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Thursday, September 30, 2021

Notebook: Dogs begin season ranked third

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs
SAINT JOHN
- The Saint John Sea Dogs will open the 2021-22 regular season as the No. 3 ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League.

The Sea Dogs trail only the top-ranked Edmonton Oil Kings and the No. 2 Quebec Remparts in the pre-season rankings. The Acadie-Bathurst Titan (No. 7) and Shawinigan Cataractes (No. 9) were the only other ranked QMJHL teams.
The Charlottetown Islanders, who the Sea Dogs will play twice this weekend,  were an honourable mention.

The Sea Dogs began last season ranked eighth in the CHL (yes, there were actually pre-season rankings last year).

TOUGH OPENING
The Sea Dogs will not have an easy start to the season.

Most QMJHL followers have the Sea Dogs, Titan and Islanders finishing at the top of the Maritimes Division in some order. Then there is the Halifax Mooseheads followed by the rebuilding Cape Breton Eagles and Moncton Wildcats.

Saint John will start the season with five straight games against either the Islanders or Titan.

The Sea Dogs kick things off with a home-and-home with the Islanders and follow that up with a home-and-home against the Titan. They then visit Charlottetown on Thanksgiving Monday.

Saint John will play both Charlottetown and Bathurst four times each in October.

SEASON PREVIEW
CBC, now one of the CHL's official broadcasters, previews the upcoming season.


CBC's first CHL broadcast is on Saturday afternoon when the Regina Pats host the Prince Albert Raiders.

VIRTUAL DRAFT RETURNING
In sad/tragic news, the QMJHL has announced that its 2022 Entry Draft will be virtual once again.


On another note, the 2022 QMJHL Entry Draft will be held virtually once again this season and will take place on June 17 and 18, 2022. The league has scheduled the first round for Friday night while rounds 2-14 and the American Draft will occur on the next day. Our major partner, Fenplast, will be the presenting sponsor of the event for a third consecutive year.

It'll be the third year in a row the league has held a virtual draft rather than the mini-NHL production.

HIGH NUMBERS
Evgeny Sapelnikov will join a small group of Sea Dogs when he wears No. 95 this weekend.

The import forward will join Tomas Jurco (90), Nicholas Girouard (92) and Stanislav Galiev (97) as the only players to wear 90s numbers in Sea Dogs history.

The Sea Dogs will feature a few other "non-traditional" high numbers this season in Christopher Inniss (56), Charlie DesRoches (58), Cam MacDonald (61) and Olivier Picard (72).

Jonathan Huberdeau's No. 11, Mike Thomas' No. 17 and Alex Grant's No. 20 remain unused since their departures.

THE BIG QUESTION
Sportsnet takes a look at one question for every QMJHL team heading into the regular season.

"The big question surrounding the team will be exactly what moves will be made between now and the trade deadline to tinker with the roster ahead of the event," writes Brad Coccimiglio about the Sea Dogs.

The Sea Dogs have a lot of assets to work with come the trade period.

HORN RETURNS
The Sea Dogs will be the first visiting team in quite a few years to hear the fog horn blaring inside Charlottetown's Eastlink Centre.

"After years of inactivity, the famous Abby Horn returns to Islanders goal celebrations, sure to bring Islanders fans to their feet," reads an Islanders news release.

According to the team, "the foghorn was a staple of the previously-named Charlottetown Civic Centre until the implementation of overhead replay cameras. At the time, the vibration caused by the Abby Horn would knock the replay cameras out of focus. It was determined at that time that the foghorn would be taken offline, replaced instead by a digital sound when the PEI Rocket would score."

OFF WE GO
The 2021-22 CHL season officially got underway on Thursday night with the President Cup champion Victoriaville Tigres hosting the Shawinigan Cataractes.
COVID STUFF
Mikael Lalancette reports that the entire league - with the exception of an assistant coach - is fully vaccinated heading into the season.
The 12 Quebec-based clubs will be permitted to return to 100% capacity on Oct. 8.


Lalancette also reports that the CHL is looking at options to replace this year's cancelled Canada/Russia Series.
UNITED AGAIN
Neat!
OTHER THINGS

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