CANTLON’S CORNER: HOCKEY OFF-SEASON NEWS AND NOTES VOLUME 16 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The intensity and flow of hockey news are increasing with each passing day, especially since the NHL is plotting out their Phase III and Phase IV return to play plans and a date for the start of the playoffs is also in the news.

Cantlon’s Corner has learned from several collegiate sources that the Ivy League, which includes both Yale University in New Haven, and Quinnipiac University in Hamden, might be reaching a monumental decision regarding athletics and their response to the COVID-19 pandemic for the 2020-21 season. It will be announced by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

The current discussion under serious consideration is a proposal that would see the fall semester consist of just freshmen, juniors, and seniors only to be allowed on campus with sophomores excluded. In the second semester, Freshmen will be excluded from campus.

Should this come to pass, it would effectively end all sports for the 2020-21 season. It’s expected to be announced as a conference-wide policy.

All sports teams, men’s, and women’s would be adversely affected in one way or another and the decision would have national repercussions for all other college sports conferences.

Every Division I conference will be backpedaling on how to handle COVID-19, starting with the big moneymaker, college football.

It’s one thing for a Division III school like Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine to start spots on January 1st, but the ramifications for both the programs and university staff personnel will be immense.

For ECACHL hockey. it will likely lead to major transfers by under-classmen for colleges that will play Division I hockey starting in the fall.

Players, if eligible, could be returning to US junior hockey in the USHL or NAHL or head north to play Canadian Junior A hockey (Canadian citizens only) in order to retain their US collegiate eligibility under present NCAA rules, unless a waiver of some sort is granted by the NCAA to treat the situation like a transfer year.

Players also might elect to go to the Canadian major junior route if they have a Canadian passport as the border still remains closed to non-Canadian residents.

Players could drop out of school altogether and take a gap year, waiting until the dust settles and hopefully when life returns to normal in the fall of 2021.

Then some players, like Cornell’s Morgan Barron whom the New York Rangers drafted in the sixth round (174th overall) in 2017, have their NHL team working on them to leave school early. In Morgan’s case, the Rangers have been in discussions with him for over a year. Barron wants to get his Cornell degree switched his major last year.

Barron may have to turn pro as his only alternative and begin to play in the AHL in Hartford for the 2020-21 season… whenever that may happen.

At age 21, with a December 2nd birthday, he is no longer junior hockey eligible. His younger brother, Justin, 18, plays in their hometown for the Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL). He played 34 games last year before developing a blood clot that ended his season prematurely and was being scouted as well by New York.

The AHL season is likely to start in late-November or by January 1st according to several pro hockey sources.

This is all under review. There are no guarantees, and the situation is very fluid where views and changes come day-to-day.

The Ivy League schools were ahead of the curve in the spring as they were the first to close-and-cancel all winter tournaments and spring sports schedules in response to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

PLAYER MOVEMENT

The June 30th expiration of AHL deals has come-and-gone with no change from the NHL, so players are free to seek deals.

The Wolf Pack’s Steven Fogarty is an Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA), but he’s on a two-way (NHL-AHL) deal. The Wolf Pack has three Group 6 free agents with Vinni Lettieri and Danny O’Regan on the open market. Their third Group 6 FA, Nick Ebert, signed a European deal with Orebro HK (Sweden-SHL) last week.

The NHL has moved the date for expiring contracts until the end of the 24-team, NHL Stanley Cup playoff tournament this summer.

What remains, however, is the big issue of getting players back from Europe with new EU restrictions regarding COVID-19.

The season-ending rosters for the 31 AHL teams, a total of 620 players (20 per team as average) plus 147 have European home addresses makes up 24% of the players can be affected.

Laval signed two players for training camp, goalie Sam Vigneault, who was with the Cleveland Monsters last season, and defenseman, Corey Schueneman, who was with the Stockton Heat last season.

The deal for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ Mikhail Vorobyev with Salavat Yulaev (Russia-KHL) has been officially confirmed.

Dominik Masin of the Syracuse Crunch is close to a deal with Amur Khabarovsk (Russia-KHL).

Currently, 34 AHL players have left for Europe. 19 of 31 teams have lost at least one player.

Former Yale Bulldog, Antoine Langaniere, re-signs with EHC Straubing (Germany-DEL).

Two more college-to-pro signings. Tyler Nanne, the cousin to the Pack’s Lettieri, goes from the University of Minnesota (Big 10) signs a one-year AHL deal with the Hershey Bears.

After four years at Bemidji State (WCHA), Tommy Muck signs with Kansas City (ECHL).

Will Graber of Dartmouth College (ECACHL) heads to Hershey (AHL), while Luke Bafia, of the Western Michigan Broncos (NCHC), departs to the Kansas City Mavericks (ECHL).

Aidan Pelino of Bentley College (AHA) signs with RoKi (Finland Division-1).

Currently, that makes a 101 Division I college players to sign North American pro deals and 174 (Division I and III) players total have signed North American and European pro deals.

According to Rhode Island-based, collegiate hockey writer, Mark Divver, forward, Garrett Wait leaves the University of Minnesota (Big 10) and transfers for UMASS-Amherst (HE) making 23 Division I school transfers. There have been 18 grad transfers for next season.

One player not going to Europe who has decided to retire instead, and the first casualty of the new EU visa rules restricting Americans from entering the 14 country Euro travel zone, and non-area European countries like the UK.

Former Whalers TV announcer, and the voice of the Springfield Indians, John Forslund, is on the open market as a broadcast UFA after his contract expired with the Carolina Hurricanes.

EX-PACK RETIRES

Chad Kolarik, 34, and a former CT Whale has hung up the skates rather than return for another year with EC Salzburg (Austria-EBEL). Kolarik spent a little over two years with the Pack after being acquired from the then Springfield Falcons, for then captain, Dane Byers, who had requested a trade on November 11, 2010. It came just as the Wolf Pack’s name was changed for the ill-fated move to the CT Whale brand. He would play the very first Whale game against Springfield.

Byers was injured on the third day of training camp with a torn ACL and it cost him a year-and-a-half of hockey. The time was extended by a major Rangers procedural screw-up that left him off the Whale playoff Clear Day roster in February because he was not medically cleared at that point to play.

Kolarik carried a heavy load of anger and resentment regarding the incident that his teammates despised as it was omnipresent in his off-ice behavior with players and the coaching staff.

He had 35 points in 41 games with the Whale, but was dealt to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on January 24, 2013, for Benn Ferreiro. He then put up 33 points in 35 games and played in the AHL All-Star game in Providence as a Penguin a week after the trade.

That led to one of the tensest exchanges between him and Ken Gernander. It came in a lobby hotel while checking in. It was cordial but frosty.

Gernander was there for his AHL Hall of Fame induction.

HALL OF FAME MEDIA AWARD

Frank Seravalli of TSN, and the President of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association (PHWA), and Chuck Kaiton, the President of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association, and former Hartford Whalers radio play-by-play announcer for their entire history on WTIC-AM (1080), announced today that Tony Gallagher (Vancouver) will receive the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for excellence in hockey journalism. Rick Peckham will receive the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster.

Peckham had been a broadcast professional hockey for 42 years before his retirement following the pandemic shortened 2019-2020 season. For the last 24 seasons, he was the TV play-by-play voice of the Tampa Bay Lightning, joining the organization in 1995.

Prior to that, he served in the same capacity for the Hartford Whalers for 11 seasons as part of SportsChannel New England and WHCT-TV Channel 18 in Hartford.

During his illustrious career in the NHL, he has received four local Emmy Awards for his work on Fox Sports Sun and SportsChannel New England. Peckham is a 1977 graduate of Kent State (OH) University.

Peckham served as the radio/TV voice of the Rochester Americans of the AHL for seven years.

“I have known Rick for 36 years, since his days covering the Hartford Whalers,” said Kaiton. “Rick has had a most distinguished hockey broadcasting career, which deserves to be recognized by this honor. His longevity and excellence tell the story and passion for his profession came through each broadcast.”

Tony Gallagher is the first writer to win the award for a body of work exclusive to the Vancouver market.

He became one of hockey’s most influential voices in Western Canada in a career at The Province newspaper that spanned from 1970 – 2015. He was recruited by The Province out of the University of British Columbia in 1968.

He was hired full-time in 1970 for high school sports before making the jump to hockey, covering the WHL’s New Westminster Bruins and then the WHA’s Vancouver Blazers.

By 1976, Gallagher graduated to become the paper’s lone beat writer of the Vancouver Canucks. He was promoted to general columnist in 1987, where he continued to break news and stir-the-pot and covered nearly 25 Stanley Cup Finals -including all three Canucks appearances.”

“Tony Gallagher owned the Vancouver market in a time before the internet when scoops lasted for 24 hours in a newspaper world where contact meant everything,” Seravalli said. “He was uber-connected and over time became the voice for the Western Canadian market that has always seemed to have a chip on its shoulder, sitting three time zones away from Toronto. Tony was the perfect writer for that constituency, never afraid to break a few eggs in writing his daily omelet. He fought for Canucks fans against a perceived injustice by both the League or their team, becoming a media icon in his city and beyond.”

Gallagher and Peckham will receive their awards at a luncheon tentatively scheduled on Monday, November 16th and their award plaques will be displayed in the Esso Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame alongside past award recipients

FRANK CAMARA

Best wishes to a long-time Bridgeport off-ice official, Frank Camera, who is battling cancer.

Camara had been a penalty box presence at the New Haven Arena, New Haven Coliseum, and the Harbor Yard Arena for 62 years!

He witnessed the Eastern Hockey League’s New Haven Blades, the AHL’s New Haven Nighthawks, Roller Hockey International’s (RHI) Connecticut Coasters, the AHL Beast of New Haven, the UHL’s New Haven Knights, and the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

He always brings a smile and great stories and is in our thoughts and prayers.