NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
Medicine Hat Tigers captain James Hamblin is seen during a Feb 2, 2019 game at the Canalta Centre. The forward suffered a leg injury Wednesday, June 26 at the Toronto Maple Leafs development camp. X-rays came back negative, but the severity of the injury is currently unknown.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Medicine Hat Tigers captain James Hamblin suffered a leg injury Wednesday while competing as a free agent at Toronto Maple Leafs development camp.
TSN’s Kristen Shilton tweeted Wednesday morning that Hamblin needed to be stretchered off the ice after going down with the injury, which appeared to affect his left leg or knee.
“Hamblin clearly in a lot of pain, covering his head with his hands,” she tweeted. “Hamblin had to be stretchered off the ice with his left leg immobilized. Was in audible pain throughout. So tough to see that happen to any player.”
The Athletic’s Hailey Salvian tweeted later Wednesday that Hamblin apparently “caught a rut in the ice,” which caused the injury.
While the true extent of Hamblin’s injury is yet to be determined, Tigers director of player personnel Bobby Fox says he has spoken with the impending overager’s agent, who confirmed that X-rays on his leg came back negative.
“We’ll see,” said Fox. “I’m sure there’s some swelling and everything so we’ll see how that moves forward in the next couple of days. We’ll know more then.”
Hamblin – who missed the playoffs in 2018 after suffering an arm injury in the final game of the regular season – went on to register 33 goals and 44 assists while competing in 67 of 68 games with the Tigers this season. The 20-year-old Edmonton product added seven points in six playoffs games before earning a ticket to Leafs development camp as a free agent.
Medicine Hat has been highly unlucky sending players to camps in recent years. Former centre Mason Shaw suffered a torn ACL while competing with the Minnesota Wild at the Traverse City Prospects Tournament in 2017 while former winger Josh Williams broke his collarbone later that season while practising with Team Canada before the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge.
Schedule unveiled
The WHL unveiled its 2019-2020 schedule Wednesday, and the Tigers have a much different plan of games than they did this past season.
Medicine Hat’s 50th season begins with the now-traditional home-and-home set with Lethbridge, starting Friday, Sept. 20 in Lethbridge and returning to Canalta Centre Saturday, Sept. 21.
From there, however, the team has an early five-game homestand in October, doesn’t play a single game south of the Canada-U.S. border and has eight Tuesday night games on home ice after playing exactly zero of them this past season.
There’s even a rare afternoon game, 2 p.m. on Family Day, Monday, Feb. 17 against the Winnipeg Ice.
One game of note is the Tigers’ visit to Kamloops and former coach Shaun Clouston Nov. 9, the eighth in a nine-game road trip necessitated by Canalta Centre hosting the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in November. Beyond that trip, their longest is a mere three games in a row on the road which only happens twice.
Medicine Hat winds up the 68-game regular season with another home-and-home with the Hurricanes March 20 and 21, the latter of which is at Canalta Centre.
Smith busy with under-18’s
Tigers assistant coach Ryan Smith is part of a coaching crew helping with Hockey Canada’s under-18 team next month.
Smith is named as a guest coach with a 44-player camp in Calgary July 26-30 from which the national team will be picked to play in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in the Czech Republic and Slovakia Aug. 5-10.
Vancouver Giants coach Michael Dyck is the team’s head coach while Everett Silvertips’ Dennis Williams is the assistant coach.
