next season that'll be the Finnish mens league. I would imagine this is due in no small part to Rajala needing to complete a compulsory year of service in the Finnish military, something he can apparently do while still playing hockey over there. If the Oilers envision Rajala having a chance at playing in the NHL in 2011-12, they'd surely want that military commitment over with by then. So, it makes sense on all levels really.

This is another blow to the rebuilding Wheat Kings though. They just passed on their 2nd import pick two weeks ago in order to keep Rajala on the roster, meaning they now will only have one import next year.Would have been nice if the Oilers had tipped Kelly McCrimmon off about their plans two weeks ago, eh?

Brandon loses Rajala's offence, which they could have used next year as they lose 7, maybe 8 of their top 10 scorers from last season, and they also lose a guy who would have had some good trade value to a contender, a move that could have expedited Brandon's rebuild.

The other bit of news? Even more significant - as it appears that Medicine Hat Tigers are going to lose their coach and G.M., as Willie Desjardins appears to be finally taking the leap to the NHL, with a new job in the Dallas Stars organization. The replacement at coach will be current assistant coach Shaun Clouston, who has been a head coach in the WHL before in Tri-City. No word on who will take over as general manager though.

Anyone who follows the Tigers knows just how significant Willie Desjardins has been to that team. When he took over as coach in 2002-03, the Tigers had missed the playoffs for five straight years (think about how hard you have to work at being bad in order to accomplish that in a league where only a few teams miss the playoffs every year) and been last overall a couple times in that span. Since he arrived they have made the playoffs every year, been above .500 the last seven seasons, and won two WHL titles, in 2004 and 2007. Talk about your night to day transformations.

It's impossible for the Tigers to replace a guy like that. Desjardins was one of the early people in the league to recognize the way hockey was trending away from emphasizing size and more towards speed and skill. His Tigers teams were quick and they could score. Now, speed is something you see every team in every league, including the NHL, putting a premium on.

Very big shoes for Clouston (and the new G.M.) to fill there.

Wednesday notes

Just a couple quick things this morning....

First, a few more players confirmed to have signed WHL contracts recently....I've updated that list of committed prospects and added it to the team-by-team links list on the right side there. Additions/corrections (ideally with some sort of proof?) are always welcome....

Second, a very good issue raised the other day when the IIHF (who really shouldn't be stating opinions on these matters, but that's another topic) suggested that import players do not benefit from playing in the CHL (link borrowed from Gregg Drinnan).

Now, I could write an essay about how flawed the IIHF's comments are, but fortunately I will not have to, because Brock Otten of the website School Your Pool already did it for me. If you look at the actual numbers, you'll see that there's not that significant of a different between the NHL success rate of Europeans who stay in Europe versus those who come to the CHL. Of course the players who stay in Europe have a slightly better success rate in the NHL - but that's likely because many of the top European prospects do not come to the CHL! They are the players most likely to have NHL success regardless of where they develop. The Backstroms and Ovechkins aren't lining up to play in the CHL; they stay in Europe because they are getting good opportunities there, get drafted from Europe, and that skews the homegrown numbers upward a few ticks. I bet if you looked at the success rate of European players drafted in the 3rd round or later of the NHL draft, and compared where they played, you wouldn't see much difference at all. It's those 2nd-tier prospects who are most likely to come to the CHL because they feel they're not getting the best opportunities to develop at home.

The IIHF seized upon the notion that Europeans in the CHL aren't having very much success in the NHL and drew the conclusion that playing in the CHL hurts them. Maybe they should have checked how the players who stay in Europe do first....oops.

And lastly....I see ESPN is giving up an hour of their prime-time schedule tomorrow night so NBA star Lebron James can announce which team he will sign with as a free agent. He'll have to talk real slow to make that announcement last an hour. Such excitement! May I suggest, though, that the ratings from that show will be nothing compared to the ratings ESPN will get when they give the Kootenay Ice an hour of prime-time to announce their new coach.....