Signing Round-ups...

You'll have to excuse me-the sunny weather over the past week or two, coupled with news dribbling in rather than flooding, has somewhat nixed the daily postings. However, there's now finally some movement starting to happen, so let's plunge into the merry-go-round...



Panthers re-sign several: The Nottingham Brit Pack is taking shape, with James Ferrara, Geoff Woolhouse and Marc Levers all back for another season at the NIC. One very talented youngster, a back-up goalie and a very effective second/third line grinder aren't a bad three signings to join Brendan Cook and Matt Myers, especially as none of them will be on big money and all are British assets...


Paul Sample to Giants: Belfast have already completed their Brit-pack, with news light on the new signing front thus far. Shane Johnson is of course another one on the roster joining the retuning Graham Walton, Mark Morrison and Stevie Lyle and new signing Dave Phillips.

Running themes thus far in the off-season involve Brits being snapped up quickly and few new players coming in just yet-Sheffield are the only team thus far to really make some signings on the import front, but they're following the Blaze template for success in the past few seasons by retaining as much of their squad as they can, with Doug Sheppard, Jeff Legue, Steve Munn, Randy Dagenais and Ryan Finnerty already taking up five of the import slots. Meanwhile, Manchester, Cardiff and Newcastle are also consolidating by re-signing (or, in the case of Phil Hamer at Manchester, rewarding through promotion) their young talent, Jez Lundin and Carl Graham chief among them. The big changes thus far have come at Basingstoke and Coventry, with Basingstoke losing Greg Owen and Derek Campbell and Coventry losing Rumun Ndur (not really a surprise), Neal Martin (ditto) and Trevor Koenig.

Perhaps the biggest single loss to a team (and indeed the league) thus far is Sean McAslan, who has left Nottingham for Denmark (a popular destination this season)-arguably the best forward in the league, the Panthers captain will be extremely difficult to replace...

That's enough of the outs and Brit ins...-what about the import movements?

Scott Kelman to Coventry: I nearly had a heart attack when someone texted me saying simply "Kelman has signed"...I thought they meant Todd from Belfast. However, Scott Kelman is 6'3 and 215lbs of power-forward from the ECHL. A former first-round draft-pick, he's a replacement for Curtis Huppe and looks quite useful, if nothing hugely special. However, stick him on a line with Carlyle Lewis (yes, I know the Snow Plough hasn't said he's signed yet and thus it can't be true, but my sources say it is) and Sylvain Cloutier and that is an intimidating threesome for any defensive pairing...(on a side note, thanks to the person who let me know about Kelman's signing just before he did-I just wish I'd checked the email a day earlier...)

JF Perras to Coventry: With Koenig gone, the same source as above tells me that Paul Thompson is talking to the Edinburgh stopper about a possible move south after the young Canadian showed flashes of brilliance at Murrayfield last season-this will be a signing which may divide people but I'm all for it-the Quebecois is a superb young goalie who will only get better. But then, Maxime Ouellet has also been mentioned, so who knows? Personally, I'd rather have a young hungry stopper than a failed 1st round draft-pick who can't seem to stay anywhere for long, but so be it.

Russ Cowley to Belfast: Fair enough. Although it makes little sense for either side of the deal-Belfast will be spending more money on someone who is at best a second-liner when they could likely get a comparable quality import more cheaply...quids would appear to be the main motivator for the move away from Coventry...

And moving away from rumours...

Go Pens!: The NHL is fun again, especially if you're a Pittsburgh fan. A Philadelphia-Pittsburgh conference final in the east, and Detroit vs Dallas in the west-four teams who can't half play entertaining hockey when they put their mind to it-watching them on 5 is far more fun than sleeping of a Wednesday evening ...In fact, in Britain at least, there's your advertising slogan....The Stanley Cup Finals. Sleep is Over-Rated...

And on that random tangent, we end another round-up post. Promise you won't have to wait quite so long for the next one, as we look at whether Brits could be pricing themselves too highly for hockey in Britain to survive...

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...