Any Hockey is Good Hockey

Let's face it, I love the red-white game. It's hockey. It's free. And it's back in the Spokane Arena which feels like my home away from home for about seven months (or longer). Plus, it also helps me deal with the fact that the Mariners were one hit by the Royals today (the Royals?!?). As it's practice I don't really care about the score so let's get to some player analysis:

Dominik Uher - Get the bandwagon started because I'm jumping on! Crisp passing, great awareness, and overall a great presence on the ice.

Anthony Bardaro - Wow. He stepped it up. I liked the way he worked with Uher. I would love to see them on the same line this season. Add a little Dustin Donaghy and that would be one solid line.

Mike Betz - This is the Betz I wanted to see last season before he was sent down. He plays like he has a chip on his shoulder, and that's a good thing in his case.

Matt Marantz - Solid team player. Liked his awareness and puck control.

Brendan Edie - Great goalie skills. Alex Wright might want to look over his shoulder as we may have a new #2 goalie.

Connor Chartier - He'll make the team next season. I hate to be cliche but - tremendous upside here.

Mitch Holmberg - see Connor Chartier. But Holmberg could make the team this season.

Cole Hamblin - Solid defensemen. He'll help replace the void that Trevor Glass left.

After seeing the red-white game I'm optimistically looking forward to this season. The U.S. division is wide open this year and the Chiefs have just as good a chance as anyone else in the division. Except Everett. I think they might suck this year.

The Chiefs start their preseason next weekend (Sept. 3) against Portland in Everett's tournament.

Not long now.

We're Talking 'Bout Practice

Scrimmages are in full swing now. I was able to sit in on one of the games on Friday. I must say that it felt good to be back in the arena and I'm looking forward to the red-white game on Sunday. I should start formulating opinions about the newbies after that.

Also, I'll file this under the 'I can't believe I didn't catch this before' section but I noticed that David Rutherford is back in the Pacific Northwest. He signed a contract with the Victoria Salmon Kings of the ECHL. He played last season with the Charlotte Checkers before being traded to the Phoenix Roadrunners. Phoenix ceased operations after the end of the season. Good to see Rudy get another shot. He had a pretty good rookie season in the ECHL. While I'm at it, here's where some of the other former Chiefs from the Memorial Cup team are:

Chris Bruton - Acadia University
Judd Blackwater - Stockton Thunder (ECHL)
Justin Falk - Houston Aeros (AHL)

Interesting enough, the Houston Aeros is also the home of former Chief goalie Barry Brust.

Good luck all of them.

Can't wait for Sunday!

Seriously Hockey

Well, it's nearing the end of August, which means it's time to wind down the Summer and wind up the hockey. Chiefs camp starts up tomorrow and ends on Sunday with the red-white scrimmage. I plan on attending the red-white game as well as maybe hitting up Friday's scrimmage. This means I get to start writing about hockey more and other stuff less. So time to conclude the Summer session with my afterthoughts.

Not only am I a hockey fan but I'm also a baseball fan. Seeing the Mariners play better this season has been pleasant and much appreciated. They're 65-61 (and beating Oakland) as I type this. Much improved. The Mariners didn't win 65 games all last season. They went 61-101 and became the first baseball team to lose over 100 games with a payroll over 100 million dollars. What a difference a season makes.

I also love movies. Lots and lots of movies. There were some gems this Summer. My favorites were Star Trek, Inglourious Basterds, Public Enemies, The Hangover, Up, Harry Potter, and Funny People. I was disappointed with the new Transformers movie, however. It was obnoxious, the plot wasn't very good, I'm still not convinced Megan Fox can act, and Shia LaBeouf can sometimes annoy the hell out of me. Somebody tell Michael Bay I want my ten bucks back.

Now with that out of the way the focus is on the Chiefs. I'm excited to see the newbies in camp. I'll be especially be paying attention to Dominik Uher, the new import player to replace Ondrej Roman. I'd also like to see James Reid take his game up a level. He did very well last season, but he has some huge skates to fill. Also, depending on how he does I might start up a Mitch Holmberg bandwagon. Or maybe a Tanner Mort bandwagon. This will be interesting weekend and now that hockey's back it feels good to say...

Go Chiefs!

Sad Sad Sad.

OK, there's a thunderstorm going on right now so my dog is up. And when my dog is up, I'm up. He hates thunderstorms and that means I'm up for a while. So I'm going to mention something that has absolutely nothing to do with hockey but something I've been thinking about a lot since I found out it happened: John Hughes. Dead of an apparent heart attack at age 59.

Now I know I am an avid movie geek but anyone who knows anything about the 80's knows John Hughes. He had his fingerprints all over movies in that time frame. If you grew up with those movies (as I did) you know the titles. Some of them are:

The Breakfast Club
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Pretty in Pink
Sixteen Candles
Some Kind of Wonderful
National Lampoon's Vacation
National Lampoon's European Vacation
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Home Alone
Home Alone 2
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Weird Science
The Great Outdoors
Mr. Mom
Uncle Buck

There were others. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. The bad comedies of this day and age can learn something from those movies, and the good ones have learned from those movies. Classics from one of the best. Writer. Producer. Director. Icon. That simple.

Thanks for the movies and the memories John Hughes. You are already missed.

Houston, we have a schedule.

August is here. A rather weird month if you think about it. Baseball season is getting ready for the pennant races, NFL preseason starts, and for people like me the English Premier League kicks off in a couple of weeks. But it's also a time to dust off the hockey jerseys and start making the Fall plans for hockey season. The Chiefs released their 09-10 schedule which makes me ready for hockey in a big way. I bust out the jerseys and make sure they are in good shape and wash them just in case I forgot to after the season ended. I once again look at the new Idaho Steelheads jersey that was given to me for my birthday (still has that fresh new hockey jersey smell). I even started buying stuffed animals for the teddy bear toss game in December. Too early for that? Don't really care. I bring many stuffed animals to that game and I have to plan ahead. I found out that it's not easy to get a stuffed Snuffleupagus but dammit I found one!

Red/ White scrimmage is at the end of the month. Soon. Very soon. Not long now. Before you know it it's 'Go Chiefs' time!