Brandon University Bobcats Media Release BRANDON - Aziza Kinnarath has been recognized by the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference following a fabulous futsal season. The Bobcats' star is the co-winner of the league's MVP award along with Julika Kehler of the Providence Pilots. "I am honoured to earn this award and to be co-recipient for MVP among all the student-athletes is a big achievement," said Kinnarath. "I am grateful to my teammates as I have enjoyed playing with them." Kinnarath was one of BU's top offensive weapons during the regular season as she scored a team-leading 10 goals and seven assists. She served as captain of the Bobcats, who finished in fourth-place with a record of 4-4-and-2. "She has been really great this season and we are all proud of Aziza," said coach Rainer Schira. "Futsal gives her the chance to shine and the small indoor field shows her technical skills, view of the game and passing ability. When she beats her defender and can score from distance it is really good to see." Meanwhile, the Bobcats are off to the MCAC Final Four tournament at Providence College this weekend in search of more hardware. BU will take on the top-ranked Red River Rebels in one semifinal at noon on Saturday, while the other semifinal has the CMU Blazers battling the host Pilots. The women's final is 2 p.m. on Sunday. If the Bobcats can bring home the futsal title, they will complete a double-double after capturing their first-ever women's soccer championship in October. "We need to find that intensity again. We need to find a way for every player to realize that they need to give their best. If they can step up, we have a good chance of winning this championship," added Schira. "Big games are always important and big games are always great to win. It would be awesome to win both titles."

Zach Whitecloud, Bemidji State University, was named to the WCHA All-Rookie Team. In a release he was described as “a special teams standout who led all WCHA skaters with 11 power-play assists in conference action”.    Zack currently leads all BSU defensemen, and rookies, in scoring with 16 points and also ranks second on the team with 55 blocked shots. WestMan's own, Andy Murray, was selected the NCHC Coach of the Year. The annual award is given out at the conclusion of the NCHC regular season to the best coach in the conference, in honor of Herb Brooks. Murray coaches Western Michigan. Forward Brendan Harms, a 6th round draft pick of the Wheat Kings in 2009, has joined the Florida Everglades of the ECHL, after spending the last 4 seasons at Bemidji State. The Steinbach native finished his college career with 88 points in 141 games. Former Dauphin King Brenden Kotyk, and his Minnesota Duluth Bulldog teammates, captured the Frozen Faceoff title with a 4-3 win over North Dakota the other night. Kotyk, from Regina, spent two seasons with the Kings in 2010/11 and 2011/12. The Miniota-Elkhorn C-Hawks hold a 2-1 games lead over the Russell Rams in the the North Central Hockey League best of 5 final series. Game 4 goes Friday night, March 24th, in Russell at the Multiplex. Speaking of the NCHL, their Spring Meeting will be held in Russell on Sunday, April 9 at 2:00 p.m. Any team wanting to enter the league for 2017/18 are asked to be in attendance. Location of meeting to be announced. Check out their web site for more information.  

The finals in the Tiger Hills Hockey League has been set, as the Killarney Shamrocks will square off against the Carberry Plainsmen in the best of 5 Championship Series. Killarney is coming off a regular season which saw them go undefeated, 17-0, while outscoring opponents 138-42 in the process. The Shamrocks have been lead upfront, in the post season, by Jessie Bernard (17pts, 8gp), Ryan Howatt (16pts, 9gp), and Aubrey Chapman (15pts, 8gp). Former Brandon Wheat King defensemen, Reid Gow leads the team in playoff scoring with 23 points. Brian Archibald, who played parts of 3-seasons in the MJHL, is the Shamrocks goalie. Killarney defeated Souris 4 games to 1, and then swept Hartney (4-0) to advance to the finals. Carberry, who battled to a 12-6 regular season mark, has really hit their stride in the playoffs. They started off the post season by knocking out MacGregor in 3 straight games, and then dispatched (4-1) of both Minnedosa and Neepawa in their respective best of 7 series. Brandon products Zeanan Ziemer (29pts,12gp) and Brock Sutherland (24pts,12gp) lead the Plainsmen in playoff scoring. Brett Kitt and Riley Day, both Wheat King alumni, are also members of the Plainsmen roster. Brett Willows, who suited up for 4 seasons with the University of Toronto, is one of the Carberry goalies. The series gets underway on Saturday, March the 18th in Killarney. Game time is 7:30.  

I don’t know Kevin Cheveldayoff. I’m sure he’s a very nice guy. But, I do know it’s time someone started questioning his ability and whether or not he should still be the General Manager of the Winnipeg Jets. Those suggesting Paul Maurice is the problem are misguided. Many of the pro-Cheveldayoff fans (and there are a ton of them) point to his prowess at the draft table. Mark Scheifele, Jacob Trouba, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Josh Morrissey all look like steals relative to where they were picked in the first round. That’s to say nothing about Jack Roslovic and Kyle Connor, who haven’t arrived yet but are 1-2 on the AHL Manitoba Moose in scoring as 19 year-olds. Patrik Laine fell in the lap of the Jets thanks to the lottery, so I am not willing to include him at all in this. So, on the surface, Cheveldayoff is the man when it comes to drafting. A deeper look and one should question whether it’s Cheveldayoff being an all-knowing super power when it comes to evaluating young talent or does he rely on his scouting staff and then make the final decision based on the information presented to him? If Cheveldayoff is racking up air miles across the world evaluating amateur talent, then he’s wasting True North money on scouts and he needs to hire a General Manager. I suspect Cheveldayoff watches a few players that the scouts suggest to him need a closer eye, but that’s it. So, I will only issue a partial credit to Cheveldayoff on drafting. The bulk goes to the scouts. Too bad the scouts can’t trade and sign free agents and waiver wire types. Because, Cheveldayoff gets a grade lower than F in this area. And, that’s why it’s he and not Maurice who should be replaced heading into the 2017-18 season. The Winnipeg media will tell you that Cheveldayoff is uber patient and they may be right, but that’s not what this franchise needs now. The building blocks are in place with Laine, Scheifele, Ehlers, Trouba, Dustin Byfuglien, Blake Wheeler, and Bryan Little. What this needed to be a playoff club was a simple grab off the waiver wire to help the defense and the willingness to eat a little bit of salary to stop the bleeding in net. Neither of these needs were addressed, so it’s pointless to go on an even bigger rant and say that with a couple of bold moves, the Jets could have been a Stanley Cup contender. But, I believe they are to the point where 1-2 major deals and/or free agent signings would put them into the upper echelon of the league. When Carolina dumped Eric Staal last trade deadline, I felt the Jets needed to take a look at him to see what was left in the tank. Being from Thunder Bay, it’s not all that outlandish to suggest the Jets could get him. They opted not to and then Minnesota signed him for $6-million over 2-years and he’s their leading scorer. You don’t think Eric Staal would have helped this team while Bryan Little was injured? How good of a third line would the Jets have if Staal was centering it today? Opportunity missed. Fast forward through the summer and into training camp when Jacob Trouba announced he was going to be holding out for a trade. This wasn’t a shock to me, so it, surely, didn’t surprise Cheveldayoff. He knew he had a defenseman who was unhappy. Meanwhile, Kris Russell and Dennis Seidenberg are on the sidelines looking for NHL contracts and not many teams have room under the cap to ink them. The Jets are one of the few that can accommodate. Well, Russell goes to Edmonton after they clear some space and Seidenberg goes to the Islanders. Both went for very reasonable dollar amounts. Jets lose out again. I could go into the opportunities on defense missed during the regular season where Andrei Marchenko, Nikita Nesterov, and Michael Stone moved for nothing or minimal compensation; while the Jets decided to promote Julian Melchiori instead; but I’ll leave that be. Now, let’s look at training camp and the decision to send Ondrej Pavelec to the minors and go with Connor Hellebuyck (an essential rookie) and Michael Hutchinson (another inexperienced goalie, who isn’t highly regarded, but has had a small amount of success in limited action). I can never defend playing Russian Roulette with the most important decision on the team, but let’s pretend this is a smart choice. By the end of November, it was clear Hellebuyck was the better goalie but there were chinks in the armour of both kids. In fact, it was clear Maurice didn’t want to use Hutchinson at all. Any confidence he had him was gone. It was at this point, the Jets should have brought Pavelec back or looked to make a move with another team. In Brooklyn, Jaroslav Halak was playing his way off the Islanders. He was the best goalie at the World Cup just weeks earlier, but now can’t stop a beach ball. Many Winnipeg media suggest the 31-year-old is washed up. If he’s not finished as a player, he’s definitely too expensive as any team looking to add Halak is on the hook for his $4.5-million for the remainder of this year and into next. It’s a lot of money if you think he can’t play. If you think he can, it’s nothing for an experience goalie who can stop the bleeding. Taking into account how unhappy he is with the three-goalie system and looking at his full body of work over the last half a dozen years, there’s nothing there that says Halak can’t get the job done on a 50-50 basis with someone like Hellebuyck, who has shown this year to be an exceptional goalie when asked to play 2-3 in a row, but not 4-5-6 (or 14 like recently). To make matters easier, Winnipeg is the only team desperate for help between the pipes. This looks like a no brainer. Yet, nothing happens and Halak hits waivers over Christmas. Now, it’s really a no brainer because you can scoop him for nothing other than pay him is $4.5-million next year. Again, no action from Chevy. Halak goes down to Bridgeport and wins ten straight to set a franchise record and is now 16-5-1, 2.17, .926, 2-shutouts. Turns out he’s not finished. And, before you scoff at AHL numbers, your precious Eric Comrie has a GAA of over half a goal worse than Halak. Instead, the Jets wait until mid-January (too late at this point, but let’s play along anyway) and they decide to promote Pavelec after Hellebucyk and Hutchinson both go through spells where neither would help a Midget AAA team. Pavelec comes up and plays like the Pavelec of old (which is to say he was average) and fans are giddy. Yes, it was that bad. But, then Pavelec gets hurt and Hellebuyck goes back and he hasn’t left the net since (other than when he’s pulled due to poor play, which has been 2-3 times in the last 14 games). For the most part, I admire what Hellebuyck has done in these 14 games. The guy isn’t ready for this kind of pressure and workload down the stretch. Not many are. You don’t see Carey Price, Braden Holtby, and Deven Dubnyk playing 14 straight do you? Assuming the Jets felt they were in the playoff race (I didn’t) at the end of February and Ben Bishop gets sent to Los Angeles for next to nothing because Steve Yzerman said he had only one place to send Bishop as nobody else was interested and you are left scratching your head. To me, even if the Jets knew their goose was cooked for this year, would it be so bad to bring Bishop in anyway since the price is so low? He could do a couple of things: help you win games, which is never a bad thing when you have a young team that is trying to learn how to win. He takes a load and pressure off Hellebuyck so you can develop him properly. And, it’s a chance for the Jets to evaluate whether Bishop is the type of guy they may want to keep beyond this year and give him some free agent money. But, again, Cheveldayoff fails on all accounts. No Halak. No Bishop. Not even a dart at a dart board like what Dubnyk was once upon a time for Minnesota. Heck, the mighty Blackhawks rolled the dice on 31-year-old Jeff Glass a few weeks ago. The Jets? Complete indifference on the most important position on your hockey team. A General Manager who is consumed by winning may even have enough pieces in place to make a couple of significant deals to put this team into Stanley Cup contention by this time next year. I’m betting that if you dangled Nic Petan, Kyle Connor, and Jack Roslovic that there would be more than a few teams willing to pony up a top defenseman or goaltender. Heck, if you offered one of those three and Tobias Enstrom as a salary dump, I think you could still get a real good player to help your team. But, as long as Cheveldayoff is the boss, that’s just not even on the radar. The team doesn’t need improvement over Scheifele, Laine, Ehlers, Little, and Wheeler. They could use another winger to round out their top six, but I’m okay with what they have if they did nothing and left Mathieu Perreault there or went with Marko Dano, Andrew Copp or whoever. Joel Armia and Adam Lowry would be amazing fourth liners. Petan doesn’t help you if he’s not in the top six. He’s expendable. I suspect the same holds true with Connor and unless Roslovic can be an effective 2-way third line centre, he’s blocked just like Petan is. They need better depth players up front and they need to figure out if Trouba is staying here long term or not. If he’s not, they have work to do because he looks like the number one defenseman they lack. Byfuglien is overpaid, but the Jets had no choice here. Morrissey has been a pleasant surprise and Ben Chiarot is a real nice player who should be one of the better 5-6 guys in the league. Get Tucker Poolman signed and hope he’s ready immediately to contribute. It’s not blockbusters that are needed. It’s a lot of tinkering. And, for god sakes….get a goalie. I just don’t have any faith that Cheveldayoff can do that. The guy believes the draft is the only way to build a team. He’s wrong.  

The ROAD BASH is an annual road hockey tournament in Brandon, MB coordinated by ACC Police Studies students and the ACC Students’ Association. Each year the Road Bash Event Committee chooses to donate all proceeds to an organization in the community of Brandon. This year the money raised from registration, and the silent auction table, will be going to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Brandon. Montana's will also be on-hand selling burgers and Scotiabank has agreed to match all funds raised. Last year the event raised over $1,000 for MADD Brandon chapter and their goal this year is to double that amount. 2017 Event Information: Date: April 8, 2017 Location: ACC North Hill Campus, Len Evans Centre for Trades and Technology, in the parking lot and the carpentry shop. Registration Opens: March 1, 2017 Registration Closes: April 3, 2017 Registration Fee: $10 per person, 5 to 8 players per team Late Registration: will be accepted up to April 5 and will cost $15 per player Winnings: $1,000 1st Place Prize To resister a team and for the rules & regulations click here