KERR NAMED EXPRESS ASST. COACH

(Taken from Greg Douglas' column Vancouver Sun May 27 2010)

Shortly after being named head coach of Darcy Rota's Coquitlam Express Junior A hockey club, Jon Calvano convinced Grant Kerr to join him as an assistant. Calvano and Kerr worked together with the North West Giants of the B.C. Major Midget League for the past five years. Kerr, a journalist by trade, won the Jake Milford Plaque in 2001 for his contributions to hockey in B.C. Rota won the same award in 2007.

EXPRESS INTERESTED IN MERTH?

(Taken from Coquitlam Now)

There'll be no free agent windfall to take to the bank, but Anmore's Danny Merth will get a say in where he plays.

The forward became a free agent Monday when the B.C. Hockey League board of governors voted to suspend the Williams Lake Timberwolves for the 2010-11 season due to financial reasons.

The league also decided to make all the club's players free agents and not hold a dispersal draft.

"I found out when one of the owners, Richard Kohlen, called me Monday to say that it looked like the team would be suspended," the 19-year-old Merth said. "He said they couldn't work out a deal to sell the team, the owners couldn't agree and the league was running out of time."

It means Merth can look for a situation that benefits him and help him attract a possible scholarship.

"I'm just going to look for a place where I can play -- I'd like to play close to home, if I could."

The Coquitlam Express' Darcy Rota said the team is looking at Merth, and a couple of other T-wolves, for the upcoming season.

"We're talking about some of the players, it's something Jon (Calvano, Coquitlam head coach and director of hockey operations) and I are discussing," Rota, the club's president and general manager, said. "We talked about (Merth), we like Danny and the Merth family is a great family."

He played for the Express in 2008-09 as an affiliate player. He also cheered on the club when older brother Peter anchored the blueline for two years in Coquitlam and one season in Burnaby.

The younger brother said the past year in Williams Lake started well, but money troubles and on-ice struggles began to take a toll at Christmas.

"The first half of the season was good, we weren't expected to do too much, with so many rookies. Around Christmas I guess the owners began having problems, they started to trade our veterans and things kind of fell apart from there."

As a rookie with the last place T-wolves, the six-foot-one Merth tallied 10 goals and 18 assists in 49 games.

League commissioner John Grisdale said the governors had little choice when it came to freezing the franchise.

"The options under our bylaws are quite clear and they were a team that were not in good standing financially."

LADD & BLACKHAWKS TO PLAY FOR CUP

Andrew Ladd is going back to the Stanley Cup Finals. His Blackhawks completed a 4 game sweep of the San Jose Sharks with a 4-2 come from behind win in game 4 of the Western Conference finals.

It wasn't all good for the former Express, Ladd left game 4 with a undisclosed injury after playing just 2:14 of ice time.

This spring Ladd has 2 goals and 1 assist for 3 points in 15 games.

The Maple Ridge native will be looking for his second cup ring. He won a Stanley Cup in his rookie season in 05-06 with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Chicago will play the winner of the Eastern Conference finals between Philadelphia and Montreal where the Flyers have a 3-1 series lead.

The Hawks return to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since being swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1992 and are looking to snap the longest current cup drought in NHL at 49 years which dates back to 1961.

Ladd played with the Express for the 02-03 season putting up 15 goals and 55 points in 58 games. From there, he was off to the WHL where he starred with the Calgary Hitmen and was drafted 4th overall in 2004.

There's another Express connection in this cup final, Keith Seabrook's older brother Brent stars on the Blackhawks back end.

Personally as a Canuck fan it's been tough seeing Chicago knock off Vancouver the last 2 years. But you can't help but admire just how good Chicago is. Their speed, skill, grit and tenacity is certainly something to be admired.

USHL GOALIE GOAL

This isn't Express or BCHL related but, Fargo Force goalie Ryan Massa in the USHL scored a goal in a recent playoff game. It's not a total surprise it happened, goalie goals are rare, but you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. They all pretty much are all the same.

But why I bring this one up is how mellow dramatic and ho hum the play by play announcer Jason Habeck of the Green Bay Gamblers is while calling the goal.

Check it out...

CATCHING UP WITH THE GM

Tuesday I had a chance to catch up with Express President and GM Darcy Rota. We talked about a number of topics, but mostly we discussed the hiring of Jon Calvano as the new Head Coach.

Click below to hear from the GM.

KEITH SEABROOK ARTICLE

Taken from the AHL Website.

Seabrook wants to make NHL a family affair

April 14, 2010

by A.J. Atchue || for NHL.com

Keith Seabrook has enjoyed a solid rookie season as a defenseman with the Abbotsford Heat as he looks to eventually embark on a career in the National Hockey League.

For now, though, being the younger brother of an NHL mainstay has its perks, especially when that brother also plays in the Olympic gold-medal game.

Keith is the younger brother of Chicago Blackhawks rearguard Brent Seabrook, a former first-round draft pick who began his pro career with the AHL’s Norfolk Admirals before moving to full-time duty on the Blackhawks’ blue line in 2005-06.

Brent, who is three years older than Keith, earned a spot on Canada’s Olympic squad in Vancouver and prepared to take on the United States in the Feb. 28 gold-medal match.

Less than 24 hours before that puck drop, Keith and the Heat were wrapping up an East Coast road trip in Worcester, Mass. Keith quickly drove down to New York City and caught a red-eye flight out west, and he made it to the arena in time to see his brother and the rest of the Canadians win gold.

“It was unbelievable, definitely something I’ll never forget and my brother will never forget,” he said. “To be able to experience that and hang out with him afterwards, it was just unbelievable.”

The Seabrook brothers grew up near Delta, B.C., and their father had them on skates by the time they were three or four years old. When the time came to begin playing organized hockey, Keith – and Brent, to a lesser extent – started out at the forward position.

But as a result of a lineup scramble in a pee-wee tournament, Keith’s career as a defenseman was soon born.

“We were in a tournament, and my team didn’t have enough defensemen, so I played defense for the tournament,” he said. “I was pretty good at it, so ever since then, since I was about seven or eight, I’ve been playing defense.”

So far, the switch seems to be working out rather nicely for Seabrook, who was drafted in the second round (No. 52) by the Washington Capitals in 2006 and acquired by the Calgary Flames in a trade last summer.

During the AHL regular season, which concluded on Sunday, Seabrook led all Heat defensemen with 10 goals and shared first place with 28 points. He appeared in 78 of the team’s 80 games, only missing a February contest due to the flu before being given the regular-season finale off.

The first-year Heat finished third in the AHL’s North Division at 39-29-5-7 for 90 points and will open the Calder Cup Playoffs against the Rochester Americans on Thursday night.

“(I’m strong at) making the first pass, my shot, I have a good shot from the point, and just vision for the ice,” Seabrook said. “All those things kind of add up together, and I think they make me the player that I am.”

Seabrook’s vision and shooting ability turned him into a key element of Abbotsford’s power play this season. The 21-year-old registered 17 of his 28 total points – seven goals and 10 assists – on the man advantage, earning him a share of the team lead in power-play points.

“He’s got a great first pass, and he sees the ice really well,” said Abbotsford head coach Jim Playfair, a former assistant and head coach with the Flames who also led Calgary’s AHL affiliate in Saint John, N.B., to the Calder Cup title in 2001.

“He’s learning how to move along the blue line much better and create different shooting lanes and different options,” Playfair said. “He doesn’t need a whole lot off room to get his shot off and get it through. He’s got a very deceptive, hard, quick shot, and he does a good job of getting shots through from the point.”

Seabrook has taken full advantage of his heavy workload on the power play as the season progressed.

“I’ve always been an offensive guy and a power play guy, but I didn’t expect to be playing this much power-play time early on (in my career),” he said. “But I’ve been lucky and been thrown out there, and have had a lot of trust put in me to go to the points on power plays, so it’s been nice.”

He seems to be pretty settled now, but Seabrook took a somewhat circuitous route to the professional ranks prior to this year, at least compared to many other young players.

After a couple years playing Junior “A” hockey in British Columbia, he took his game to the University of Denver in 2006-07 but posted only 13 points in 37 games for the Pioneers.

Seabrook decided to leave school at the end of that one year and play major junior instead, and he spent the next two seasons with Calgary of the WHL, erupting for 55 points in 64 games during the 2008-09 campaign.

“I really liked Denver, liked going to school, liked the team, and I had a lot of fun there,” Seabrook said. “But coming off the year before and then going to a 35-game season (at Denver), it was a little different and a little tougher for me. I think making the jump back to that pro-like schedule of hockey really helped me out.”

Having experienced both the college and junior games, Seabrook knew that to make a successful jump to the American Hockey League, building up his strength was of the utmost importance.

“Everyone’s a little bit bigger and stronger,” he said. “I worked on my strength and my speed over the summer, and I think I got a good head start on this league. I think I’ve adapted pretty well so far.”

Adjusting to the pro style of play has been an ongoing process for Seabrook this year, and Playfair is impressed with the defenseman’s commitment to improving his skills in practice and then translating that into game situations.

“He’s calm under pressure for a young player, and he’s in a situation where he has three or four other young players around him,” Playfair said. “I think his confidence and his ability to play a lot of minutes have improved. He’s developed a mindset where he has to prepare to improve each and every day. And his practices have improved, games have improved, and his overall physical play has improved.”

“When he’s not physical, he’s an average player. When he’s real physical, he can be an effective player.”

Naturally, Seabrook doesn’t have to look too far if he needs any extra drive to continue improving and eventually make it up to the NHL.

Though they often have significantly different schedules, he and his brother usually talk once a week during the season and try to give tips to each other as they go along. While Brent is established as a full-fledged NHL defenseman, Keith is still finding his way there.

“It’s definitely motivation for me and something that that I strive to get to,” Keith said.

“Over time, his quickness and length of his strides are issues that he needs to pay attention to, and also his overall conditioning,” Playfair said. “Once he gets those two things up to speed, I think there’s no reason why he can’t be a very effective National Hockey League player.”

TURRIS AMONG 8 RECALLED BY COYOTES

Former Express Kyle Turris was among 8 players the Phoenix Coyotes have called up from their AHL affiliate in San Antonio in preparation for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Turris played the entire season with the Rampage finishing second in team scoring with 24 goals and 63 points in 76 games. He lead all Rampage players with 39 helpers.

The 3rd overall pick in the 2007 draft was sent to San Antonio in the pre-season. In his first full professional season, Turris managed 8 goals and 12 assists for 20 points in 63 games in 08-09 with the Coyotes.

Phoenix will play their first playoff game since 2002 Wednesday night when they host the defending Western Conference Champion Detroit Red Wings.