News Roundup 6/13/24
NOTICE: This article is NSFW. The NSFW content is at the very end of the article. I should also warn you that the stories I cover at the end are about suicide and sexual assault. I will warn you before we get to those stories in case you have no interest in reading about those subjects.
With that out of the way, welcome back to News Roundup. Even though most of the hockey world is in the off-season the news keeps coming. Another champion has been crowned, another is halfway to being crowned, and another championship series is to begin soon. In addition to that, there’s an update to Carl Latulippe’s lawsuit against the QMJHL and more.
Before we get to that, the queer population living in Kakuma refugee Camp in Kenya need help. There are over 1,000 queer asylum seekers and refugees there, fleeing from discrimination. Unfortunately, their basic needs are not met and they cannot seek employment as it is illegal for queers there to have jobs. There is a fundraiser on Go Get Funding and if you are able, please financially support them, and whether you can give money or not, please share the fundraiser and get out the word. You can follow the organizers of this fundraiser on Twitter.
North American Hockey Playoffs
We’ll start in the ECHL where the Kelly Cup Finals have concluded and to the dismay of 26 fanbases in the league, the Florida Everblades have pulled off the first three-peat in league history. They defeated the regular season champion Kansas City Mavericks in five games, the only close game was the final one, which went into overtime (and obviously Florida won, by a score of 4-3). Not only have they pulled off the first three-peat, but they are the first team in the league to win four championships and have made it to the Finals seven times. Oliver Chau was named June M. Kelly Playoffs Most Valuable Player Award after putting up 23 points in 23 games (tied for playoff lead), including six goals in the Kelly Cup Finals.
That isn’t the only bit of ECHL news, though. The roster-building process has begun with protected lists being submitted to league offices. Frankly, I don’t know why this exists as every eligible player always gets claimed, er, protected, and from what I can tell from people who cover the ECHL for a living, they don’t know what the point of this is either. But, it’s still the first step in roster building, even if it doesn’t have a real reason to exist (seemingly). If you work in ECHL league offices or one of the organizations and you actually understand why this exists and the importance of it, please hit me up. Anyway, if you do want to see the protected lists yourself, the ECHL has posted them on their website.
Going up a level, the Calder Cup Finals in the AHL are set. It will be a repeat of last year with the Hershey Bears taking on the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Last season it ended with Hershey winning in seven games. Hershey was on the verge of missing out on the Finals this season as they went up 3-0 over the Cleveland Monsters in the Semifinals, but Cleveland won three straight and forced game seven to go into overtime, where Hershey won 3-2. Coachella Valley had a much easier road to the Finals as they defeated the Milwaukee Admirals in five games in the Semifinals. The series will start tomorrow night at 7:00 EDT in Hershey.
Then there’s the NHL. The Stanley Cup Final is halfway through the guaranteed set of games and the Florida Panthers are up 2-0 in the series over the Edmonton Oilers. The first two games were in Florida and tonight the series shifts to Edmonton, so we’ll see if the Oilers can use that home-ice advantage to get back into the series or not.
That isn’t the only thing going on in the NHL, though. The first thing that must be mentioned is the Washington Capitals buying out CapFriendly. They are buying it out and shutting down the highly useful tool so the public cannot use it anymore. Meanwhile, all the data in CapFriendly will be used for the Capitals internal database. It may surprise many people to know that there is no internal CapFriendly-type database in the NHL for all the teams to use. Each one has to create their own database. Some, according to Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast, never bothered creating one and just used CapFriendly instead. So, it wasn’t just you the fan using it, there’s a genuine chance the GM of your favorite team was using it while working on trades. Now, the Capitals have removed this database from rival organizations and used it to bolster their own. While the organizations that don’t have their own database may not be happy, it’s safe to say many teams and those running the NHL are happy. The reason for this is that the NHL considers the information on CapFriendly to be proprietary. Friedman did say on the 32 Thoughts podcast that they don’t like the existence of sites such as CapFriendly. They see the salary stuff as things that should be confidential. Now I saw many fans say it’s because of LTIR loopholes, but I don’t think it’s that deep. I really don’t think the NHL cares one bit about what the Golden Knights do with Mark Stone in February. If they did, something would’ve been done about it by now but everything we keep hearing is that they’re not planning to close the loopholes. So that’s not likely to be it. I think it’s far more likely to be that they don’t want player salaries to be understood. When contract information is out there public like it is on CapFriendly, it makes it easier for players to demand more money. GMs and owners do not want to pay players more money. They want contracts to be artificially low. This is all about keeping player contracts down, it’s all about power for ownership and management. Class warfare, in other words. CapFriendly is beneficial to players and ultimately harmful to GMs and owners. Remember: the NHL does not represent players, the NHLPA does. The NHL represents management and ownership. I think that’s far more likely to be the reason they don’t like CapFriendly rather than Mark Stone going on LTIR in February. I’ll just leave you with this tweet I found that I feel drives that point home:
PWHL News
The PWHL has not been lacking in news lately. Earlier this week I covered the firing of Minnesota GM Natalie Darwitz and the draft. More news has broken in the last few days, though, the first of which is New York extending goaltender Corinne Schroeder for two more seasons. The final year of her contract will be 2025-26.
The next story is about who won what award. Yep. The first-ever PWHL awards have been handed out, and here’s who won what:
Billie Jean King MVP Award and Forward of the Year: Natalie Spooner (PWHL Toronto)
Defender of the Year Award: Erin Ambrose (PWHL Montréal)
Goaltender of the Year Award: Kristen Campbell (PWHL Toronto)
Rookie of the Year Award: Grace Zumwinkle (PWHL Minnesota)
Coach of the Year Award: Troy Ryan (PWHL Toronto)
Hockey For All Award presented by Scotiabank: Maureen Murphy (PWHL Montréal)
For those who don’t know what the “Hockey For All Award” is, the PWHL defines it as this: “The award recognizes the player who had the greatest impact in their community during the season.”
Those weren’t the only things announced, all-star and all-rookie teams were announced as well, and here those are:
First All-Star Team:
Forwards: Alex Carpenter (NY), Marie-Philip Poulin (MTL), Natalie Spooner (TOR)
Defenders: Ella Shelton (NY) and Erin Ambrose (MTL)
Goaltender: Kristen Campbell (TOR)
Second All-Star Team:
Forwards: Brianne Jenner (OTT), Sarah Nurse (TOR), Grace Zumwinkle (MIN)
Defenders: Renata Fast (TOR) and Megan Keller (BOS)
Goaltender: Aerin Frankel (BOS)
All-Rookie Team:
Forwards: Emma Maltais (TOR), Alina Müller (BOS), Grace Zumwinkle (MIN)
Defenders: Ashton Bell (OTT) and Sophie Jaques (MIN)
Goaltender: Emma Söderberg (BOS)
Various News
Now we come to more serious news, so if you don’t want to read about head trauma, sexual assault, and suicide, now is a good time to stop reading this article.
The first is that Paul Montador, the father of late former NHL player Steve Montador, has finally gotten the right to have his lawsuit against the NHL come to court. For those unaware, for nine years he has been fighting against the NHL to have his lawsuit decided by a judge. The lawsuit alleges the NHL promotes and profits off violence while not doing enough to educate players on the risks of repeated long-term brain injuries. Back in 2015, the Canadian Sports Concussion Project disclosed that the former NHL player had suffered from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). That’s when his father, Paul, decided to fight the NHL in court. Meanwhile, the NHL has this to say about the lawsuit: “During his life, Montador struggled with substance abuse, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and strained/abusive personal relationships. Despite being repeatedly made aware of and informed about potential long-term risks of head injuries, including CTE, by numerous individuals as detailed above, Montador continued to play in the NHL for years.” The trial will begin on March 27, 2025, in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago.
Keeping the focus on legal news, the CHL and QMJHL are looking to appeal a decision that allowed Carl Latulippe to continue with a class action lawsuit over abuse, hazing, and maltreatment he alleges to have been rampant during his time playing. I have been covering this story for a while now, and if you want to read how this all started, here’s my original article on all this. The hearing for the appeal will take place on June 18.
The last piece of legal news is that the lawyers for the five players from the 2018 Canada World Juniors team accused of sexual assault (Dillon Dube, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart, Michael McLeod, and Cal Foote) had a virtual appearance in a London court on June 11. A trial date will not be set until August 13, and it’s expected that the case won’t begin until late April 2025 at the earliest.
The final story of the day is a rather sad one as 18-year-old Russian hockey player Roman Zyryanov jumped in front of a train to commit suicide. He played for the Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod U18 team.
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