Rockets Won't Get Royal Treatment from Oil Kings in Expansion Draft

Trepidation may best describe the feeling that all 22 players on the Kelowna Rockets roster from last season are feeling this morning.

It's Western Hockey League expansion draft day, as the newest team, the Edmonton Oil Kings pluck one player from the existing 21 teams.
The Kamloops Blazers technically won't lose a player today after a deal between the two teams that included an employee and forward Brenden Dowd.

Who will the Rockets lose in today's draft? I asked Bruce Hamilton that exact question.

"I am sure they (Oil Kings) will have their homework done. Last year we didn't really lose a player because Chilliwack picked Spurgeon, who was signed, but this year we will lose a guy because of the youth of our team. We have 5 or 6 players that we can't protect."

Will the Rockets lose a veteran or a relatively new face?

"They have to decide if they want to go with an old guy or a young guy - old being 19 and young being 16. Because we only have two overage players (Westblom/McEwan) they can't touch them. Our 16 year-olds are pretty important to us because we've invested in them... we don't want to lose them. I think we have a good core in the 16-17 and 18 year-old age group, that the Oil Kings will pick a player out of that group probably."

Did Hamilton consider making a deal before the expansion draft?

"We were never interested in making a deal with them prior to the draft. I live with the belief that they paid good money to get a franchise and they deserve to get a good player. The player we lose will hopefully have a good career there".

Hamilton says the Oil Kings get 6 hours to contemplate the list of unprotected players from every WHL team before making one selection from each of the 20 teams (Blazers excluded) unprotected list.

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Are the Rockets interested in Luke Schenn's younger brother?
GM Bruce Hamilton will only say he wouldn't consider looking at Braydon Schenn, unless Wheat Kings General Manager Kelly McCrimmon comes to him first.
Braydon Schenn, the Wheat Kings #1 bantam pick from 2006, failed to attend the Wheat Kings prospects camp last month, and has said in the past he'd either like to play in Kelowna or his hometown of Saskatoon.
McCrimmon is no dummy. The asking price would be high. The purchasing price would likely be a first round pick, or in the Rockets case how about Luke Schenn? McCrimmon would make that deal in a heartbeat.
Could you imagine brothers being swapped in a WHL trade? Has that ever happened? Trust me it won't happen, but it sure is interesting to ponder.
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I got pocked in the eye by Kamloops Daily News Sports Editor Gregg Drinnan.

It was a friendly poke...it didn't leave a mark.

Drinnan, in his Saturday article suggested I'm sniffing glue over suggestions that Vancouver Giants Don Hay is going to take a job in the NHL this off-season.

Here is a portion of the article:

In all likelihood, Don Hay will be back behind the Vancouver Giants¹ bench
next season. Why? Because Hay is, first and foremost, a teacher. As much as he
likes to win, he also gets a great deal of satisfaction from the teaching aspect of the game.
Having been to the NHL and back, albeit with a modicum of success, he knows that when you¹re a teacher,the pro game
isn't all it's cracked up to be. If Hay, who has two years left on his contract, stays put, it will be most enjoyable
watching Regan Bartel, the amiable radio voice of the Kelowna Rockets, eat a little crow.
To see him behind the bench of the Giants next season won't happen, Bartel wrote on his blog last week.

My response?
How dare he call me amiable!
After looking in the dictionary it means - having or showing pleasant, good-natured personal qualities.
I think that's a good thing isn't it?

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Let's call a spade a spade.
The newspaper writers are the smartest of the three media's, followed CLOSELY by the radio guys.
The TV broadcasters are third.
That said, when it comes to overall appearance (wardrobe/grooming) the order is reversed.
The best dumb joke I've heard lately is: Your so dumb you looked at an orange juice box for 2 hours because it said CONCENTRATE. Ok it's old, but still pretty funny.
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Where does the expression eating crow come from anyway?

Towards the end of the war of 1812, an American went hunting and by accident crossed behind the British lines, where he shot a crow.
He was caught by a British officer, who, complimenting him on his fine shooting, persuaded him to hand over his gun.
This officer then levelled his gun and said that as a punishment the American must take a bite of the crow. The American obeyed, but when the British officer returned his gun he took his revenge by making him eat the rest of the bird.
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Remember former Kelowna Rockets d-man Jesse Ferguson?
'Fergie' took exception to Willy Palov, who covers the Halifax Mooseheads of the QMJHL, over an article last week in the Chronicle Herald on players and their parents using the threat of bolting to the NCAA if a C-H-L team fails to offer a lucrative playing contract. Here is a portion of that article:

A handful of forward-thinkers, including a former Western Hockey League player and a grandparent of a WHL first-round pick, e-mailed me to sing the praises of the system out there. Both made the point that the QMJHL, and the OHL for that matter, have created this headache for themselves by holding a midget draft instead of a bantam draft.

Out west, players are picked when they are 14 years old instead of 15 or 16, so they are required to play one more season of minor hockey before they are even eligible to play major junior. At that age, players aren’t in a position to threaten not to report for the following season because they won’t even have that option for another year. It reduces the risk of taking a player who may not show up.

Similarly, teams retain the rights of the players they pick until they are 18 and if they don’t report by then, they receive a compensatory draft pick. Again, the risk is reduced.

But best of all, the league has strict policies about the amount of money teams are permitted to offer in the way of supplementary packages. There is a standard education package that is fair, so there can be no bidding for the services of a player and therefore no opportunity for potential draft picks to try to extort teams for money.

The player who e-mailed me, Jesse Ferguson, said he was a sixth-round pick and knew he was getting the same education money as the guy who was taken first overall, so it took the issue of compensation right out of the equation. He went on to become one of the top defencemen in the league, but he never worried that his education wasn’t being taken care of. He then played four years at the University of New Brunswick and said the WHL took care of his tuition needs just fine.

"It made it irrelevant as to where I was drafted due to the fact that I knew I couldn’t get more out of one team than another," Ferguson wrote.

"The (Quebec) league is ultimately the one who has not controlled this situation from arising, like you said. When teams are making millions of dollars a season and players make allowance money, you can’t blame the players and the parents for asking for future compensation if their child does not realize their dream of playing in the NHL.

"But I opted to go the education route after my WHL days, and I know that the Western Hockey League was a huge benefit to helping me make that choice. In order for the OHL and QMJHL to ever get rid of this nonsense of negotiations, you have to get all the teams on board and for them to quit undercutting each other."

This type of co-operation between the league, its players, the parents and the agents is what is sorely lacking in the Q. The WHL model is just one of many possible alternatives that could help end the problem, but it will only get worse if everyone continues to pretend nothing is wrong.

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Hockey Quote of the Day:

Hall of Fame Boston Bruin Brad Park once said, "We get nose jobs all the time in the NHL, and we don't even have to go to the hospital."