NEUGIE’S AROUND THE RINKS

By: Jamie Neugebauer
Voice of the ND Hounds/DUBNetwork MJ Warriors Beat Writer

1. Fired up for the boys: Pretty excited to hear that Rod and Darren and the Rod Pedersen Show are hitting the road to Montreal for the Cup Final! Not sure how long they plan on being there, but I think it’ll be a short series. The Habs have played their hearts out, big-time kudos, but I think the Lightning are licking their chops against a tired bunch of Montreal Canadiens. It’s 1-0 Tampa at the time of writing after a convincing Game 1 win, so the next time I write we’ll know a lot more, but if this gets past five I’ll be surprised. Saw a good line on Twitter: “How can Montreal be Canada’s team if Montreal didn’t want to be in Canada not too long ago?” *wink*
2. Kudos to Mason: Big-time kudos to Estevan Bruins forward Mason Smith who, while waiting and hoping for the 20-21 SJHL season to resume this past January, created an online business selling high-end kitchen knives. Love to see that creativity and initiative from a young man, and you can find more details about it all here: https://www.surreynowleader.com/sports/south-surrey-hockey-player-cuts-through-boredom-by-starting-online-business/. Apparently, it’s doing really well!
3. Bill re-ups: News broke Tuesday that the SJHL Board of Governors has extended President Bill Chow’s contract for another two years. Bill has done a great job staying positive and keeping the league connected during a crazy Covid-19 era that we hope is going to be over soon. I know he took a lot of abuse over social media, which I hope he paid little-to-no attention to, over keeping the dissemination of information over the last year and a half carefully controlled, but I think he did as good a job as he possibly could have given impossible circumstances. It’s a great move by the Board to show support in Bill, a guy who I think does a great, thankless job for the SJ, and is really really outstanding if you compare him to other league bosses around the development sports world. 
4. Eastern Dub skeds: The Saskatchewan and Manitoba teams in the Western Hockey League finally released their schedules this past week, and the most important thing I wanted to see was how many times Brayden Yager and the Moose Jaw Warriors would take on Connor Bedard and the Regina Pats. Well, the answer is 10! Can’t wait. It all starts for the Warriors on Oct. 2 in Saskatoon vs. the Blades, and I hope to keep providing quality Moose Jaw-focussed content on DUBNetwork for you all moving forward! Yager v Bedard is going to be awesome for hockey in southern Sask folks, get your tickets to watch these two ‘05 birth years (and many other great young talents in the Dub) as soon as you can.
5. Schneider to La Ronge: Interesting move by Kevin Kaminski and the La Ronge Ice Wolves this past week as they hired 22-year-old Prince Albert native Kyle Schneider as an assistant coach. Schneider started his SJ playing career as an Ice Wolves call-up back in 16-17 and ultimately made his way back to the team to end it as a 20-year-old in the Covid-shortened 19-20 campaign. He was a high-energy, tough-as-nails, pain the derriere-type, so I’m sure the Wolves boys are going to love him. Boy, could he chuck ‘em…
6. NHL Awards: I don’t want to spend too much time on the NHL Awards as I’m sure you go all sorts of places to find commentary on them, and I don’t have too many issues with those who were picked but one. Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov is a great player, but at 24 he played in over 300 KHL games before coming to the NHL, and therefore should be nowhere near a Calder Trophy (top rookie). Just crazy. I also have an issue that the SJHL calls 19-year-old Junior B vets ‘rookies’. Dallas’ Jason Robertson, or New Jersey’s Ty Smith or even Ottawa’s Tim Stutzle would have all been real rookie alternatives! Can we get some common sense around here?!
7. Doell’s maturity: Back in the SJ and I released an article on the league website about Battlefords North Stars elite pickup Holden Doell, and how his choice to stay home and play junior in Sask is a huge win for the league. The thing that stood out to me was his maturity; he understands that a big part of getting up to speed and being impactful at this level is practice habits, pushing, and being pushed by your teammates so that it’s not all about in-game reps. I was blown away! You don’t get that answer too often when you ask an incoming rookie about the jump from U18 to junior, and he nailed it right away! Awesome. Check out the article here if you please: https://www.sjhl.ca/stars-doell-a-win-for-the-sjhl
8. Canada Basketball opens: Impressive start for Canada’s men’s basketball team at their last-chance Olympic qualifier tournament in Victoria vs. Greece Tuesday evening! It wasn’t a dominant performance as befits a team with eight NBA players facing a team with zero, but it was their first game together ever, they are super young, and were facing a Greek team that has tons of games as a unit, including three exhibition matches this month alone! Andrew Wiggins’ (of the Golden State Warriors and my hometown of Vaughan, ONT) ability to just go out and get his own basket when Canada needs him to, and the length and defensive versatility of this unit should stand them in very good stead at this event and hopefully into the Olympics! My biggest concern is simply that bigger, savvy post players could bully them as Canada isn’t very big and doesn’t have an imposing post player, but they can make up for that with incredible athleticism and hustle. They take on a weaker China team tomorrow in a game that with a win can put them into the semis as the No. 1 seed in their group. Just for your information: the only way into the Olympics is to win this tournament, and Team Turkey is a very serious threat to that ambition in the other group. Should be fun these next couple of days! Find the games on CBC or DAZN. 
9. C’mon England: Huge huge huge 2-0 win for England at the European Soccer championships Tuesday in the Round of 16 knockouts vs. Germany. I would need a novel to outline all the history of England’s failures vs. the Germans, but suffice it to say, some demons have been exorcized. England still has not given up a goal at the tournament and looked even more solid in their back three comprised of two Manchester City players John Stones and Kyle Walker, and Manchester United’s Harry Maguire. Manager Gareth Southgate missed a huge penalty kick against Germany when he was a player that eliminated them years ago, so this was especially a big sigh of relief for England fans everywhere. Very happy about the England and Canada basketball wins Tuesday!
10. Product Tip: I’ll take a rare trip away from sports here, but bear with me. I hate mosquitos, always have, always will – they are a bunch of jerks. But I love an outside sit, so I wanted a solution, and I asked my pal Wade who worked at Cabelas for years and he told me about Thermacell Radius. It’s this little device that sprays odourless, scentless mosquito repellant to somehow make a little dome of freedom over 10 square metres, and it works so well! I don’t work for them or anything, I am just really excited about this product, so I wanted to tell you all. Cabelas has a thousand of them, but you can probably find them at Canadian Tire, Mark’s, etc. 

(Follow Jamie on Twitter at @Neugsie)