USA Hockey

Daily Dose of the Dub: Patera signs with Brandon; Hanas scores but U.S. falls in Five Nations opener; T-birds and Royals announce training camps

Written by Brandon Rivers on

Hanas and USA’s U17 team falls in opener

Portland Winterhawks center Cross Hanas is playing with USA Hockey’s U17 team at the Five Nations Tournament in Piestany, Slovakia. Hanas scored in the opening game of the tournament and the U.S. grossly out shot the Czech Republic but could not fight all the way back from an early two-goal deficit and fell 3-2.

Hanas scored his goal on a rebound on the power play. The U.S. next plays at 8am EST (5am PST) Friday against Switzerland in Piestany.

 

Seattle training camp announced

The Seattle Thunderbirds announced their training camp schedule on Wednesday. It opens next Wednesday and Thursday with scrimmages between 2002 and 2003-born players. It then continues with main camp where all players at camp will take part in the scrimmages.

Camp then finishes up with a White vs Blue game at 5:30 pm. All games take place at accesso ShoWare Center.

 

Victoria also announces camp

The Victoria Royals also announced the schedule for their training camp. Rookie camp begins on Thursday, August 23rd and ends on the 26th. Main camp then starts the following day and goes through Tuesday. Their teams at the camp are named the Salmon Kings, Cougars and Aristocrats.

These are all previous franchises in the city of Victoria.

Patera signs with Brandon

The Brandon Wheat Kings were the latest team to sign their 2018 CHL Import pick. They inked 1999-born goalie Jiri Patera to a standard player agreement.

Where Patera is different than a lot of the players who have signed is he has already been drafted by an NHL team. The Praha, Czech Republic native was taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in the sixth round, 161st overall at the 2017 draft.

Last season, Patera suited up for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the USHL. He played in 34 games and posted a 3.44 GAA and 0.901 save percentage.

He was drafted in 2017 after posting the top GAA and save percentage in the Czech U20 league. He also won the gold with the Czech Republic at the U18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament.

Patera has a good shot at winning the crease in Brandon after Logan Thompson aged out. Returning for the team in net is 1999-born Dylan Myskiw. 2001-born Ethan Kruger will be trying to get on the roster as well after being with the team in the playoffs but not playing.

Myskiw replaced Thompson in the playoffs after the older goalie was injured. Myskiw posted a 3.51 GAA and 0.891 save percentage in 11 playoff games.

Links and notes:

–The upgrades to the Credit Union iPlex are almost done. A big part of the upgrade is a new sound system.

-A nice write up on new Kamloops Blazers assistant coach Dan Kordic. He looked back on the 1988 WHL final where his Medicine Hat Tigers defeated the Blazers.

-There are some really exciting prospects in the U.S. Here’s a look at some of the younger ones. Chaz Lucius is mentioned as a player to look out for. He was drafted by the Portland Winterhawks in the fourth round of the 2018 WHL Bantam Draft.

Prospect Need to Know: counting down the phenoms

-Regina Pats defenseman Cale Fleury is a player to keep a close eye on as NHL camps roll around. He was drafted in the third round of the 2017 NHL draft by the Montreal Canadiens but has yet to be signed. The 1998-born blue liner will return for an overage season if he is not signed.