Hurricanes This Week Tonight: Canes' Arrive in Vancouver

Hello from Vancouver!

After an all night, 13 hour bus ride, the Hurricanes arrived on the B.C. Lower Mainland around 8am Alberta time. First things first. Practice! We rolled in to Pacific Coliseum where the team will practice this morning, then it’s off to the hotel to settle in for a couple of nights. Tomorrow’s game will be the Hurricanes first visit Vancouver since 2007.

It was a busy week for this team off the ice with a number of players coming and going. After acquiring Radim Valchar, Mike Reddington, and Landon Oslanski in trades with U.S. teams as well as signing top prospect Mitch Maxwell, Head Coach/G.M. Rich Preston pulled the trigger on a deal yesterday sending a 5th round conditional draft pick to Regina for overage goaltender Linden Rowat. With the addition of Rowat in goal, Michael Tadjdeh’s time as a Hurricane appears to be over. He did not make the trip to Vancouver and was sent home to Calgary and from what I understand he is likely to be traded. Also on Sunday, the Canes’ parted ways with defenceman Cody Castro. Preston sent him to Tri-City is exchange for a 6th round bantam pick. So to say the least, this is a vastly different looking Lethbridge team compared with how things looked when the season started two weeks ago. Preston has already put his mark on things.

Reassigned in the past few days were Michael Sofillas, Garrett Taylor, and Bandyn Hulit. With this Lethbridge team still winless in 4 games on the season, Preston has done a lot of tinkering to make this team competitive now, not next year, right now. He said in the off season that there’s no reason why the Lethbridge Hurricanes can’t be one of the elite teams in the WHL every season. I like the fact that he’s not afraid to make a deal almost on the spot if he sees something he doesn’t like. Preston has shown that this week and we’ll see tomorrow here in Vancouver how all these new additions, including goaltender Linden Rowat play out.

"Hurricanes This Week" is back on the air tonight on CJOC at 6pm. Colour Analyst Fred Jack will host the show tonight with me on the road in Vancouver. Darrell Rumold from CTV Lethbridge will co-host. Our guests include Geoff Stewart, the Hurricanes new Business Manager and Ron St. Clair, the radio voice of the Prince George Cougars. I’ll like pop on the phone for a quick chat with the boys to tee up this week’s match-ups for the Hurricanes in B.C.

Again, if you happen to miss on our Monday night talk shows, you can listen to all Hurricanes This Week editions by visiting http://www.cjocfm.com/ and clicking on podcasts. The shows are usually ready to download the following day by noon. If you have a question for Fred and Darrell on tnight’s show send them to hurricanes@pttwireless.ca.

Thanks,
Pat