Training Camp: Friday Morning

The Whalers continued their training camp this morning with another scrimmage. Hartman opened the scoring for Team White with a snipe in the top corner. Team Blue came back with goals from Wilson, Payne and Noesen to make the score 3-1 after the first half.

Payne and Henderson scored for Team Blue in the first shootout.

Team White Wanted to come out of the gate swinging in the second half, and that’s exactly what they did. Mistele and M. Miller dropped the gloves and moments later so did Albertini and Sills. Mistele and Sills the winners of their respective fights.

Team Blue was awarded a penalty shot in which Bratina converts into a 4-1 lead for Team Blue. Team White came roaring back however with Whaley scoring two goals and Hartman scoring his second of the game to finish the game with a 4-4 tie.

The Whalers went to their second round shootout seeing a goal from Hartman on Team White and goals from Sills and JT Miller to have Team Blue the win for the morning.

With cuts coming this afternoon and preparations for the game against the Spitfires tomorrow, the Whalers cancelled the scrimmage this afternoon to opt for a practice instead.

Training Camp: Thursday Afternoon

Recap from this morning: Team Blue won 2-0 with goals by Henderson and Payne.

Team White				Team Blue
Offense				Offense
Hartman	Rakell	Meurs		JT Miller	Noesen	Wilson
Mistele	Vanderwiel	Aleardi		Bratina	Heard	Payne
Kudla	Whaley	Albertini		Lee	Smith	Sills
Defense				Defense
Curcurto	Duda			MacDonald	Carrick
Crombeen	Peters			Jones	Henderson
Malysa	Christmas			Lindner	Miller
Goalie				Goalie
Corbin	Nedeljkovic			Mahalak	Nedeljkovic

 

This afternoon, the scoring started quickly as Rakell converts a turnover into a goal in the first seven seconds giving Team White the 1-0 lead. Rakell scores another as  Aleardi and Meurs find the back of the net for Team White, Noesen, Bratina, and Wilson score for Team Blue to make it a 4-4 game after the half. The first shootout sees goals by Albertini and Lee.

For the second half we see Payne and Duda get five for fighting and Aleardi scoring the lone goal of the half giving Team White a 5-4 win. Team Blue took the second shootout 3-1 with goals from Miller, MacDonald and Carrick. Rakell scored for Team White.

More coverage will come tomorrow when the Whalers hold scrimmages at 9am and 2pm and this Saturday when the Whalers play in their first preseason game when they host the Windsor Spitfires in the Downriver Duel at Yack Arena at 7pm.

Training Camp: Thursday Morning

It’s time.

Training camp is here and after the fitness testing earlier this week, the boys are ready to get out on the ice. The Plymouth Whalers are holding two scrimmages today and another two tomorrow.

Here are the match ups for today:

Team White				Team Blue
Offense				Offense
Hartman	Rakell	Meurs		JT Miller	Noesen	Wilson
Mistele	Vanderwiel	Aleardi		Bratina	Heard	Payne
Kudla	Whaley	Albertini		Lee	Smith	Sills
Defense				Defense
Curcurto	Duda			MacDonald	Carrick
Crombeen	Peters			Jones	Henderson
Malysa	Christmas			Lindner	Miller
Goalie				Goalie
Corbin	Nedeljkovic			Mahalak	Nedeljkovic

Henderson scores with a slapshot after receiving a pass from Corbin in the first half, and Cody Payne scores on an empty-netter to give Team Blue a 2-0 win.

Miller and Noesen pop the puck in the net during the shootout for Team Blue during the first shootout. In the second shootout, Vanderwiel scores for Team White, Henderson for Team Blue. Mahalak stopped 9/10 shots in both shootouts.

More Training Camp coverage to come this afternoon.

Ice Cuttings: Have You Heard Edition

Heard Signs With The Avalanche – Congrats are in order to Mitchell Heard who signed an Entry Level Deal with the Colorado Avalanche. Heard was taken 41st overall in this year’s NHL Entry Draft in Pittsburgh. (Denver Post)

Canada Wins The 2012 Canada-Russia Challenge –  Plymouth’s Tom Wilson scored zero points and picked up six PIM’s (Hockey Canada)

Whalers Matt Mistele Looks to Make an Impact in Year Two (PlymouthWhalers.com)

Ice Cuttings: August 13th Edition

Russia Beats Canada 6-5; Takes 2-1 Lead In The Canada – Russia Challenge (Hockey Canada)

Thanks so much to all the Fans in Halifax and across Canada for the support. Tough loss tonight.

— Tom Wilson (@tom_wilso) August 14, 2012

2012 U.S. WJC Camp Final Wrap Up (United States of Hockey)

Stefan Noesen — After missing the cut last season, Noesen had a pretty impactful camp in Lake Placid. With five points, he showed his ability to produce and may have found a terrific match in Sean Kuraly as a linemate. Those two both used speed and power effectively and Noesen had a knack for finding Kuraly in space. I wonder if the camp would have been different for Noesen had he not gotten hooked up with Kuraly and Mario Lucia. For whatever reason that line worked. Noesen certainly has that style of game that you need to be successful at the WJC. Last year’s squad lacked the combination of grit and skill, but Noesen has both. The U.S. has an immensely challenging pool in Ufa with Canada and Russia. They need a guy like Noesen, who doesn’t get pushed around and produces.

J.T. Miller – The lone forward in camp with World Junior experience looked every bit the veteran in camp. Miller showed flashes of his play-making ability that helped make him the 15th overall selection by the Rangers in 2011. He has terrific speed, immense physical strength and displayed a maturity in his game that I had not seen in the past. Miller can score, but he showed terrific vision and patience. One thing I really like about Miller is that he can play at a high level at varying paces, but seemed to excel in slowing things down in the offensive zone in order to make the right play and allow things to set up a bit. As long as he’s healthy, he’s top-six on this club.

Ice Cuttings: International Hockey Edition

Plymouth Whalers Add Veteran Scouts to Staff (PlymouthWhalers.com)

Plymouth Whalers General Manager and Head Coach Mike Vellucci announced the hiring of Jim Debenham and Norm Robert to the Whalers’ scouting staff.

Russia Takes Game Two of the 2012 Canada-Russia Challenge; Series Split (Hockey Canada)

Kirill Kapustin’s hat trick Friday helped Russia even the Canada-Russia Challenge in a penalty-filled 6-3 victory for the Russians, as the series prepares for a move to Halifax next week.

Russia led all the way, although Canada twice came with one goal of tying the game. Canada won the first game of the series 3-2.

Windsor Gets Hammered

On Friday afternoon, the Ontario Hockey League announced fines and sanctions against the Windsor Spitfires Hockey Club totaling in the amount of $400,000 and the taking away of three 1st round draft picks and two 2nd round draft picks. (OHL Press Release)

“In 2009 the Board of Governors of the Ontario Hockey League developed the OHL ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM which is designed to address and attempt to eliminate violations of the RULES and impose appropriate penalties if violations occur.  The enforcement process is an integral part of the process to ensure integrity and fair play among the MEMBER TEAMS.  One of the fundamental principles of the enforcement process is to ensure that those MEMBER TEAMS that are abiding by the rules are not disadvantaged by their commitment to compliance”, stated OHL Commissioner David Branch.

“The League conducted two separate investigations led by our Director of Security and Enforcement, and in considering all the facts, I was persuaded that the Windsor Spitfires Hockey Club violated the League’s Player Benefit and Recruitment Rules and Policies.  While the penalties may appear to be severe, the League and its Member Teams recognize for any such violations of our Recruitment / Benefit Rules and Policies, we must send a strong message to preserve the integrity of our League”, concluded Branch.

There are a few things to take in account here. First, there were two separate investigations looking into this allegation. Secondly, the investigation was started back in 2010. One has to think the league took their time to examine this and make sure there was no doubt before announcing this. Normally the maximum fine is $250,000, but the league states that this was not just a single instance, but happened a number of times.

How many times? The league won’t say. What players were involved? The league won’t say.

Windsor denied the “allegations” and said they will be appealing the decision. (CTV Sports Extra)

We are in receipt of the decision by the Ontario Hockey League regarding the Windsor Spitfires Hockey Club and completely deny all accusations that have been put forward.

It is the team’s position that there is no evidence to support this decision, nor did the league follow due process or its own rules regarding procedural fairness in the making of this decision.

We will pursue all avenues of appeal regarding the decision made by the Commissioner, David Branch.

We are proud members of the Ontario Hockey League and will be vigorously defending the well-deserved and established reputation of our hockey club as an exemplary organization both on and off the ice, through the appropriate appeal process.

We will have no further comment until the appeal process is complete, in which we are confident will result in this decision being overturned.

This is a big hit to Windsor, and if true, might see the team losing the bid to host the 2014 Mastercard Memorial Cup.

Miller, Noesen and Hartman Make USA Hockey National Junior Evaluation Roster

Noesen plays the puck agains Finland yesterday

Out of the 45 initial players invited to the USA Hockey National Junior Evaluation Camp, 34 remained on the roster to take on Finland and Sweden this week. Among those staying on the roster are J.T. Miller, Stefan Noesen and Whalers rookie Ryan Hartman.

The players are auditioning for a spot on the U.S. National Junior Team that will take part in the 2013 IIHF World Junior Championship,  starting on Dec. 26, 2012 in Ufa, Russia. Miller and Noesen were at the Evaluation Camp last year, but Miller was the only Whaler to make the final roster for Team USA.

Team USA beat Finland yesterday with a score of 5-2. Noesen notched a goal and an assist in the win.

USA takes on Sweden today at 4pm and then will face Finland again this coming Saturday.

Ice Cuttings: Russian Edition

Canada – Russia Challenge 

It’s August 9th and we have junior hockey to look forward to today. That is never a bad thing.

Today at 11am EDT the first game of the four 2012 Canada-Russia Challenge games will be underway in which Plymouth Whaler Tom Wilson will be a part of. Coverage will be aired on TSN 2 and on TSN Radio 1050 (Link for TSN Radio: http://www.tsn.ca/Toronto/).

While in Russia, Team Canada took time to pay their respects to the members of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl who lost their lives in the tragic plane crash last September. TSN covered the story.

http://watch.tsn.ca/international-hockey/clip736044#clip736044

The Count Is In…

Team White may have won the Alumni Game, and Team Blue may have won the shootout, but the real winner was Gleaners Food Bank. The combined total of food and money collected in the four hours was enough to pay for 14,000 meals to feed the hungry. The Whalers organization gave a big thank you to the awesome alumni and amazing fans.

2012 Whalers Alumni Game [UPDATED]

This past weekend the Plymouth Whalers hosted an alumni game to raise money for Gleaners Food Bank. This is the third alumni in Whalers history with the first coming before the 2009-10 season to celebrate the Whalers 20th anniversary, and the next held before the 2010-11 season to raise money for Autism Awareness.

The roster ranged with players who started off with the organization when they were known as the Detroit Compuware Ambassadors, through the days of the Jr. Red Wings and finishing up with players as recent as last season.