Weal to U-18's

It was no surprise that Jordan Weal was one of the members named to team Canada for the World under 18 championships today. Hopefully Weal can make an impact on the big stage and further improve his draft status. As of right now, he is not projected to go in the first round of the 2010 NHL entry draft, but a strong performance at the U-18's could change that.

The Pats fans never got the see the Eastern and Western rookie's of the 2009 face off this year as Brett Connolly had a nagging hip injury all season. Now, fans will have to settle for them being teammates as Brett was also named to the team Canada squad.

Quinton Howden, the Moose Jaw standout was also named to the team along with four other WHL players. The team leaves for Europe this coming Tuesday and play their first exhibition game on April 9th. Canada finished fourth last year at the tournament and first the year before, they look to big a strong competitor going in this year.. but is anyone surprised?

April Fool's or Real Deal?

In a rather surprising and unlikely decision, backup goalie Devan Dubnyk will play centre for the Oilers against Dallas tomorrow night. That's right, centre! Apparently Dubnyk has been "getting sick of playing goalie" and has been practicing his stick handling a lot at practice. The Oilers assistant coach Tom Renney feels that he can add some much needed size to the Oilers line up. Dubnyk will make his presence known on a line with Patrick O'Sullivan and one other player that has yet to be determined by the coaching staff.

Some may ask, "Who will be Deslauries' backup?" and the answer to that is just as shocking. Forward Ryan Potulny will be serving as Edmonton's back-up against Dallas. Potulny claims to have played goalie a lot throughout his childhood playing days and when the coaches asked him about it he replied "I feel comfortable there".

It will be very interesting to see how each of the players adjust to the old switcheroo the coaching staff is attempting to pull off. The fans will be virtually guaranteed to see Dubnyk play forward but it's not as certain that Potulny will get to show off his rumored skills in net. Apparently Tom Renney has been wanting to try Dubnyk as a forward all season, hopefully it isn't embarrassing. Who knows? Maybe Devan is a star forward in the making, rumor has it the kid is pretty fast.

Providing this is not an elaborate April Fool's prank, the switcheroo will take place Friday night when the Oilers take on the Dallas Stars in Dallas. The only way fans will get to see it is if they pay roughly 20 bucks for the pay-per-view, could this all be a tactic to gain more buyers? Well, I'm definitely considering it, so their plan may just work.

P.S. Did I ever mention that I am extremely gullible?

Comback Falls Short

Last night the Oilers found themselves in a 3 goal hole to the Detroit Red Wings after a relatively brutal showing in the first period. That deficit quickly grew to 4 goals and most thought that the Oilers were done for. However, the Edmonton kids still had something up their sleeves, they came back and managed to even the score at 4-4 with Detroit.

It would seem as though the Oilers had all the momentum to pull off their greatest comeback of the season, but like their season, they came up short. Detroit managed to sneak one past an upright-jumping Deslauries that eventually became the game winner with 1:07 left to play in regulation. The goal was reviewed for quite a few minutes, as many believed that it was tipped in by a high stick, but the Oilers ended up on the wrong side of the decision.

Scoring for the Oilers were: Gilbert (2), Stortini, Comrie
Scoring for the Red Wings were: Miller, Kronwall, Stuart, Franzen, Lilja

With the loss the Oilers secure the last place in the entire NHL.. embarrassing? Yes. On the positive side, they now have a 48% chance of landing the top draft pick, I like those odds.

NHL Mock Draft

NHL.com's "experts" have made their predictions for the 2010 NHL entry draft. I found some of them to be a little off with a few of their selections. In my opinion, only Morreale got the first three picks in the right order:
1. Edmonton-Taylor Hall
2. Boston-Tyler Seguin
3. New York Islanders-Cam Folwer

Edmonton should obviously pick Taylor Hall over Seguin. They are both unbelievable players, they finished in a dead lock for the OHL regular season scoring title with 106 points a piece but Hall had more assists and Seguin had more goals. If the Oilers are planning on bringing in Jordan Eberle for next years season he can also make the pass, but ofcourse he would rather shoot. Therefore, a new young-gun line with Hall and Eberle on it could be dynamite. We already saw them play together at the World Juniors, an experience in which Tyler missed out on. Scouts claim that being cut from the World Junior team does not affect your draft status, but seriously, how could it not?

I wouldn't say I completely agree with Jen Raimondi's mock draft, but I do like her pick of Jack Campbell going to the Chicago Blackhawks. Jack Campbell was the stud goalie for USA at the World Juniors this past year and opened up a lot of people's eyes with his skill in the net. Although he might not have an impact with Chicago for a few years, they are in desperate need of a strong goalie, and backup goalie for that matter. Most people believe that if the Blackhawks have one weakness heading into the playoffs it's in goal.

Thank God all of the mock drafts have a forward slotted into the Kings 21st pick. They have waaaay too many first round defensemen that they have accumulated in the past few years then they know what to do with. Since 2007 they have 4th overall pick Thomas Hickey who is still playing in the AHL, stud Drew Doughty the 2nd overall pick in 2008, Colten Teubert the Kings 13th overall pick in 2008 and Viatcheslav Voynov who they took 32nd overall also in 2008. Now why in their right mind would the Kings take three defensemen almost all in the first round? Did they really think that they were going to have spots for all of them? They don't even have room in their AHL farm team for them, and as a result Teuby has had to go to the ECHL to play more hockey. My guess is that they will move some of their defensive prospects on or before draft day.

Jordan Weal of the Regina Pats is not slotted into any of the mock drafts as a 1st rounder. But you never know. Some scouts didn't think Jordan Eberle would go until later in the second round and he ended up going 22nd overall. It all depends on what the team needs, if they need a hard working, fast goal scorer and have enough big guys already then Weal could easily slip into their radar.

June should be a very interesting and exciting time for these future NHL'ers, but please Edmonton.. go for Hall!

UFC 111 Post-Fights

Well, the UFC finally put on a good fight card.. and it even delivered! Ben "Killa B" Saunders never had a chance against Fitch. Fitch, it his usual fashion, laid on Ben for three solid rounds and got a decision. It is by no-means an exciting style of fighting to watch, but hey, he got the "W"and he would have been an idiot to stand with Saunders so I can't fault him for that.

Shane Carwin proved that he is the one who deserves to take on Brock Lesnar and not Frank Mir. The fight was relatively even until Carwin unloaded uppercuts onto Mir's chin and then finished him off on the ground, eerily similar to the way Brock beat Mir in their rematch. Brock seemed to think he was being tough when he told Shane that what he had was a "make-believe belt" and that he held the real one. It kind of back-fired when Shane agreed to this statement. Well, it's obvious, Brock does have the "real" belt, no one is denying that. The fight between Shane and Brock should be a good one, they both have a similar stand-up-and-bang style. It's hard to picture someone as big as Brock getting knocked out, but I'm sure Carwin will try his hardest to do it.

The main event featured welter-weight Stud Georges "Rush" St-Pierre taking on Dan "How the hell did I get a title shot" Hardy. Georges, as predicted, won the fight; but it wasn't quite in the fashion that Georges, nor I wanted. Georges easily got the decision and was close to finishing Hardy with two submissions but Hardy refused to tap. The most annoying part was that after the fight you couldn't even tell that Hardy had been in a fight, there wasn't a scratch or a bruise on his hideous face. Georges is obviously unreal, and like Fitch he also laid on Dan for the whole fight, but unlike Fitch, GSP made it exciting. However, I can't believe that GSP couldn't even finish off Hardy, and seemed to enflict no damage on him the entire fight. GSP needs to throw some more elbows and punches to the face in the guard instead of constant body punches. Those would obviously hurt, but don't expect a tap from those, they would be more annoying than anything. GSP will most likely take on either Kos or Paul Daley in his next fight, in the words of 80's classic Three Ninjas, "FINISH HIM!".

Overall, it was a good fight card and was finally worth the $44.95 pay-per-view price.

UFC 111 Preview

Finally, Georges St-Pierre will step back into the octagon tonight! Even though it isn't exactly against a "dream" opponent I don't mind that GSP will make his return to the octagon against Dan Hardy! Georges hasn't fought since UFC 100 so if GSP should suffer from any ring rust I would rather he get it out against Hardy then someone else. Wow, I just used GSP and ring rust in the same sentence, who am I kidding? It's GSP!

Hardy wants to pull a Matt Serra and "shock the world". Good luck. It won't be a shock to anyone when GSP damn near destroys Hardy. GSP should be looking harder than ever for a finish in this fight as his last decisive stoppage was against Matt Serra basically due to knees. But I mean, that was Matt Serra.

This has been the best fight card the UFC has put on in months! Unfortunately, the card took a major blow when Thiago "Pitbull" Alves was forced to withdraw after a failed cat-scan which showed "brain irregularity". He now has to undergo surgury, so it's legit, it's not a Karo Parisian case.

However, now that Thiago is out, Ben "Killa B" Saunders is in.. greeeat. The former Ultimate Fighter 6 competitor will take on Jon Fitch. A fight that could have been unreal, has dropped it's viewer value significantly. Against Thiago, I hoped that Fitch would lose, but against Ben I hope Fitch wins, funny how that happens. Basically, I never liked "Killa B" in the first place, has anyone else noticed how utterly annoying his laugh is? Too make matters worse, Dana White claims that if Ben wins he gets the next title shot! Are you kidding me?! I though Dan Hardy was bad, but Ben Saunders? The guys biggest win is against Marcus Davis, that isn't exactly something to be proud of.

Another belt is on the line as Frank Mir and Shane Carwin will duke it out for the interim Heavy-weight belt. Carwin is undefeated and sports an impressive 11-0 record. Frank Mir.. well he's a self proclaimed "athlete" but does have a sick BJJ game. These two beasts both came in at 265 pounds, I'm sure Joe Rogan will make note that Shane Carwin will be wearing specially made 4XL size gloves, he says it everytime he fights... every frickin' time.

The night that I have been waiting for for so long has finally arrived. GSP will be back in the octagon to hopefully continue his reign of domination in the welter weight devision. I can only hope that he puts on a clinic against Hardy!

UFC Fight Night

On a random Sunday night the UFC was providing everyone who was dreading work and school the next day with some entertainment. The event had many surprises, possibly the most shocking was that Clay Guida actually finished a fight! That must have felt very odd for him as he seems to have a love affair with decisions. However, I hate Clay Guida and a loss would have put him close to the line of being booted from the UFC, now I'll have to watch this cardio freak fight another day.

In the main event Jon "Bones" Jones took on Brandon "The Truth" Vera. Vera should seriously consider changing his nickname from "the truth" to "Mr. Inconsistent". Jones beat Vera via TKO after he hit Vera with a devastating elbow near the temple that resulted in 3 facial fractures for Brandon. But I pretty much hated him anyway, so the fact that he will be out for a while is no real big loss.

Check Kongo eventually got Buentello to tap out late in the third round, thank god. Buentello tried to be the hero as the doctor popped back in his dislocated pinky finger so that he could continue to fight in the first round. However, now his cornerman is whining and claiming that his pinky is what made him tap. Ok, so the fact that he is a fat mess and could barely walk and obviously was gassed had nothing to do with it, right? This makes me hate Buentello even more. If your pinky made you quit, then why did you wait another two and a half rounds to do so? If it was popped back in then what are you complaining about? If it still hurts, punch with the other hand you idiot! Maybe if you had any submissions or wresting or cardio you could have won the fight. But no. You lost, accept it.

Overall, it was a very entertaining night of fights, that being said thank god it was free because no one in their right mind would pay for a fight card that looked like that. T-minus 5 days until a real fighter steps into the octagon. No, I'm not talking about Dan Hardy.