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Nachbaur’s time in Tri-City extended by at least one season |
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Written by Citizen Staff
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Thursday, 27 November 2008 |
WHL NOTES -- by JIM SWANSON, Citizen Sports Editor
The quiet questions around the future of a Prince George-raised coach will stop now.
At least for a year.
Don Nachbaur’s contract as head coach of the Tri-City Americans, due to expire at the end of the current season, has been extended by one season.
Nachbaur, 49, is one victory shy of 400 for his WHL career, which includes lengthy terms running the Seattle Thunderbirds and the Americans. Nachbaur would’ve had that 400th win on Wednesday night when his team beat Everett 2-1, but Nachbaur was part of the coaching staff in Swift Current as Team WHL blanked Russia 5-0. Nine other coaches have recorded 400 wins in WHL history, the most recent being the well-respected Don Hay, who has coached Kamloops, Tri-City and now the Vancouver Giants in and around time spent in the NHL.
Nachbaur has a 197-140-13-8 record for the Americans and was quite correctly named WHL coach of the year last season for leading Tri-City to its first league championship, hoisting the regular season banner to the rafters this spring. It was the first banner of any kind for the Americans. Speculation had surfaced about his interest in the head coach position with the Kamloops Blazers last summer -- Nachbaur spent part of his childhood in Kamloops.
BAUER BACK IN WHL -- Former Prince George Cougars defenceman Trevor Bauer, released earlier in the month, has been added to the roster of the Everett Silvertips, who have battled injury problems on the back end all season. Bauer hasn’t dressed yet -- he’s still looking for his first WHL point after 28 games as a Cat... The Kelowna Rockets have signed California forward Shane McColgan, a highly-regarded first-round pick from last year, and the 15-year-old will make his WHL debut in upcoming games against Red Deer and Edmonton... The Saskatoon Blades demoted forward Cody Chilkie, 17, to the AJHL’s Sherwood Park Crusaders... Swift Current D Eric Doyle replaced an ill John Negrin, he of the Kootenay Ice, in last night’s ADT Challenge game, and Saskatoon’s Derek Hulak took the place of Calgary winger Brandon Kozun. As well, Prince Albert Raiders forward Dustin Cameron filled in for Evander Kane of the Giants, who has had a bad heel... In case you’re curious, the decision by Cougars coaches Drew Schoneck and Wade Klippenstein to don helmets in practice isn’t being copied around the league. No other WHL coach has followed suit.
MINOR DEAL -- The Blazers sent D Jordan Rowley to the Raiders on Wednesday for fellow blueliner Zac Stebner, an exchange of 18-year-olds... C Scott Glennie of Brandon was named both WHL and CHL player of the week for putting up eight points in three games... The Chilliwack Bruins, hungry for consistent offence, took a big hit on the weekend when veteran centre Jadon Potter crashed into the boards and had to be taken from the ice on a stretcher. Potter, 19, is wearing a hard neck brace and may not be back this season -- but it could’ve been worse. “It’s going to be a long and slow healing process,” Bruins GM Darrell May told the Vancouver Province. “I’ve been told he’ll be wearing a neck brace for eight weeks. Any damage to the neck and that area is very serious. It’s certainly as bad as we’ve seen around here.”... The Portland Winter Hawks released overage D Scott Gabriel, and the Regina Pats claimed him on waivers -- except that Gabriel, a six-foot-five, physical-type who started his career in Vancouver, has decided he wants to finish his junior playing in the AJHL with Sherwood Park... Ex-Cat Prab Rai celebrated his 19th birthday on the weekend with a five-point night. If you attend a Canucks game this season, you’ll likely see an “on the farm” profile of Rai that is being shown on the GM Place jumbotron. The Cougars traded Rai, who quit the team, to Seattle two seasons ago... With Marc Crawford in town to watch his daughter play in high school volleyball provincials, how long until Hartley Miller asks him if he wants to be the next coach of the Cougars?
UNHAPPY BRONCOS -- The people who run Swift Current’s franchise were very happy with their civic government not too long ago. Now, they’re hopping mad. The city, apparently without consulting the Broncos, has lured the 2010 World World Curling Championship to that broom-mad region, but it will push hockey out of the building at a very inopportune time -- the first round of the playoffs. Assuming the Broncos are in the post-season, they’d have to play their home games elsewhere. “You couldn’t pick a worse 10 days,” team chairman Joe Arling told the Prairie Post. Head coach and general manager Dean Chynoweth is steaming. “The problem for me is the process that took place and that we weren’t included in it. The feelings are obviously mixed (because) we thought we weren’t included in the process. We’re the main tenant of this building and it will be an unprecedented situation of a team being out of their building the entire playoffs.” Swift Current mayor Sandy Larson doesn’t appear ready to change anything. “We have a long-established working relationship, a fantastic partnership, with the Broncos and I am a little surprised with their comments.”
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 27 November 2008 )
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