Sea Dogs Notebook

CUP COMING TO PEI
The Memorial Cup is coming to Summerside today.

The Journal Pioneer reports that Sea Dogs head coach Gerard Gallant, associate coach and hockey operations director Mike Kelly, and players Jason Cameron and Spencer MacDonald will be at the Credit Union Centre tonight from 6:30 to 8:00 pm with the trophy for photo opportunities.

Gallant, Cameron, and MacDonald are all former members to the Credit Union Centre’s main tenant – the Summerside Western Capitals of the MHL.

MANNO UPDATE
Turns out Joseph Manno has Twitter - and he wants you to know that he hasn’t signed with the Sea Dogs yet.

“What's this I'm hearing that I signed with the Sea Dogs,” he tweeted on August 3rd. “This is not true.”

“I am attending Saint John's camp but other options have been thrown my way nothing is said & done”

“Again don't believe everything that you hear. Things are not what they seem to be.”

So that’s that. Sea Dogs camp opens on August 17th at Harbour Station,

RIVALRY CUP STUFF
The Sea Dogs tweeted on Friday that the Moncton Wildcats were in town recently to discuss plans and ideas for this year’s edition of the Brunswick News Rivalry Cup.

Back in July both team’s used social media to get some ideas thrown at them from fans.

Saint John won last year’s Rivalry Cup quite easily. The Moncton Wildcats won the first two instalments of the season-long event which was introduced in the second half of the 2008-09 campaign.

This year’s point format should be released shortly with the Wildcats and Sea Dogs hooking up on opening night – September 8th – at Harbour Station.


MAREK PICKING THE DOGS
In his column over at Sportsnet.ca, Jeff Marek is picking the Sea Dogs to win-it-all again this season.

Chicago Blackhawks second-round pick Ludvig Rensfeldt signed a deal to play with the Sarnia Sting of the OHL adding to what is already a stacked roster that could feature teammates going 1-2 in next year's draft (Nail Yakupov and Alexander Galchenyuk). I still think the Saint John Sea Dogs are the favourites for the Memorial Cup next year but Sarnia is making noise. And should the two meet in the Memorial Cup final it'll be father against son as Sarnia's coach Jacques Beaulieu is the father of Saint John stud blueliner (and Habs first-round pick) Nathan Beaulieu.

Could you imagine if this actually unfolded? The world might explode or something.

THE FEUDING COUPLE
Over at DanSpiegel.net, Dan Spiegel has a story on the Twitter battle that took place during Florida Panthers Development Camp between Jonathan Huberdeau and Rocco Grimaldi.

"We didn’t know each other at the the beginning of camp, and we were getting to know each other,” said Huberdeau. “I got to know him a little bit more. He’s a little guy, but very quick. We starting working together, and he then started helping me with Twitter."

"Well we had just worked out and I decided to send a tweet out saying that I just worked him over in the gym,” said Grimaldi. “I showed it to him before I sent it and he didn’t get it. He was like “Whoa, what is this guy doing?” He then decided to pull a small one, but to be honest the one at the pool and the one about babysitting, those were my ideas that I gave him (they are staring at each other from across the locker room). Those were me pretty much me tripping myself and he took the glory for it. But he’s not very smart (huge laughs). I have to translate English to him. He doesn’t understand it." (Huberdeau then says, "hey I was saying good things about you over here and that is what you say about me?" -many laughs)

GATINEAU GOING GREY?
The Gatineau Olympiques are apparently going retro, meaning we may never get to see their pumpkin styled jerseys again.

From the hockey jersey blog Icethetics:

The QMJHL is getting another black-and-white team this season. The GATINEAU OLYMPIQUES are going retro, switching back to the colors (or lack of color, as it were) that they wore when they were known as the Hull Olympiques from 1976 to 2003 — black and silver. 

An article from LeDroit (translated) explains the transition and even includes a photo of the newly-painted center ice logo which is now black and white with shades of grey. The author says the team hasn't confirmed this change yet, but the writing is on the ice, as it were.

They team hasn't confirmed the change yet, but just look at the splash page on their website.