Opening night notes

Few things tonight....first a flurry of trades right before the puck dropped:

Moose Jaw sends 18 year old forward Mike Forsyth to Chilliwack for a conditional draft pick.

Medicine Hat sends 17 year old forward Trent Ouellette to Regina for a conditional 13th round pick in the 2013 bantam draft. A 13th round pick in a draft 3 years from now is about as close to "nothing" as you can get, since teams rarely draft into the 13th round in the first place. On the plus side, at least he wasn't traded for a bus.

And the biggest deal sees Moose Jaw send overage forward Thomas Frazee to their hated rivals just up the road in Regina. This is a complicated deal that involves two draft picks on each side, but the main asset coming back to the Warriors is Regina's 2012 2nd round pick. It's surprising that Moose Jaw would deal within the division like that - and with their biggest rival to boot - but I guess you gotta take the best deal when you're trying to move overagers in a crowded market.

For the Warriors, this gets them down to four overagers and with one of them, Brendan Rowinski, on the injured list for a fair while yet, they can go with the three healthy ones until Rowinski is ready to play. Thomas Heemskerk is the #1 goalie and Spencer Edwards was just named their captain, so the 3rd spot is probably between Rowinski and Dylan Hood. Likely Hood is safe until Rowinski is ready to play, then they'll have to move one of the two.

Now....to the most pressing matter of the night: the WHL website.

To everyone's great surprise, I'm sure, the &*%^#$!@ site did not work properly for the start of the season.

• at the start of the evening the right-side scoreboard was an unusable mess of out-of-place links and icons. They fixed it by the 2nd period of the early games, but this is something that never would have happened in the first place if oh, I don't know, THEY HAD TESTED THIS FEATURE EVEN ONCE, EVER.

• so, we play "guess which 'Game Summary' link to click" and when you guessed right, it took you to a lovely blank page. Again this was fixed within a couple hours but again, this is something that never would have happened in the first place if oh, I don't know, THEY HAD TESTED THIS FEATURE EVEN ONCE, EVER.

• on that lovely otherwise-blank page there were two links, one saying "View Scorer's Sheet" and one saying "Text Box Score". The Text Box Score worked great if you like old newspaper style boxscores. The View Scorers Sheet though, that gave us (and still does at this moment actually) a fatal error in a call to the member function getValue() on line 137 of actions.class.php. Perhaps they'd like us fans to debug it for them, I'm sure we have some smart people out there who'd have fixed it by the end of the first period. Again, this is something that never would have happened in the first place if oh, I don't know, THEY HAD TESTED THIS FEATURE EVEN ONCE, EVER.

The league rolled out a crappy, bug-riddled product two weeks ago and have proceeded to debug it on the fly since then. Yes, they have mostly fixed the problems; but the point is, why did this ever happen in the first place? The WHL isn't some mom and pop operation. They're selling a product and they have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of "customers" for whom this website is a key means of consuming the WHL's product. In that light, the lack of care and attention put into this site is mind-blowing.

They knew there were problems two weeks ago when they launched. Fans complained then, but it really wasn't that big a deal to most since the season hadn't started. But the league and its developers didn't take advantage of that "grace period" to get everything right - once the games started counting, they STILL didn't have everything working, and they've had a couple more weeks now to make sure it did. The league should expect more than this from their developers and the fans should damn sure expect more than this indifferent treatment from the league.

Thursday stuff

Couple things today...

First, the Giants and Oil Kings made a trade yesterday, the Oil Kings sending 19 year old forward Michael Burns to the Giants for the rights to 16 year old forward Landon Robin, who was already assigned back to AAA midget by the Giants earlier this fall.

Usually trades of 19 year olds for 16 year olds are conducted between teams that are loading up for title runs and teams that are stocking the cupboard for the future. So, it looks as though the Giants are serious about being one of the top teams in the league again this year when they're giving up a 16 year old prospect for a 19 year old forward with 10 goals to his career. The return of Craig Cunningham as an overager certainly can't hurt that cause either.

And the other noteworthy bit of news today is that the Pittsburgh Penguins have assigned overage import goaltender Alex Pechurskiy back to the Tri-City Americans. The Ams are now probably in a position where they'll have to trade one of their goaltenders, since it doesn't seem very likely that Pechurskiy and 19 year old Drew Owsley are going to want to split the playing time in net again like they did last season.

The Ams are OK on the import front since Nikita Nesterov has yet to show up, so they only have two imports even with Pechurskiy's return. But Pechurskiy does bump the number of overagers in Americans camp up to four, so somebody's going to have to go before October 15. Moving Pechurskiy solves both the goaltending and overage logjams, but he's also harder to move, as a two-spot player.

Oh, and Anaheim has assigned Emerson Etem back to Medicine Hat. Am I the only one who is a little bit surprised by this move? I thought for sure he would get a longer stay from the Ducks than this. I didn't think he would make the team at 18 but I thought he would stick around until closer to the season at least.

Red #23 explained

Scott Sepich of the Portland Oregonian has finally gotten to the bottom of what happened in the big "red #23" mess in Portland a few weeks back.

Basically, Alessio Bertaggia (#23 himself) is the son of a Swiss coach whom Portland coach/GM Mike Johnston knew, and whom was in Portland for a coaching clinic. The kid asked if he could take part in training camp, and the Hawks said yes after clearing that with the WHL. The catch is, the WHL told the Hawks not to use Bertaggia in any formal, "official" scrimmages in camp.

For whatever reasons, the Hawks did use Bertaggia in an official scrimmage and that's when all heck broke loose of course.

After hearing the explanation, it is 100% believable in my opinion, and it is highly likely that whatever punishment the WHL dished out on the team is sufficient....we don't know what the punishment was of course, but I think we can mostly all agree that this was an unfortunate case of bad judgement and not of any sinister intent here. No extremely severe punishment warranted, in my opinion anyway.

The one remaining question that lingers over the whole incident is, why didn't the Hawks just explain what happened right off the bat? To me, THAT part made the whole situation bigger than it needed to be. The whole story could have been dead and buried two weeks ago already instead of lingering around like this.

In any case, it's dead and buried for me now.

Seattle-Swift deal

Another overager is on the move to Seattle. The Birds have acquired defenceman Travis Bobbee from the Swift Current Broncos in exchange for forward Brendan Silvester (19) and defenceman Tanner Muth (17).

The deal leaves both teams at the overage limit of 3. Presumably this means that Swift Current is going to use Stepan Novotny as a two-spot player, which means bad news for one of their other two imports - forward Juraj Roznik and defenceman Richard Nedomlel - is coming before mid-October.

Wednesday notes

Few things this morning....

We're getting down to the tough cuts for most WHL teams now, and as proof of that, a couple more veterans were sent packing yesterday, this time from Kelowna. The Rockets have cut two veteran forwards, 19 year old Codey Ito and 18 year old Sean Aschim. If they can't work a trade to another WHL team, both players are likely destined for the Saskatchewan Junior A ranks.

These cuts are the toughest ones but I think any time rookies come in and push vets out of a job, that is usually a good thing for a team. Usually rookies have to be clearly better than a vet to win the vet's job, so you know your team is probably improving when you see this stuff happening.

Elsewhere, another vet has left his team and requested a trade. That is in Moose Jaw and the player is 18 year old backup goaltender Brandon Glover. Glover is presumably unhappy about the acquisition of overage goalie Thomas Heemskerk, which probably deprives him of a chance to earn the starters job in Moose Jaw this year.

I have to say though, I'm not sure where Glover is going to get a better opportunity than what he already had in Moose Jaw. Yes, he would have had to be the backup in Moose Jaw again this year. But the starter is overage and would definitely be gone next year, which means the starters job next year would have been all Glover's, as long as he performed well as backup this year of course. He could have been the starter there as a 19 year old and again as a 20 year old potentially. A good portion of Moose Jaw's core is 17 & 18 years old, which means that 2011-12 should at least in theory be an even better team than they'll have this year.

If he wants to be a starter this year, I'm kind of struggling to see a place in the league where he'd be clearly better than their current #1. Guess we'll see.

Tuesday

Few things today....

The WHL and Shaw TV released their 2010-11 TV schedule yesterday. You can see the schedule here. To break it down, the number of times each team is being shown this year:


Calgary: 6
Kelowna: 5
Saskatoon: 5
Vancouver: 5
Edmonton: 4
Brandon: 3
Chilliwack: 3
Kamloops: 3
Medicine Hat: 3
Moose Jaw: 3
Regina: 3
Swift Current: 3
Everett: 2
Kootenay: 2
Lethbridge: 2
Portland: 2
Red Deer: 2
Prince Albert: 1
Prince George: 1
Seattle: 1
Tri-City: 1

You have to give them credit, they are showing a wide variety of teams - Spokane is the only team to not be shown at all. Overall the list is about what you'd expect though, with the higher population centers (higher Shaw customer bases) at the top of the list, and smaller centers getting fewer airings.

Second note, the regular season starts on Friday and the WHL site is still not complete. #1 on the problem list, for me anyway, is that I cannot view the schedule. Three days to season kickoff and fans have no way - on the league's official website - to see who is playing who. 

The stats and standings still do not work either....I know, there are no stats or standings yet. But based on how things have gone so far, I gotta say I'm not optimistic that they're magically going to start working on Friday night. 

Many of the rosters are there now, which is nice....but I'm wondering how Kootenay is going to compete this year with only three players on their roster. Chilliwack, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat are not complete either, and many teams have an awful lot of players wearing number zero. And since the individual team websites seem to be using the same roster database, the rosters on the team sites are not complete and/or wrong as well. Come on, we're 72 hours from the season starting. This joke of a redesign has gone on long enough. Time to get this fixed now, already.

And another trade

Yet another overager on the move today now - Saskatoon has taken the first step towards relieving their glut of 20 year olds by sending forward Travis Toomey to the Seattle Thunderbirds for a 2011 4th round bantam pick.

My first thought is a 4th round pick seems a bit high considering that Toomey was probably well down the depth chart amongst Saskatoon's eight overage candidates, and the fact that Saskatoon isn't really dealing from a position of strength with so many players to move in the next four weeks. But whatever.....Toomey will bring some size and toughness and a few points to the Seattle lineup.

McKenzie column

As most of you know, former NHL coach Pat Burns is battling cancer, a battle that he acknowledged back in April he was going to lose.

This morning some media outlets (apparently spurred by some Twitter postings) reported that Burns had died. TSN's Bob McKenzie soon got a call from Burns to set the record straight, and wrote what turned into a pretty gosh darn nice tribute to Burns in his regular TSN column today. Check it out.

Guess that settles it

My questions about Jeff Bosch from the earlier post have been answered - the Warriors have dealt Bosch to the Kamloops Blazers for a 2011 6th round bantam pick.

Of course that creates more questions though. Bosch isn't going to be the backup goalie in Kamloops so either he's going to split time with incumbent Blazers starter Jon Groenheyde (which means 16 year old Troy Trombley goes back to midget), or it means Groenheyde is now on his way out of Kamloops.

Also, another WHL veteran walked the plank today too, as the Red Deer Rebels released 19 year old forward Steve Oursov. Oursov missed almost all of last season with a severe concussion and now it looks like he's not good enough to play for the Rebels as a 19 year old. I'd guess he's bound for the BCHL.

Curious trade

Interesting trade this morning, as the Everett Silvertips and Moose Jaw Warriors swap some overagers. Going to Moose Jaw is goaltender Thomas Heemskerk, and headed to Everett is defenceman Chad Suer.

Now, the Everett angle of this deal makes sense - they're going with Kent Simpson as their starting goalie this year and thus didn't need Heemskerk anymore. Getting an experienced WHL defenceman like Suer only helps make Simpson's life easier as well. So that part makes sense.

But why does Moose Jaw want Heemskerk? First, it's not even certain that he will return to the WHL from the San Jose Sharks organization. If he doesn't come back, then the Warriors have given away Suer for nothing. But even if he does return, the Warriors already have an overage goalie in Jeff Bosch, who did pretty well for them last year and is (was?) presumably their starter again this year. Obviously they won't keep two overage goalies so if they're keeping Heemskerk then that means the end of the line for Bosch in the Jaw. And the Warriors already had too many overagers (they still have six) so this move doesn't do anything to help them reduce that number.

More moves coming in Moose Jaw, that much seems certain....

Thursday moves

Couple notes this morning...

First, Vancouver has traded disgruntled 18 year old forward Brandon Scholten to the Prince George Cougars for a 2012 fifth round bantam pick. Scholten had declined to report to the Giants training camp and had asked for a trade.

Also, Regina has waived overage forward Cassidy Mappin, a move which probably brings a close to his WHL career. The Pats are now down to just one overager again.

Players are starting to trickle back from NHL rookie camps now, so look for more and more cuts to be made in the next few days.

Current roster breakdowns

Just for fun, a look at how the current training camp rosters break down by age for each team:

	16's	17's	18's	19's	20's
Brandon Wheat Kings	7	8	9	5	6
Calgary Hitmen	3	5	10	8	4
Chilliwack Bruins	6	5	9	4	4
Edmonton Oil Kings	4	9	7	5	3
Everett Silvertips	3	6	8	8	2
Kamloops Blazers	4	6	8	7	1
Kelowna Rockets	4	6	9	7	4
Kootenay Ice	6	7	8	6	4
Lethbridge Hurricanes	8	6	8	7	3
Medicine Hat Tigers	3	8	6	8	4
Moose Jaw Warriors	4	7	8	4	6
Portland Winterhawks	3	3	13	6	5
Prince Albert Raiders	2	7	6	8	3
Prince George Cougars	4	8	9	3	3
Red Deer Rebels	5	7	7	7	5
Regina Pats	3	5	12	8	3
Saskatoon Blades	6	10	5	5	8
Seattle Thunderbirds	2	7	10	6	1
Spokane Chiefs	2	9	8	8	3
Swift Current Broncos	1	9	6	7	4
Tri-City Americans	4	5	9	6	4
Vancouver Giants	3	8	9	5	2

(I left off any remaining 15 year olds as they are ineligible to play full time this season)

You can see that some teams are down to just 1 or 2 16 year olds already, which is certainly good news for the ones they have left on their rosters. There are also some teams with very unbalanced rosters - very deep in some age groups and very weak in others. Those are teams that ordinarily would bear watching for possible trades as they try to shore up weak age groups by moving players from stronger groups.

And the overage situations too....Saskatoon still has eight of them. They may lose some to the NHL yet but they are for sure one of the teams to watch in that trade department.

Monday notes

We are now just 11 days away from the start of the 2010-11 season. Time flies, doesn't it?

A few notes this morning....

If you're interested in following the progress of some WHLers and ex-WHLers at the eight-team Traverse City NHL rookie tournament, the site Red Wings Central has rosters, statistics, and standings.

I've received a few e-mails about the Great CHL Website Boondoggle, and it seems that perhaps the WHL and its teams are not very much to blame for the situation. It sounds like this is all being driven by Forces From Out East, and the WHL and its teams don't have much blame in the matter, except of course for the fact that they agreed to this CHL-wide project in the first place. I can't imagine that they had no choice in THAT decision.

Sounds like the website design is/was being done by a group in Ontario. Regardless of where they are, they are not competent for this job. If I did this kind of crap at MY job, I could probably start looking for work tomorrow.

Speaking of website redesigns, Gregg Drinnan has unveiled a spiffy new look for his blog today - check it out. Perhaps the WHL could hire Gregg to fix their problems.

And lastly, a final comment on the Red #23 situation in Portland. By now everyone has probably heard that it turns out that the mysterious "Red #23" in Portland's camp was actually a 17 year old Swiss player who Portland had no right to have in their camp. The WHL has investigated and has laid down a punishment on the Winterhawks, although the details of that punishment will be kept under wraps for some reason.

Let me say this though: As a fan of the WHL, I'm very disappointed in the Portland organization, and I am certain that I am not alone in that sentiment. Not just the fact that they broke the rules in the first place, but the attempts to cover it up afterwards instead of just owning up to a mistake. Any kind of perception of the league as a place of rule-bending and coverups and secrecy hurts EVERYONE in the league. It comes back to the same theme over and over again: professionalism. If you want to be perceived as professional, act like it. If you want to act bush league, don't be surprised when some people start to regard you that way.

Portland's franchise just came out of a forgettable era of bushleague-ism under its previous owners. I think everyone in the league saw the new start as a chance to erase that stigma, and last season's on-ice turnaround was a good step in that direction. Which is why it is so disappointing to see the new regime pulling this kind of shady crap....lets hope this is the last we have to see of this kind of thing.

New site issues

So....it's 72 hours after the go-live time for the WHL/CHL websites and I see they still don't have everything working properly. Many of the links on the WHL site still lead nowhere or (worse) display errors to users. And for some reason the Calgary Hitmen website has reverted to its old version.

I work in IT....I'm quite familiar with the development, testing, and rollout process. And from what I can see, it seems very clear to me that there was a totally inadequate level of testing done on this project before it was rolled out. 

I think all of us who do this for a living would agree that sometimes you still end up with some bugs even when things are tested properly, and for that reason I didn't want to criticize them right off the bat on Thursday morning. But, that was three days ago; now the season starts in less than two weeks and visitors to the WHL site are still unable to view stats, standings, rosters, or even the flippin' schedule. That is completely unacceptable IMO. So it didn't work when you rolled it out. Fine. So fix it. If you can't fix it in 72 hours I'd have to say you (A) didn't test this anywhere close to enough and maybe even not at all, or (B) aren't trying very damn hard. Half the WHL site hasn't worked since the get-go and NONE of it has been fixed.

Oh - and for the most part, the 22 team sites have all been very good with the switchover. A few bugs, but generally all good. It's only the main WHL site that has the problems. 

Thursday notes

Few notes this morning....

First, the new "CHL Network" of websites was launched last night. New sites are up for all 60 CHL teams, plus the WHL, OHL, QMJHL, and CHL sites as well.

It's 8 am MDT here and half the links on the WHL site's navigation bar do not direct the user anywhere, and asking for the stats or standings gives me a nice code dump:

All 20 team sites seem to be working though, although I did not investigate any of them beyond checking whether a site came up and whether it matched the CHL's template....

And a couple injury notes from yesterday, regarding a couple of the WHL's bigger stars:

Brandon forward Brayden Schenn apparently suffered a knee injury of some sort Tuesday at Brandon's training camp. It is serious enough that the Los Angeles Kings are flying Schenn in to have the Kings' doctors take a look at him. If he's going to miss any significant amount of time, that could put an end to any chance of him sticking with the Kings this season and will likely land him back in the WHL for sure. Without the injury you'd have to figure he has a decent shot at playing in the NHL this year.

And Kelowna defenceman Tyson Barrie has suffered a partially torn hamstring muscle, will be out around six weeks and will definitely have to miss the Colorado Avalanche rookie camp. Depending on how quickly the injury heals, he may be able to attend their main training camp as well but you have to figure this has dealt a blow to any chance he had of making the Avalanche this year as a 19 year old. That probably wasn't a huge chance to begin with but with him being out for a while now, he's not going to be in peak condition even if he is able to make the main camp.

Tuesday notes

Few things this morning...

Interesting trade yesterday as the Saskatoon Blades shipped 18 year old forward Charles Inglis to the Prince George Cougars for a 2011 2nd round bantam pick. Inglis was the 4th overall pick in the 2007 draft but hasn't quite developed into the player the Blades hoped he would be. Coupled with some off-ice issues that finally got him sent home from Blades camp a few days earlier, it looks like he ran Blades G.M. Lorne Molleken out of patience.

This is probably one of those deals where there will be a clear winner and loser apparent in time. Either Inglis is going to clean up his act with a fresh start and become the player he could be (in which case a 2nd round pick for him looks pretty good), or he's going to continue down his current path and make this a trade the Cougars will wish they hadn't made. If P.G. has another poor year this year, that 2nd round pick is going to be awfully close to a first rounder in the draft order.

Still with Prince George, veteran defenceman Kurt Torbohm elected to leave the team yesterday. Torbohm supposedly is undecided on whether to continue his hockey career; in either case his decision drops the Cougars down to the required three overagers, meaning the three that remain are probably safe at this point.

Another veteran was cut yesterday, Seattle releasing 18 year old forward Brennan Tutt. Tutt barely played as a rookie last year before suffering a serious elbow injury that required surgery and ended his season. Not many veterans cut from WHL camps so far this season but as we get closer to the season starting and the tough decisions have to be made, there will be more....

Lastly, the new-look WHL websites are supposed to be unveiled tomorrow. As I understand it, this is going to be a CHL-wide thing, with all team sites from the WHL, OHL, and QMJHL following a common template for a similar look and feel.

Hitmen intrasquad notes

Hitmen intrasquad game went last night as team "White" beat team "Black" 10-7. I was going to type out my own version of the summary (which was likely incorrect anyway) but the Hitmen website has saved me the trouble. Read it here.

Only stat not mentioned in the website summary is that there was one fight, veterans Cody Sylvester and Justin Kirsch squaring off in the 2nd period. Sylvester landed the only punch, a solid right to the side of Kirsch's face that sent Kirsch to his knees and ended the fight. Kind of a needless fight really since neither of those guys is battling for a spot on the team.


Some thoughts on what I saw....

Goaltending:

The backup battle is perhaps getting a little clearer. 16 year old Brodie Burdeny had a game he'd probably rather forget (6 goals on 20 shots in 30 minutes), while 18 year old Matt Hrynkiw played behind the same team and gave up just 1 goal on 14 shots in 30 minutes. I wasn't there on Sunday but I still haven't seen Burdeny have a good game, whereas Hrynkiw has been very good every time I've seen him.

Mack Shields struggled a bit but he's also only 15 and probably facing shooters of this calibre for the first time at this camp. I do like Shields' size though, he's a really big kid who fills the net. If you use your imagination a little (yesterday, a lot) you can picture some physical resemblance to Martin Jones as a 15 year old.

19 year olds Michael Snider and Juraj Holly did not play in the intrasquad. Exhibition games will decide more but I think it's a 3-way battle for two spots, between Snider, Holly, and Hrynkiw.

Defence:

Carter Berg is a lock. This kid can play, a year in Jr A did him well after struggling as a 16 year old with Chilliwack. And I thought Alex Roach looked very good again too, he should be on the team as well. I still don't see much in Justin Slobozian....every time I noticed him it was because he was out of position or fighting the puck. Seems like some other watchers liked him better though. I didn't see much of Keaton Lubin but what I did, he sure does look like a polished player....good pick for a 3rd rounder for sure. Kyle Schmidt continues to be a case of not-quite-enough IMO....I wonder if Schmidt's window of opportunity is closing quickly. I actually kind of liked Eric Baldwin a little bit too but maybe not enough to get a spot on the team.

Right now I'm guesstimating that Berg, Roach, and Lubin make the team in addition to the 5 returning vets.

Forwards:

18 year old Trevor Cheek was probably the best rookie prospect in the game. He has wheels and can really shoot the puck....he's also a signed player so he's a lock for the team. 18 year old John Lawrence should stick with the team for good this time after making it through half a season last year. Corey Scott looked decent but he's also 19 and to make the team at that age he has to be able to play in the top 9 forwards....is he able to do that? I'm not so sure. I also liked 18 year old Brandon Brossoit, he has had some moments too....so did 18 year old Justin Faux. Neil Landry was not as noticeable this time as I thought he was on Saturday. Only problem here is that in a rebuilding year like Calgary is in, you don't want to take too many of these older rookies, you need to give your kids some spots too. So if Cheek and Lawrence are on the team, is there any room left for Scott/Brossoit/Faux/Landry? Maybe one of them?

A trio of the 17 year old prospects - Hartley, Skilliter, and Santini - all were....OK. Maybe not quite enough, and they look like they've been passed by some of the 16 year olds in their development. Probably one of those guys makes the team though. I liked Skilliter the best of the bunch. Joel Schreyer was not bad either, and I liked Presley Kirkness as well, he was one of the few guys who was consistently physical. Probably not enough from either of them to beat out listed prospects though.

For the 16 year olds, Robert Trzonkowski and Chase Clayton had good games and I think they are both locks. I also liked Luke Gordon and Calder Brooks; all four of those 16 year olds were probably better than Hartley/Skilliter/Santini. I don't see them keeping more than 3 or 4 16 year olds total though so with Lubin, Clayton, and Trzonkowski being the leaders in that area, perhaps another year of midget or Jr A will do Gordon and Brooks well.

So, 7 open spots. I've got Cheek, Lawrence, Trzonkowski, and Clayton for sure. Probably one or two of the 18/19 year olds, and one or two of the three 17 year olds, and that's 7.

Red #23 is...

....15 year old Mike Nolan. Well, that's who it is at the Hitmen's camp, anyway. :)

I spent much of today at the first day of the Hitmen's training camp. Roster has been added to the rosters post, for anyone interested. A few notes....

- Ian Schultz and Michael Stone are there and scrimmaged although obviously they'll be leaving soon and not coming back.

- Rigby Burgart and Misha Fisenko did not report, so they're out of the overage picture. Burgart was probably never in that picture (which is probably why he didn't bother coming to camp) but Fisenko would have been a nice option as a two-spotter, seeing as how they only have one import in camp. The other import options, Erik Haula and Dmitri Jaskin, are not there either....no surprises there though.

- Kyle Aschim is there but is not expected to be ready to play until mid-October due to a shoulder injury. So, the Hitmen will be able to keep him around and not count him amongst their overagers until he's ready to play....then they'll have two weeks to settle on three.

- top '94 defencemen prospect Keaton Lubin is also there but also hurt. No idea about his status.

- the two Kalalshnikov brothers on the roster are not imports, despite their Russian names. The family moved to Canada last year, so they count as regular North American players.

- some older free agent players with previous WHL experience are trying out: defenceman Justin Slobozian played 46 games for the Regina Pats over the last three years; forward Brandon Brossoit played a couple games for Lethbridge in 08-09; forward Corey Scott played 78 games for Moose Jaw the last two years; forward Neil Landry has previously been the property of the Kamloops Blazers, and forward Justin Faux was the property of the Prince George Cougars for a couple years. Neither Landry nor Faux have ever played a WHL game though, I don't think.

I am surprised that there are not more older "2nd chance" type players here though. You would think this would be a dream opportunity for 18/19 year olds who were let go from other WHL teams in the past - a quality organization like the Hitmen, with plenty of openings. But perhaps the Hitmen opted not to flood their camp with those kind of players either, in order to give their youngsters a chance.

I saw the first three of the four games today....overall I would have to say that the younger players mostly disappointed me. I did not see a single 15 or 16 year old player who really stood out from the pack. Nobody who made me say, "wow, there's a future WHL star right there". In the past there has always been one or two of those....but I won't worry about it, I'm sure there are some future stars there. They just didn't jump out at us today.

The returning veteran Hitmen players were all good, especially Foucault, Beach, Fiddler, and Schultz up front, and Stone, Wilson, and Mackenzie on the back end. But this is to be expected, isn't it. It's nice to see those players dominating because it gives you a standard to compare the other players to....nobody was close to their standards.

I did like Brossoit, he was the best of the older tryout players. Faux was not bad either, and Landry had a few good moments. Scott didn't do anything and I thought Slobozian looked unmotivated. He got let go from Red Deer's camp earlier this week amid questions about his conditioning, so perhaps it wasn't a lack of motivation as much as a lack of fresh legs.

The goaltending battle....well, Snider and Holly are the best two there, that's for sure. Matt Hrynkiw did look good in the one game I saw him though. Burdeny got lit up bad in his game.

Need to see more of Hrynkiw but right now, I wouldn't rule out the Hitmen going with the two 19 year old goalies.

Thursday thoughts

All team training camps are underway as of today....few things to mention there:

• the goalie battle is over in Kamloops, at least for now. With Taran Kozun leaving camp of his own choice yesterday, the Blazers are down to incumbent Jon Groenheyde and 16 year old Troy Trombley as their goaltenders in camp. 

• the goalie battle is also mostly over in Red Deer, where yesterday's cuts leave the team with only overage incumbents Darcy Kuemper and Kraymer Barnstable, and 16 year old Bolton Pouliot. Since the Rebels are not going to be carrying two overage goalies this year, it looks like Pouliot has won the backup job behind whichever of the overagers the team keeps.

• Swift Current already got down to just two goalies, incumbent Mark Friesen and 17 year old Austin Smith. And the thinking in Prince Albert seems to be that 16 year old Brendan Fiebelkorn is only in camp for the experience, which means that Jamie Tucker and rookie 17 year old Eric Williams are going to be the netminding battery there.

I've updated most of the team rosters (below) recently, so they should mostly be fairly accurate. Still no rosters for Chilliwack, Kelowna, or Portland. None for Brandon, Calgary, Kootenay, or Lethbridge either but they all just started their rookie camps so we'll cut them some slack yet.

Going off a bit here now....one thing that keeps rattling around in my brain is the great "Red #23" mystery from Portland's camp. For those who don't know what that was, it seems there was a player in their camp earlier this week who wasn't listed on the roster sheets they provided to fans. He put on quite a show and fans started wondering if it was the elusive Rocco Grimaldi, reporting to the Hawks. The team responded by saying No, it wasn't Grimaldi, just a player who was accidentally left off the roster sheet. Fair enough.

But, I don't think the question has been answered yet: who IS the player then? Everyone else in Portland's camp had their names made public on the sheets, so what's the issue with identifying this player? Was his name Bob Bell? Or Conor McRae?

We've beaten this horse many times but the issue isn't going away.....the WHL should conduct business professionally, in the open. This hush-hush secrecy that a few (emphasis on few) teams throw over their camps benefits no one. I don't believe for a minute that in this day and age any of these teams are doing anything shady but why would you not want to avoid at all costs even the slightest appearance that you are?

There are teams in this league - and very successful ones, I might add - who email me (and I'm a nobody, not even an actual media person!) rosters and updates directly, without even being asked. And then there's some who guard the identities of the players in their camps the way the identities of the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices are guarded. Why the polar opposite approaches to things?

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.