REGINA PATS - 7th ANNUAL SPORTSMAN'S DINNER and YEARLY AWARDS

The 7th edition of the Regina Pats Sportsman's dinner was held Monday evening at the Delta Hotel Convention Centre. Master of Ceremonies was Regina Pats Radio Broadcaster Rod Pedersen.

By: MURRAY McCORMICK, Regina Leader Post

Monday, March 8, 2010

Edmonton Oilers' president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe speaks at Regina Pats Sportsman's Dinner

Kevin Lowe has a simple solution to eliminating head shots in the NHL.
"All they have to do is start targeting late hits,'' the Edmonton Oilers' president of hockey operations said Monday before serving as the guest speaker at the Regina Pats Sportsman's Dinner.

"I believe that the (Marc) Savard hit was a late hit. They should really reprimand those guys and hand out big suspensions. That will make guys think twice about it when players come through the neutral zone with their heads down.''

Head shots in the NHL are making news again after Savard, a forward with the Boston Bruins, was levelled Sunday by a blind-side check from Matt Cooke of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Savard was taken off the ice on a stretcher and it's believed he suffered a concussion from the hit. The NHL is studying the hit and any disciplinary action is to be decided before the Penguins play Thursday.

The Cooke hit on Savard contrasted with the check that Russia's Alexander Ovechkin levelled the Czech Republic's Jaromir Jagr with at centre ice during the Winter Olympics.

"That was a clean hit and I don't think any one of us wants to take that out of the game,'' said Lowe. "That is the beauty of the game and that's what makes it exciting.''

Lowe spent 19 seasons in the NHL as a player with the Oilers and New York Rangers. Since 1998, he has been an assistant coach, head coach, general manager and president with the Oilers. Lowe felt that Cooke had time to back off before slamming into Savard.

"There is enough time to make a decision that it might be a late hit,'' said Lowe, who won five Stanley Cup rings with the Oilers and another with the Rangers. "Then you can ease up on the guy. You can still make contact and bump into him but you don't have to follow through with the kind of intensity that he did. It will save people.''

There is more than head shots generating a buzz around hockey. Lowe was an associate director with Team Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics and watched Sidney Crosby score the gold medal-winning goal in Canada's 3-2 overtime victory over the United States.

Vancouver marked Lowe's third appearance with Canada at the Winter Olympics. He helped build the teams that won gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah and finished seventh at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy.

Lowe said the seventh-place finish in 2006 was actually a blessing for Canada in 2010.

"We might have been in the position where the world juniors are in that we would be expected to win every year,'' said Lowe.

Lowe was a member of the Oilers when they were expected to win every year. That's hardly the case now. The Oilers are last in the 30-team NHL and are looking at a long rebuilding process.
One of the keys to that process is Pats sniper Jordan Eberle, whom the Oilers selected in the first round (22nd overall) in the 2008 draft. The Pats, who have missed the WHL playoffs this season, wrap up the regular season on Saturday. The Oilers have already indicated that he will head to the AHL's Springfield Falcons after the Pats' season concludes on Saturday. Lowe said the Oilers don't have any plans to rush Eberle into the lineup.

"We're going to be very slow in our approach to rebuilding and we don't want to put the kind of pressure on a guy like Jordan to turn the team around next year,'' said Lowe. "We have Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, who we got in the first round last year, and we're going to get a good pick this year.

"In a perfect world, we would methodically grow this thing over a number of years. There is a light at the end of the tunnel knowing that Jordan will play a big part of it.''

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By: Ron "Scoreboard" Johnston - At 8:00 p.m. they had the Players Award followed by the Silent Auction Winners on various hockey sweaters.

Regina Pats Yearly Awards, they are as follows:

Player of the Year - Jordan Eberle

Rookie of the Year (Nick Pappas Memorial Trophy) - Brandon Davidson

Defenceman of the Year (Charles L. Johnston Memorial Trophy) - Colten Teubert

Most Popular Player (Bill Hicke Memorial Trophy) - Jordan Eberle

Community Service Award (Mike Kartusch Memorial Trophy) - Garret Mitchell

Unsung Hero - Hampus Gustaffson

Scholastic Player Award - Brandon Davidson

Most Sportsmanlike Player (Hub Bishop Memorial Trophy) - Jordan Eberle

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There will be still a few more rewards to hand out, including the Teams Top Scorer (Torchy Schell Memorial Trophy) and the (3 Stars Final Standings) Molson Cup. They will be announced after the Regina Pats final game on Saturday, March 13.


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After the Guest Speaker, Kevin Lowe, they had a Question and Answer period, in which Kevin Lowe, Brent Parker, Curtis Hunt, Jordan Eberle and Colten Teubert participated. They were followed by Entertainer, Clark Robertson, an impersonator of Don Cherry. (Photo: by Regina Pats CKRM Broadcaster -Rod Pedersen)