Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Ryan Kennedy is all for the CHLPA, in principle. (The Hockey News)

Red Deer Rebels owner and GM Brent Sutter hasn't closed the door on returning to the NHL. (Calgary Herald)

Russian world junior goalie Andrey Makarov has a lot on the line with the Saskatoon Blades, as he plays for a pro contract. (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

Brandon Wheat Kings play-by-play man Bruce Luebke points out the CHLPA's estimates of team revenue seem to rely on fuzzy math: "Based on the CHLPA figures, the Wheat Kings average ticket price was $22.20 ... How could the average price of a Wheat Kings' tickets be $22.20 when their season ticket price averaged out to less than $10 per game and their highest individual game ticket was $17?" (Luber's Lounge)

Hey, a trade: the Regina Pats added defenceman Keaton Lubin. (Calgary Herald, Regina Leader-Post)

If Kamloops Blazers forward JC Lipon seems stronger this year, it's because he spent his summer pouring concrete. (Kamloops This Week)

Bookmark this post by Alan Caldwell to remain on top of Western League rosters. (Small Thoughts at Large)

OHL

Max Domi will not miss any regular-season games due to his ankle injury. (London Free Press)

World junior defenceman Dougie Hamilton does not know if he'll play for the Boston Bruins or Niagara IceDogs due to the possible NHL lockout: "If there is a lockout then I'll be back in junior and I'll just continue to work towards my goal." (NHL.com)

Boston U coach Jack Parker (The Associated Press)

While the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds deal with the consequences of players being charged with sexual assault north of the border, the fallout is official for one of the NCAA's proudest men's hockey programs that went through similar troubles earlier this year.

In light of the Sault Ste. Marie case — which one should not editorialize on directly before the three accused get their day in court — the conclusions from Boston University's task force into its hockey team are awfully germane. Earlier this year, two members of the Terriers were charged with sex assault within a span of fewer than three months; New York Islanders prospect Corey Trivino ultimately was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to assault and battery.

The easy way out would be to try to put some distance between the behaviour and the environment. Boston U's conclusions were anything but.

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Guy Flaming points out the Canadian Hockey League Players' Association is still a mystery. (Coming Down The Pipe!)

If you thought you heard a lot about New York Islanders first-rounder Griffin Reinhart last year with the Edmonton Oil Kings, well, just you wait. Speaking of Oil Kings blueliners, will Mason Geertsen break out this fall? (The Hockey News)

The Saskatoon Blades sustained a whack of injuries during training camp, with Montreal Canadiens-drafted defenceman Dalton Thrower tweaking his back. (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

Victoria Royals overage defenceman Tyler Stahl hopes he is all the way back from the concussion that truncated his 2011-12 year. (Victoria Times-Colonist)

Meantime, centre Spencer Main, the last on-ice link to the Kelowna Rockets' 2009 championship team, has decided he isn't ready to return to the ice after missing almost all of last season with head trauma. (Kelowna Capital News)

If a game on Sept. 5 can be big, Wednesday's Kamloops-Vancouver tilt certainly qualifies. (Kamloops Daily News)

Kelowna Rockets grad Collin Bowman has signed with the ECHL's Colorado Eagles. (reporterherald.com)

OHL

Tuesday's trade of overage wing Derek Schoenmakers toughens up the Windsor Spitfires while settling the Sudbury Wolves' overage situation. (Northern Life, Windsor Star)

Florida Panthers first-round pick Jonathan Huberdeau of the Saint John Sea DogsSo this is certainly making the rounds today. Via a report from Patrick Caisse TVA Sports, in the event of an NHL lockout, certain exceptions could be made in the traditional CHL-NHL agreement. The agreement normally stipulates junior-eligible players must return to their CHL teams for their 19-year old season unless they make their NHL club.

Translation mine:

If National Hockey League players are locked out on September 16, a few 19-year old players could make the jump to the American League.

The rule normally states that a CHL player cannot play in the AHL until he is 20 years old.

TVA Sports has learned that certain influential members of the hockey world are working right now for an exemption for first round selections from the 2011 NHL Draft, players who would be prepared to spend their 19-year old season in the NHL.

Among the players affected by the possible exemption are notably forwards Jonathan Huberdeau, Ryan Strome and Mark Scheifele, among defenders Dougie Hamilton and Ryan Murphy.

"I still don't know what's going to happen with all that," said Huberdeau, when questioned on the subject. "I know there's a possibility I could play with the Panthers' farm team, but there's nothing on that right now."

In the eventuality where players could quit junior hockey for the AHL, affected clubs will be compensated. [TVA Sports]

London Knights centre Max Domi (OHL Images)In mid-August, Buzzing The Net had scouts from NHL's Central Scouting Service, International Scouting Services, and Mckeen's Hockey break down the top 10 talents of the 2013 draft class. Of these elite young guns, Halifax Mooseheads' Nathan MacKinnon, Portland Winterhawks' Seth Jones, and Ottawa 67's Sean Monahan led the way.

This week, with the help of some scouts' insight, BTN looks at an additional 10 promising draft prospects that didn't crack the top 10 of their draft class.

Without further ado, here is a look at some of the 2013 draft classes' best prospects across the globe outside of BTN's top-10 draft ranking.

Elias Lindholm, centre, Brynäs (SweJE) — Last year Filip Forsberg, who was selected 11th overall by the Washington Capitals, was regarded as the top offensive star out of Sweden. Lindholm is following in the footsteps of Forsberg as the standout Swedish forward.

The 6-foot, 192-pound centre, who is the cousin of Detroit Red Wings prospect Calle Jarnkrok, lit up Sweden's

According to the CHLPA, the Calgary Hitmen are the CHL's richest ticket revenue teamIf the CHLPA's ticket revenue projections are anything close to accurate, then the CHL has a bigger problem with an upstart union attempting to improve education benefits and stipends for players. The not-so-sure-maybe-perhaps-a-player's-union took to Twitter last night and caused a buzz when they attempted to create revenue projections for teams based off attendance and average ticket prices.

The revenue earned by teams landed somewhere between the $10,485,862.00 earned by the Calgary Hitmen in 2011-12 and the $470,184.00 from the Val-d'Or Foreurs. As the account hammered home many times, the revenue figures were just in ticket sales alone and Ticket sale estimates DO NOT INCLUDE pre season games, or playoffs.

Of course, there's a little bit of wonky math that goes into this. Bruce Luebke over at Luber's Lounge has a post that questions the way the CHLPA got the Brandon Wheat Kings' revenue figure. ("How could the average price of a Wheat Kings' tickets [sic] be $22.20," Luebke asks, "when their season ticket price average out to be less than $10 per game and their highest individual game ticket was $17?")

But let's pretend that the CHLPA got everything right. You know, the one that suggested "George" Laraque had been hired as the executive director for the union and that the WHL's Cougars play in a small French Canadian town in Northern British Columbia called "Prince Georges". The logic is that the estimated ticket sales for all teams was about $157,712,301, and plus an additional $100M in additional revenue (unsourced) brings the CHL's overall revenue figure up to over $250M.

That's a far cry from Laraque's claim that the WHL alone made over $250M in profits last season, but the account did point out that the high estimate in stipends for all 60 CHL teams was approximate to just $7.5M.

The trapezoid is a source of controversy at all levels of North American hockey (Getty Images via Puck Daddy)

Has there been anything so loathed in hockey as the trapezoid indicating the only place where a goaltender is legally allowed to play the puck behind the net? Earlier this summer, the QMJHL among its rule changes decided to ditch the trapezoid and follow the international standard—the goalie can play the puck anywhere he likes as long as he's on his own side of the red line.

The trapezoid rule, which disallows the goaltender from playing the puck in the corners, was brought into the NHL after their 2004-05 lockout in an attempt to increase the amount of offence in a game. The idea, I guess, was to help teams establishing a forecheck, but the rule had an adverse effect. Many puck-handling goaltenders chose to confine themselves to their creases and played more conservatively rather than initiating breakout sequences.

It's become a slog on penalty kills when the defending team is able to ice the puck (with "draw weight") into the opposition's corner to get a much easier change. Goaltenders rarely jump out to cut off the puck before it hits the goal line, and precious seconds are wasted.

Thankfully, according to Greg Millen, the OHL is dropping the trapezoid, or considering dropping the trapezoid, while the NHL appears to be expanding theirs:

It looks like the "O" is eliminating the trapezoid area. Great decision! Let's hope the NHL is next.

— Greg Millen (@gregmillen) August 31, 2012

Juraj Bezuch in action with Lethbridge last season (The Canadian Press)It is nothing new in major junior hockey for teams to have a surfeit 20-year-old players vying for one of the three coveted overage spots. It can be pretty cutthroat and I would not want to be the person who tells a player his time in the Canadian Hockey League is all but certainly up, even though it's ultimately a business decision to those involved. Slovak forward Juraj Bezuch's situation with the Kitchener Rangers is enough to give pause to wonder if it works the same way when a team is overstocked for candidates for the two import slots in its lineup.

Perhaps it is the same, even when the player is thousands of kilometres from home. Hockey is a global village, eh. The Rangers have an intriguing scenario brewing with Bezuch, a former centre with the Western League's Lethbridge Hurricanes whom they picked up in June in order to assure they would have the full complement of imports if Dallas Stars first-rounder and No. 1 centre Radek Faksa turned pro. Now it appears they have a potential scoring forward who will almost certainly be traded to a team which needs to put a little life into its attack.