BY: Gerry Cantlon, HOWLINGS
HARTFORD, CT – The calendar now flips over to August, and while it is normally a slow time in hockey, there is still some news to digest as you deal with the dog days of summer.
PLAYER & COACHING MOVEMENT
Ex-Bridgeport Sound Tiger, Trevor Smith, signs with San Antonio on a one-year AHL deal.
The Hershey Bears add a one-time New York Ranger, Mike Eastwood, as their second assistant coach.
The Minnesota Wild makes former NHL player Tom Kurvers their assistant GM and also GM of their AHL team, the Iowa Wild.
Mark Dennehy, a former Fairfield University head coach at the start of the century, has been named the new head coach in Binghamton. This comes a week after Bingo’s head coach, Rick Kowalsky, was promoted to New Jersey as an assistant coach there. Dennehy is best known for his 13 years as the Head Coach at Merrimack (HE).
Ryan Hamilton, the team captain for the last three seasons in Bakersfield, has retired and becomes a pro scout for the San Jose Sharks. In addition, the Sharks have added former AHL’er Jean-Philippe Cote as a pro scout as well. He just retired from active playing from Grenoble (France-FREL).
Six more AHL’ers are heading over to Europe.
Brody Sutter, the son of Duane Suter, of the famous Sutter clan, goes from Manitoba to Sport Vassa (Finland-FEL). Sahir Gill leaves Rochester for Augsburger (Germany-DEL).
Cole Cassels, the son of former Whaler, Andrew Cassels, leaves Utica for EHC Wolfsburg (Germany-DEL).
Mario Lucia splits the year with Iowa first and then Binghamton before making his way to Stavanger (Norway-NEL).
Two are now off to play with the Belfast Giants (Northern Ireland-EIHL). They are Francis Beauvillier of Manitoba, and Kyle Baun, who split last year with Laval and Toronto Marlies.
That makes 68 AHL players from 25 teams to sign in Europe.
Belfast also announced the re-signing of former Sound Tiger, Blair Riley, for this season.
Luke Stork of Ohio State (Big 10) signs with South Carolina (ECHL) for next season. Chase Phelps of Boston University (HE) signs with Ft. Wayne (ECHL) and joining him is goalie Kyle Hayton from the University of Wisconsin (Big 10).
A pair of Bowling Green Falcons (NCHC) has signed pro deals, Tyler Spezia with Toledo (ECHL) and Jake Reichart with Adirondack (ECHL).
171 Division I players have now signed North American pro deals while 224 college players in total signed deals when Europe is included.
Another American college player has transferred to a Canadian college team. After just two years, Matt Graham of Robert Morris University (AHC) of Erie, PA goes to St. Francis Xavier University (AUAA) located in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Graham is the fifth US collegian to transfer to Canada.
Samuel Poulin, the youngest son of former Whaler, Patrick Poulin, was named to the Canadian U-18 team that will participate at the Ivan Hlinka-Wayne Gretzky annual summer tournament in two weeks.
Ex-QU Bobcat, Jordan Samuels-Thomas (South Windsor/Hartford Jr. Wolf Pack) who split last year with BK Mlada Boleslav (Czech Republic-CEL) and Augsburger (Germany-DEL) signs with Medvescak Zagreb (Croatia-AEHL) for 2018-19.
Joining Samuels-Thomas on the team is former Sound Tiger, Greg Mauldin, from ERC Ingolstadt (Germany-DEL).
Defenseman Martin Mazanec, the older brother of Wolf Pack goalie, Marek Mazanec, has signed with Milton Keynes (England-EIHL) for this year. He split last season with Nice (France-FREL) and MsHK (Slovakia-SLEL).
Sergei Mikulchik, son of former New Haven Nighthawk, Oleg Mikulchik signed with the Ledyanyi Volki Kiev Ice Wolves (Ukraine-UHL) this year.
A pair of Latvian-born coaches were given high awards by Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
Ex-New Haven Senator, Harijs Vitolins, was the assistant coach and Illya Voroybyev, the Head Coach, were both given their honors for coaching the Russian hockey team at the PyeonChang Olympic Games in South Korea under the Olympic flag as Team OAR (Olympic Athletes of Russia). That distinction came after the Russian Olympic squad was banned for doping violations prior to the start of the Games.
Vitolins received the Order of Alexander Nevsky, given to a citizen of the Russian Federation who’s achieved special merit in nation building and for strengthing the international pride of Russia.
Voroybyev was given the Order of Friendship.
Latvia is an independent free country not under the Russian Federation.
KREIDER SITUATION FAR MORE SERIOUS THAN FIRST REPORTED
Ex-CT Whale Chris Kreider’s blood clot situation last winter was a major health situation. Read a fantastic piece from ESPN detailing the situation HERE.
CUNNINGHAM BROTHER CYCLES FOR HEART AWARENESS
The Lazarus-like survival of current Arizona Coyotes pro-scout, Craig Cunninghan, from an acute cardiac arrest two years ago – still an unknown medical phenomenon that will need more research. Cunningham’s brother, Ryan, is starting on a bicycle journey to raise awareness and funds for research of this medical mystery. Read a superb piece from the Vancouver Province, HERE.
MAKING ICE
The largest nation on the planet, population-wise, is developing both their national and local hockey programs. That nation is, of course, China, The Chinese are just beginning and are looking to learn to develop the art of making ice surfaces that are sustainable for their growth and will be hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Read more about it HERE.
SEATTLE ARENA RENOVATION NOW TO COST $700 MILLION
For hockey fans thinking that renovating a building like the XL Center is an easy thing to do, as the CRDA is learning, look at this story and the accompanying video about how much costs have climbed to a $100 million more than projected for the Seattle Key Arena than when the plan was unveiled just six months ago!
Despite it all, they still expect that in the fall in either October or November, the announcement of an NHL expansion team will likely be granted from the NHL BOG for a 32nd franchise. Read that HERE.
COLLEGE HOCKEY
UConn Head Coach, Mike Cavanaugh, needs to go Back-To-School shopping for an Assistant Coach with two months to go before the season begins.
For the second time in his coaching tenure, Cavanaugh lost an assistant coach to a fellow Hockey East conference member.
Brendan Buckley returned to his alma mater of Boston College filling the vacancy created when the Rangers signed, Greg Brown, as a new assistant coach on David Quinn’s staff. Buckley played at BC from 1995-1999 and was the captain his senior year. He also was part of current head coach Jerry York’s first class at BC. Buckley had a mostly minor pro career with the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins. He also played near 600 games in the AHL and Europe.
The other assistant coach he lost is the new head coach at the University of New Hampshire. Former Sound Tiger, Mike Souza, who’s also the brother-in-law to former Wolf Pack and newly signed Sound Tiger, Chris Bourque.
Another college announces a new on-campus arena to be built.
The Colorado College Tigers (NCHC) announced a partnership with the city of Colorado Springs to build the Edward J. Robson Arena, which will be a 3,000 seat building. The construction cost has seen $28 million of the project’s $39 million cost already raised.
The plan still must get final approval from the city council, but all signs point toward this project getting underway.
While 3,000 seats seems a bit on the low side, they shouldn’t make the same mistake made by Quinnipiac University who’s arena is too small. They should go for a building with a capacity of between 4,000 to 5,000 because with a coming expansion of schools playing college hockey they should get ahead of the curve, but not too far.
One wonders when the issues for UConn and their lack of a real on-campus arena is given the difficulties of the XL Center and training facilities to help with recruiting will ever get addressed.
SUMMER HOCKEY
Do you miss live hockey? Here’s something to wet your appetite.
The NHL Network will be broadcasting (see schedule link below) two important summer hockey tournaments. The first will be broadcast this week. They’ll cover the last three days of the World Junior Summer Showcase, which is a preview of the annual World Junior Tournament that will be held this year in Vancouver and Victoria, BC starting on Boxing Day (Wednesday, December 26th)
Local names on the US roster includes three goalies, Keith Petruzzelli (Quinnipiac University), Spencer Knight (Darien/Avon Farms), and Cayden Primeau, the son of former Hartford Whaler, Keith Primeau.
On defense, Mattias Samuelsson, the son of former Nighthawk, Kjell Samuelsson, Phil Kemp (Greenwich/Yale University), and Ben Migraes (Westport/Avon Old Farms) who plays for Providence College (HE), and one lone forward, Jack Drury, the son of former Whaler, Ted Drury (Trumbull) and nephew of current Wolf Pack GM and Rangers assistant GM, Chris Drury.
The team GM is ex-Ranger netminder, John Vanbiesbrouck. The Player Personnel Manager is one-time Yale assistant coach Ben Smith, and two guest camp coaches in Pat Mikesch (Beast of New Haven), and Chris Clark (South Windsor) who’s a development coach with Cleveland (AHL). Read that HERE.
One note is Rangers draft pick in June defenseman, K’Andre Miller, is out for the tourney because of illness.
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