DARRELL STODDARD TO RETURN FOR THE RIVERKINGS

(Southaven, MS) – The Mississippi RiverKings of the Central Hockey League (CHL) today announced the signing of forward Darrell Stoddard for the 2009-2010 season. Stoddard returns for his fifth professional hockey season in a RiverKings sweater, having initially joined the roster in the 2005-06 Memphis RiverKings campaign.

“We welcome Stodds back. He has all the tools in his bag,” said RiverKings Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Kevin “Killer” Kaminski. “He has the grease and grit. He has good hands and can score along with his toughness.”

Last season for the CHL Northeast Division champion RiverKings, the 5 foot, 11 inch Stoddard tallied eight goals and had 19 points with 121 penalty minutes in 46 regular season games. He added two goals and had three points with 17 penalty minutes in eleven playoff appearances. Six of Stoddard’s eight regular season goals came on the power play.

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KAMINSKI GETS EXTENSION, LANDMESSER AND DUMONT RE-SIGN

(Southaven, MS) — Three major components in the on-ice success of the Mississippi RiverKings during the 2008-09 Central Hockey League (CHL) season will be back for the upcoming campaign.

Director of Business Operations Ab Mattice has announced that Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Kevin Kaminski has been given a three-year contract to continue in his current position.

In addition, veteran players Derek Landmesser and Louis Dumont have been signed to play again for the RiverKings during the 2009-2010 season. Terms were not disclosed.
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Even if you’re not into basketball, this is entertaining.

Guess who just became in official Ole Miss fan?

From theDMonline.com

UM hockey set for October debut
14 April 2009

By Tyler Bourke
Staff Reporter

With the help of Cody Johnson, team president, and head coach Max Graupner, ice hockey has finally made its way to the University of Mississippi as a sanctioned club sport and will begin its official season in Fall 2009 against Middle Tennessee State University at Nashville on October 2.

The IceRebels are in the Western SEC conference of the American Collegiate Hockey Association, a Division III league. Ole Miss will face off against every SEC school (with the exception of Auburn) in the upcoming season, which may consist of up to 20 games continuing into February.

In the ACHA, both the Western and Eastern division finalists go on to face other conference champions throughout the ACHA in the national competition.

The team has high hopes for their first season and expects to go as far as the SEC Championship. However, Johnson sees teams such as No. 4 Tennessee to be a major obstacle in the upcoming season.

“We have really good players, I feel comfortable that we are going to be one of the best in the SEC,” Graupner said. “We want to have a winning season this year and be a competing team in the SEC with a solid fan base.”

Read the rest of this great news here

This may be the strangest press release I’ve ever seen. Announcing a new site redesign and complaining about customers, all in one breath. Interesting approach.

NEW RIVERKINGS WEB SITE UPGRADE ANNOUNCED

(Southaven, MS) — Mississippi hockey fans can look forward to a new and improved RiverKings face gracing the World Wide Web soon after the final whistle curtains the end of the 2008-09 Central Hockey League season. The RiverKings have announced they will soon be unveiling a new-look web site at the team’s Internet address, www.riverkings.com.

“This is a very exciting time for us,” RiverKings Director of Business Operations Ab Mattice said. “We have made so much progress this year, both on the ice and off, and we feel this web site is the new face of that positive change.”

Fans can look forward to several features on the new web site, according to RiverKings Game Operations/Creative and Technical Development Coordinator Joey Thorsen, including easier navigation around the home page. “Our navigation pane will now be at the top of the site and we will have drop down menus from the top of the site. We’ve really tried to simplify everything and make sure you don’t have to search all over the page to find something.”

In addition to making the web site easier to move around, Thorsen says there will be some new features that fans will be able to enjoy, including video highlights. “We’re going to have embedded YouTube videos on the site, our intro video and game highlights from the last game, upcoming game commercials, and other video highlights exclusive only to the web site.”

While there will be several new features on the new-and-improved RiverKings.com, one of the sections of the web site not moving to the new location is that of a message board.

Mattice said long and hard deliberation was involved in the message board issue, but the negativity of some posters to the board in the end caused its elimination. “We had a core group of fans who really enjoyed using our message boards. Unfortunately, within that group there was a lot of negative and mean-spirited talk that ran the gamut of gossip about the players, coaches, and front office staff, and we felt it often interfered both with morale within the organization, with corporate partner relations in the community, as well as potential staff hirings and the general audience.”

Mattice said the most recent and blatant example of this interference came with the hiring of Head Coach Kevin “Killer” Kaminski last summer. “We feel like hiring Kevin is one of the best things this organization has done in a long time,” Mattice said. “However, it almost didn’t happen because of the presence of the message boards. Coach read the boards before coming and specifically asked us about the content of many of the postings. He did not want to be involved with an organization that had that level of negativity.”

Mattice continued, “Fortunately, we were able to allay his fears and when he arrived he found the opposite to be true: we have a great group of fans, a good office staff and some really stand-up guys on the team. But it wasn’t the first time that the message boards had created that kind of reaction.”

The exact date of the new web site release has not been determined, but it will occur shortly after the RiverKings have finished their playoff season. The team will make an announcement when the date has been officially determined and fans will not need to change any bookmarks they have, as the address will remain, www.riverkings.com.

Meanwhile, the season continues for the RiverKings in the midst of their run for the CHL Ray Miron President’s Cup. Game four of the Northern Conference finals against the Colorado Eagles will be tomorrow (Thursday) night at the DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, starting at 7:05 PM. Individual game tickets are available through Ticketmaster and the DCC box office. For group tickets and other ticket information, contact the RiverKings offices at 662-342-1755 today!

The Mississippi RiverKings are supported by their community partners, season ticket holders, fans, and by program-related investments of the Maddox Foundation, an independent private foundation based in Hernando, Mississippi, to lessen the burden of the DeSoto County government by increasing the viability of the DeSoto Civic Center and promoting the long-term economic development of the community. The Foundation now uses the team in a variety of programs that increase investments in area charities and their causes.

Maybe I should file this one under the “How NOT to market your product” category.

OK, it’s all official like.

@ Colorado Wednesday April 15th

@Colorado Friday April 17th

@Mississippi Tuesday April 21st

@Mississippi Thursday April 23rd

@Mississippi Friday April 24th (if necessary)

@Colorado Sunday April 26th (if necessary)

@Colorado Monday April 27th (if necessary)

It wasn’t much to talk about, since the RiverKings lost, but here’s the link to my game write up for Saturday night’s game. Here’s hoping they finish this nonsense tonight in OKC.

I managed to squeeze out a few words about the RiverKings/Thunder game Saturday night, and you can check it out here