Klippers at Notre Dame; new goodies on the blog

The Klippers are in Wilcox tonight in the only game on the SJHL schedule. It's their first meeting against the Notre Dame Hounds since sweeping them in the first round of last year's playoffs. The Hounds (6-6-0-2) are treading water so far, and with the Klippers losing four of their last five, the two clubs are separated by one point in the Sherwood standings.

The green and blue need to get back on the right track at some point, and there's no better time than the present with games against the Hounds, Red Wings and Bruins. A lot of players have been battling the flu this week, so hopefully the bug is on the way out.

Back to tonight. Notre Dame looks very different up front after the departure of several 20-year-old forwards. Returnees Trevor Cameron, Patrick Thompson-Gale and Austin Lauder are among their top scorers so far. Rosetown's A-Jay Moore, in his last junior season, has seven points through 13 games.

On the back end, 19-year-old James Howden has been a huge contributor on the scoresheet with four goals and 13 points in 14 games. He's joined by Carson Grolla and Mitch Boucher as the key players on the blueline.

Russell Abbott has gotten much better results between the pipes than Matthew Smidt so far. Abbott is 5-2-1 with a 2.38 average and .923 save percentage.

*********************************

I made a few changes to the blog today. Instead of a twitter link, you can now follow my posts right on the blog (so you can get game updates either here or at my twitter account). I've also added a SJHL twitter RSS feed as well as a feed from the NHL's Youtube channel.

And there's finally a new poll up too.