– The Manitoba Senior Baseball League’s 2014 regular season will start about ten days later than normal. Opening day for the MSBL will be Friday, May 30th, with a 20-game regular season for the five teams again this year. In addition to setting opening day, the league also voted to accept a two-year agreement with Baseball Manitoba’s Umpire Committee to coordinate officiating services at their semi-annual meeting Monday. The league also agreed to pursue a bid to host the 2016 Baseball Canada Senior Championship.
– Curtis Valk’s goal with 36 seconds left in the third period lifted the Medicine Hat Tigers to a 2-1 victory over the Kootenay Ice in WHL playoff action Monday night. The result leaves the Eastern Conference semifinal tied 3-3, and sets up a seventh and deciding game Wednesday night in Medicine Hat. It’ll be the first Game #7 of the 2014 WHL post-season.
– Wheat Kings’ captain Ryan Pulock made his AHL debut Monday night, going pointless in Bridgeport’s 4-2 loss to the Adirondack Phantoms. Pulock joined the Islanders’ farm team after the Wheat Kings were eliminated from the WHL playoffs. The 19-year old Grandview product is also expected to play in Bridgeport’s final two regular season games later this week but will then have his season end as the Sound Tigers will miss the AHL playoffs.
– Former Brandon Wheat Kings’ defenceman Colby Robak cleared waivers Monday and has been sent back to AHL’s San Antonio Rampage by the Florida Panthers. Robak played in the final 16 regular season games with Florida, recording two assists, going minus-4 and averaging 18:34 of icetime.
– It was a Black Monday for at least one National Hockey League coach. The only head coach in Nashville Predators’ history will not be back next season as former Dauphin King coach and player Barry Trotz will not return for a 16th season with the team. Trotz has been with the Predators since the franchise’s first game in 1998, and finishes his Predators career with 557 wins and 479 losses.
– Canada beat Denmark 7-2 Monday in their final tuneup before the start of the World Under-18 Hockey Championship. Brayden Point of the Moose Jaw Warriors had two goals and an assist for Canada. Wheat Kings’ centre John Quenneville joined the team Monday but did not play in the contest. The World Under-18 Hockey Championship opens Thursday in Finland.
– The Allan Cup opened Monday in Dundas, Ontario with Manitoba’s South East Prairie Thunder dropping a 4-3 decision to the host Dundas Real McCoys in their opening round-robin game. Brad Purdie, Ryan St. Laurent and Shea Hamilton scored the goals for the Prairie Thunder while Steve Christie made 32 saves in the South East net. Next game for the Prairie Thunder is Wednesday against Alberta’s Bentley Generals.
– Former Brier and world champion curler Richard Hart is coming out of retirement and will rejoin Glenn Howard’s rink. Hart played as a third for Howard’s rink from 2000 to 2011, where he picked up a number of accolades including the 2007 Brier and world championship. Former Jeff Stoughton third Jon Mead will play second on Howard’s new team while Craig Savill is sticking around to play the lead position.
– It’ll be the final hurrah for the old versions of several teams when the Grand Slam of Curling Players Championship begins Tuesday in Summerside, PEI. Kevin Koe, Jeff Stoughton, Kevin Martin and Glenn Howard are among the 12 teams competing, and all will be doing so with alignments that won’t be intact seven days from now. Olympic gold medalist Brad Jacobs and Mike McEwen are among the other teams competing in the men’s field while Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Jones and reigning Canadian champion Rachel Homan are part of the 12-team women’s field.
– The Toronto Blue Jays start a three-game set against the Twins Tuesday night in Minnesota. Left-fielder Melky Cabrera is on a 13-game hitting streak and Jose Bautista has also reached safely in all 13 games this season. Right-hander Brandon Morrow takes the mound for the Jays, who won their first series of the season, against Baltimore over the weekend. The Twins counter with Phil Hughes.
– Monday night in the NBA, Toronto cemented its franchise-best season with its 48th win, 110-100 over the Milwaukee Bucks. Greivis Vazquez started in place of DeMar DeRozan and scored 25 points. Before the game, the Raptors unfurled their Atlantic Division champion banner at Air Canada Centre.
– The Conference Board of Canada says Quebec City and Hamilton appear to meet the requirements for an NHL franchise in the near future. And it believes the country could support as many as three more franchises within the next two decades — with the third emerging in the Greater Toronto area by 2035. The board doesn’t think the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan will have the population or corporate presence to support NHL teams.
