The Gift that Keeps on Giving

The player you see is Collin Valcourt, and he currently plays for Mountfield HK in the Czech Republic.  Why would I be writing about a player that is currently playing on a team in the Czech Republic?  Well, Valcourt was one of the players acquired by the Saskatoon Blades in 2013 in their ultimately ill-fated run to the Memorial Cup that year. Valcourt was acquired by the team from Spokane that year in exchange for a first round pick in 2015, and as luck would have it (for Spokane), the Blades would finish dead last this year, thus giving the Chiefs a great chance at winning the first overall pick in this year's bantam draft.  The lottery was held yesterday, and true to form, the Chiefs will be picking first, meaning they will have benefited from yet another brain fart from the previous management of the Blades (Brandon and Vancouver were the beneficiaries in last year's draft).

Speaking of benefiting from other people's mistakes, the Moose Jaw Warriors hold the fourth and sixth overall picks in this year's bantam draft.  The Warriors have their own sixth overall pick plus the fourth overall pick that comes from Kamloops in a 2013 trade for Joel Edmundson in the Blazers' ultimately unsuccessful attempt to topple the Portland Winterhawks' reign at the top of the Western Conference, which is now at four years.