Cameron Lands Coaching Job

(No news in forever and then suddenly I have enough for two posts in one day, sheesh)

It didn't take long for Malcolm Cameron to find a coaching job. It's not in Houston (darn rumors), nor is it for any AHL position.

Ladies and gentlemen, Malcolm Cameron is the new coach of the Elmira Jackals. He honestly found a team to coach that fast. Same conference, same league, different team. I love how the Jackals are playing up his record like everything that went on down here never happened. Honestly, do the Jackals think their fans don't have Internet access? Whatever, Jackals fans will learn soon enough, and we'll have a new (hopefully better) coach.

I'm sure I'm not the only Blades fan looking forward to our first home game against the Jackals. May I propose we start chanting "Cameron, Cameron, Cameron" whenever the Blades score a goal on the Jackals? It would be so wonderful and mean.

This has nothing to do with the story, it's just funny (and I'm delirious from doing homework all day).


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Protected Lists Announced

The Everblades haven't made any formal announcements as to who they put on their protected player list. Luckily the ECHL was kind enough to post all the teams on one page. There are a bunch of rules on who can go on this list and who can't, but they're really confusing so I doubt I can explain them. The basic point of this list is the team is calling dibs on these players.

Of course, this list doesn't guarantee that they will be playing for the Everblades next season. Only that they can't be approached by any other ECHL team.

Adrien Lemay

Dominic D’Amour
Scott Hotham
Mitch McColm
Phil Paquet
A.J. Thelen
Brad Zanon
Kevin Baker
Mike Bayrack
Patrick Bordeleau
Benjamin Breault
Matt Caria
Shea Guthrie
Ernie Hartlieb
Brad Herauf
Mike Hoffman
Eric Lampe
Ryan Lang
Colin Nicholson
Ahren Spylo
Dominic Osman
Alexandre Parent
Mathieu Roy

You may notice players who were assigned from the AHL are missing. Their rights belong to the NHL club they have a contract with so the Everblades can't protect them, that's why you don't see guys like Brandon Buck, Chris Beckford-Tseu and Matt Duffy.

You may also notice, guys who have a contract in Europe (Zanon, Spylo, and Hotham for example) are on the list. That's to make sure if they decide their not happy and want to play stateside that the team will still have the rights to them.

 It's really good to see Phil Paquette, Shea Guthrie, Eric Lampe, Dominic Osman, and Mitch McColm on the list. I really liked their contributions for the most part and I can't wait to see them play next season. I'm not sure how I feel about Adrien Lemay being on the list. Even though my first reaction to any goalie is to fall in love, I only saw him play once (and it wasn't pretty). It's also good to see some reliable vets like Kevin Baker, Ryan Lang (wooohoo!), and Colin Nicholson on the list.

Most importantly it's good to see Ernie Hartlieb on the list. It's an unwritten rule that he has to be on the team. Plus, I'm pretty sure the arena would crumble to the ground if he wasn't on the roster.

YouTube Tuesday

I don't know about this being the worst call ever, but it is an amazing save.



If the commenter's on this video are to be believed the goalies name is Kevin St. Pierre (stats here). In a funny coincidence this is the Ft. Wayne Komets (yes, the ECHL is not good enough for us Komets), who may be in the CHL next year if this story is to be believed. Sigh, so much for new teams coming to town.

More IHL Chatter

I'm sure I'm not the only person out there getting tired of all the news related to the IHL folding. Woody over at the Blades blog has this story on what the Quad-City Mallards options. And this story from the Ft. Wayne Gazette talks about what the Komets (I seriously hate that name) are facing. The story from the Ft. Wayne Gazette has a great breakdown on the differences between the IHL, ECHL, and CHL. I do find his opinion on why it would be bad for the Komets to enter the ECHL very irritating.

It's so silly I'm going to quote it.

"They would be unable to keep some popular, older players from the current team. The team won’t like seeing its stars called-up midseason. Travel costs will be higher than in the IHL, making things tougher for ownership."

Yes, it sucks to lose beloved veterans that have won you three championships in a row. I'm not going to deny that the ECHL's rules limiting a team to four veterans (the league consider a player with 260 professional games a veteran) does tend to run the most experienced guys off, I have no problem admitting that.

The part of this story that irritates me is the mention of call-ups somehow being a bad thing. How is a player who worked his butt off getting a chance to move one step closer to the NHL a bad thing. Look at this list of some of the names of the 443 ECHL players that have made it to the NHL. That's quite am accomplishment for a developmental league. I find it hard to believe that a professional hockey players greatest dream is to win a Turner Cup (or a Kelly Cup for that matter). I also, find it hard to believe that the fans in Ft. Wayne would feel any different about seeing a guy they watched in the early stages of his career make it to the big time than Blades fans feel. I devoted a post to McFlickier getting a hat-trick in the AHL, and one to Khudobin playing in his first NHL game because I was happy for their achievements and I new that other Blades fans were happy for them as well. I love being able to say I saw a player before he hit it big, that I saw his first professional point, or hat-trick or shut-out. I know it sucks to lose players when you need them, and ECHL rosters can be a revolving door at times. It's a trade-off, and I don't think it's a bad trade.

I also don't really buy that travel is going to be difficult for the Komets. I've been working on this Google map of all the teams locations in the ECHL (I've added Ft. Wayne to help see where they are in relation to other teams).


View ECHL Team Locations in a larger map

The distance to Toledo, Kalamazoo, Cincinnati and even Wheeling is much closer than any team the Everblades play. If our team can afford to bus 10 hours to play the South Carolina Stingrays (the closest ECHL team to the Everblades), I'm sure two hours to Toledo won't break the bank. The ECHL will also allow teams to set their own schedule for the most part. The Komets don't have to pay for travel to play here if they can't budget it. They can just wait until the Blades head up to take on the Walleye, K-Wings, and Cyclones.

I apologize for the long rant, but that writer really irked me. To make it up to you here's a picture from Thursday of the sunset on Ft. Myers beach.

(At least it's not another cat picture)

Friday Links and a Goodbye

This is definitely not a happy Friday, Woody over at the Blades Blog broke the news (click the link to see intelligent commenter's on the Blades Blog for once) yesterday that Scott Hotham is off to Norway to play for Lillehammer IK. It's sad to see him go, he was one of the players I was most excited about seeing come back next year. Unfortunately, players make more money in Europe, and can sometimes get the attention they're not getting here. I guess I'm going to have to get comfortable with google translate to keep you guys updated on how he's doing. 

On to the Links!

- I found this blog during one of my (many) google searches for ECHL fan blogs (seriously, if you know of one or want to start one drop me a line). It's pretty interesting to get a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes in an ECHL team's front office.

- Your Wikipedia Hockey page- "Ice Hockey in Africa"

- This is a really great article on Tara Black, the Chief Operating Officer of our new AHL affiliate the Charlotte Checkers (that still feels odd).

- This is another awesome article from greatesthockeyegends.com- "Is Hockey Fixed?"

- I love old school hockey masks, I'd love to buy this and hang it on my wall.