Wednesday Food for Thought.

The Battlefords North Stars will look to grab their first pre-season victory tonight when the Kindersley Klippers come to town. The Stars dropped an 8-5 decision to the Humboldt Broncos last night in front of 563 fans at the Civic Center.

Last night's game would have made the hockey purist quiver, but regardless there were definitely some positives which Ken Pearson and the rest of the staff can take back to the drawing-board.

Offensively the line of Shayne Morrissey, Tanner Schwab and Tim Rollins found some success. Morrissey showed the same offensive-knack that got him noticed during training camp. Schwab showed some strong skill, and Rollins used his speed to his advantage, and played his best game so far during camp/pre-season.

Another bright spot up front for the Stars was 1995 born Joel Blaquiere. His impressive camp continued last night with a goal, and I see a lot of promise and potential moving forward.

Defensively Dillon Forbes stood out. At age 17, Forbes has a decent offensive upside, and can handle himself defensively. Jacob Chiblow and
Myles Baptiste also showed spurts of strong play.

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After the game, Ken Pearson hinted that he's going to dress more veterans in tonight's game against Kindersley. He applauded the patience of the veterans, and wants to get most of them into a game situation before the weekend road-trip. Barring any last minute changes, I'd expect to see Garrett Montour getting the start in goal.

As for Kindersley's lineup - I have no idea, but I reckon that coach Larry Wintoneak will dress some of his veterans.

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I'm looking forward to this weekend's trip to Dauphin. It will be my first time visiting the 'Fishing Capital of Manitoba' and it'll be neat. to see last year's R.B.C. Cup hosts face the Stars. I will be doing a TON of writing that weekend, so you can look forward to some more work throughout the weekend.

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I spoke briefly with goaltender Graham Hildebrand last night. I asked about the status of his knee, and he told me that he's feeling better. I got the impression that he's almost ready to return to the ice and hopefully Graham will be ready for Opening Night.

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I am growing increasingly jealous of those who own either a PS3 or an X-Box360. I tried the demo of NHL 11 at a buddy's place, and now that the game has been released, it's almost a certainty that I'll be buying either an X Box360 or PS3 sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Any gamers care to weigh in and tell me which console they prefer? Right now I'm leaning towards a PS3 for the Blue-Ray capabilities, but I'm by no means 100 percent sold yet.

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I'll be doing more blogging/tweeting from the game tonight, and I'm also hoping to get some photos from tonight's game as well. Julie took some great photos from night one of training camp, and I'll work on getting those uploaded before too long. Enjoy your Wednesday, and hopefully I'll see you tonight.