Vacation, shmaycation

A bunch of things decided they would take place the weekend I was off in Far Far Away (no donkeys included, but several cows and kittens. Also no reception).

First, when players become DJs:

Best remix for nightclub by DJ Jods (@OliJods10) feat DJ Narby (@Jonarby15) Official Pre-Game song of : Shawinigan Cataractes QMJHL

I may or may not be playing it at work at times that are not my lunch break such as it is currently.

When DJs become scorers:
SHA Raphaël Maheux, (1) (Frédérick Gaudreau, Dylan Labbé)
DRU Bryce Milson, (1) (Jérôme Verrier, Jordan Murray)
DRU Jérémy Auger, (1) (Jérôme Verrier)
SHA Olivier Jodoin, (1) (Zachary Taylor, Lukas Pozgay)
SHA JC Campagna, (1) (Jonathan Narbonne, Jean-Christophe Houde)
SHA Jonathan Narbonne, (1) (Dylan Labbé, Frédérick Gaudreau)
DRU Olivier Archambault, (3) (Nikolas Brouillard, Jérémie Malouin)

Aaaand with the Volts no longer capable of keeping up the charge they had going in the first, #theshawi wins 4-3, Narbonne with the GWG. News dropped this morning that he has since joined the Moncton Wildcats as part of a trade that was originally thought to alleviate the 20-year old player count on the Memorial Cup champs' roster, at least until it was revealed that Patrick Downe is also 20. So why split up the DJs?

Hang on, this is a Drummondville blog. Moving on...

Scraping out a W in Victo: After that disappointing loss against #theshawi, the Volts decided to take it out on the Tigres. It took until 17:05 of the second period for someone to score, and that someone was Victo's Philippe Hudon. At the tail end of a power play (!) to open the 3rd, Marc-Olivier Brouillard tied the game with help from Olivier Archambault and Jordan Murray. The latter then enlisted the same guys to help him win the game in overtime, the end result of a major penalty on Hudon who had taken out his frustrations on the younger Brouillard behind Drummondville's net and thus permitted a 4 on 3 to begin the overtime period.

Drummondville is now 4-3-0-0 to start the season and take on the winless Sherbrooke Phoenix on Wednesday.

Hrabarenka, so long (for real, now): We knew this already, but it's official now. Raman Hrabarenka/Graborenko/That Guy has moved on to greener pastures in Albany, which officially also opens up a Euro spot...

And then there was Török: Speaking of Sherbrooke, they traded 6'2" right-winger Tomáš Török to the Volts for a sixth round pick in 2014, which alleviates said extra Euro spot and gives the Slovakian a chance to take on his former teammates as soon as tomorrow. The 17 year old recorded 20 points in 9 games with HVK Svolen's Under-18s and four points in 13 games with their Under-20s last season. He had only played in 5 of Sherbrooke's 7 games before being traded, picking up 1 assist.

Howes it going: Scott Howes made a brief appearance at Texas Stars' training camp, and then back to Allen to participate in the Americans' training camp, where it was discovered that not only have they invited his brother Andrew to take part, but also another Andrew...Randazzo. The Ontario bracket of Drummondville seems to be quite aptly represented in the Lone Star State!

Lefebvre with Wheeling: In Bulldogs' camp, the roster that began with 43 players is continuing to thin out, as Hamilton have released one-time Voltigeur Olivier Fortier and sent Philippe Lefebvre down to the ECHL. For their part, Frédéric St-Denis and Gabriel Dumont are expected to be part of the final Bulldogs' roster.

University roundup: The CIS season is already underway, and should you be looking for more local forms of hockey to replace the NHL and can't always get to Drummondville (like me in the last, oh, two years), you can still have an alumni-fix (and take part in some really cool, competitive hockey):

Jean-Philippe Mathieu, Ryan McKiernan, Marc-Olivier Vachon, Jonathan Brunelle, and Benoit Levesque are (at last check) McGill Redmen;
Corey Garland and Olivier Jannard are Concordia Stingers;
Guillaume Nadeau and Olivier Hotte are Patriotes (UQTR);

...and a bunch of teams have yet to play so I cannot appropriately peruse their rosters.

Look, this already happened:
Jonathan Brunelle (Jean-Philippe Mathieu & Marc-Olivier Vachon) !!!

Alumni to return to Drummondville: La Tournée des Joueurs is set to visit Drummondville next Thursday, the 18th of October at 7 p.m. Tickets are going on sale for Volts' season ticket holders this Thursday and Friday from 9-9 before being opened up to the public on Saturday at 10 a.m. The latter sale is also supposedly going to be made available online and by phone, and the tickets (that get snatched up rather quickly) cost $20.

The Forever Preseason is Finally Over

The biggest and best headline this post has to offer is the one above.
Drummondville's record: 3-3-0-1 in seven games spread out over five months. That leads to a scathingly precise .500 record. Meh!

However, in those 7 games, the power play had an efficiency of 30% and 29 goals were scored.

Points leaders:
Bryce Milson (6 goals, 4 assists)
Marc-Olivier Brouillard (3 goals, 7 assists)
Olivier Archambault (one goal, 9 assists)
Jordan Murray (2 goals, 7 assists)
Jérôme Verrier (5 goals, 2 assists)

The first regular-season game is this Friday at 7:30 p.m. in #theshawi against none other than the defending Memorial Cup Champions.  The Cataractes have had a surprisingly good preseason, going 5-3-0-0 in their eight matchups (they also scored 29 goals).
 
What of Hrabarenka?: Apparently it's still a case of the wait-and-see with the Belarussian defenseman, who will report to Albany despite the influx of people previously playing in the NHL having been assigned there this weekend. Should he return to Drummondville, Dominic Ricard gets to be the one to decide what happens next.

Sean, we hardly knew ye: Today's most duh-worthy news goes to the fact that Sean Couturier will not be returning to Drummondville. (The fact that it was even presented as a possibility is quite cruel, to be quite honest.)

Howes, what are you doing?: Former Kelly Cup MVP Scott Howes is the latest addition to the Allen Americans (Central Hockey League). Adam Pineault, Chris Doyle, and Bradley Gallant are among the other former QMJHLers on the Allen roster presented on their web site. But Howes, as a result of that stellar 2010-11 season that saw him become playoff MVP, saw some time in the AHL (!) last season under former coach Brent Thompson, scoring eleven goals and as many assists for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Being that the AHL is currently more than full, heading back to Bridgeport might not have been a feasible plan. But what's wrong with Alaska? :( /rings cowbell in a corner

Zohorna and Svoboda on the same roster again! Sort of: Speaking of influxes of NHLers, the Czech ones are of a particular interest to yours truly (yet another occasion to use the word duh!) and in seeing where some of them were off to, a discovery was made on HC Kometa Brno's roster this morning:

Source: http://www.hc-kometa.cz/soupiska.asp

Hynek indeed appears to be the other Tomáš' little brother. While it's not 100% the reunion I was hoping for, it did bring tears to my eyes.

More #voltstrainingcamp things...

For lack of a better blog post title, onwards with the bullet points!

• First preseason outing: great! Fantastic, even. 5-1 win over the Sherbrooke Phoenix. M-O Brouillard picked up four points (two of each) and Mr. Fitness (that might stick, forgive me) regularly known as Bryce Milson recorded two goals and an assist. Alexandre Grenier scored the other goal.
• Second preseason outing: the opposite of fantastic. The Phoenix get their revenge, 4-1. The lone goal for Drummondville came from Jérôme Verrier.
• One of the assists from that lone goal: Raman/Roman Hrabarenka/Graborenko. Apparently he has since moved onto better projects. Formerly the defensive cornerstone of the team, and formerly a Tampa Bay training camp attendee, he received an offer from the New Jersey Devils that could allow him to graduate to the pro level sooner than expected. 
• Because of this, the Volts acquired Chicoutimi captain Gabriel Vermette, seeming to finalize both Drummondville and Chicoutimi's overager situations. (Return: a 2014 third rounder.) With the end of trade period tomorrow, Dominic Ricard decided it was better to act fast.
• Philippe Venne was traded for Ryan Labrie, a 19 year old (now former) #theshawi player that has played very little hockey for his age. Jury's out on this one (but at least there's also an eighth-round pick in this deal just in case). He did score twice in the first five games the Cataractes granted him, however. Venne's dad also played for #theshawi back in his day, so clearly no hard feelings there. To mark his "homecoming," the younger Venne even scored two goals and added an assist in his third straight game against the Phoenix, a game that #theshawi won handily by the score of 4-0.
• Another cut to announce: Chad Millett, an 18 year old free agent from Ontario. The rest of the cuts will be named tomorrow.
  
  

Around the league: The Saint John Sea Dogs have only existed for a handful of years yet already have a third jersey, and one that somewhat scares me:

It seems to have turned more shark than dog?

Alumni watch: This weekend, Gabriel Dumont, Frédéric St-Denis and Derick Brassard participated in a three-day Boot Camp benefiting the Quebec Cancer Foundation. No word on who actually won (the semifinals AND final were all held today), but the four squad lists composed completely of hopefully-not-soon-to-be-locked-out-NHLers, for anyone interested, are here.