Six dates, one 102 days away

The Sound Tigers’ home opener will be Saturday, Oct. 5. The notorious Six Guaranteed Dates also include the traditional Friday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 29 this year) and the day after Christmas (Dec. 26 this year), along with three Saturdays, Nov. 2, Nov. 16 and the infamous Dec. 7.

History suggests the full schedule is at least a month away.

Some other notes: Jesse Joensuu and Sean Bergenheim are on the short list (so to speak; there are about 50 guys, and those at that link are just the 30 forwards) for the Finnish Olympic team.

A coaching shuffle in San Antonio:

TEAM Old New
HER Mark French (5/17)  Mike Haviland (6/18) 
TOR Dallas Eakins (EDM head, 6/10)
IOW John Torchetti (CSKA, 6/24)
SA Chuck Weber (Dir. hockey ops/assoc. coach, 6/25)  Peter Horachek (6/25)

Edit to fix the chart. Had them backward.

Per a press release from the Connecticut Convention and Sports Bureau, Hartford will host the next two USA Hockey national Tier III junior championships, with games at Simsbury. They’d been in Rochester, Minn., but apparently struggled to get east-coast teams to travel.

Gotta love it: hockey won the ratings last night. (Qualified, repeats, whatever, who cares; hockey won the ratings.) (Liked “Under the Dome” myself.)

Michael Fornabaio