Hockey Challenge Raises Over Thousand Dollars

The Jordan Boyd Celebrity Hockey Challenge, that was played today, raised over a thousand dollars. The $103,000 that was raised will be split between the Heart & Stroke Foundation and the Jordan Boyd Leadership Award.

Many local hockey celebrities participated in nine games that were contested between six teams. The "pros" were randomly selected to play with the different teams before they game together with top 24 fundraisers for an All-Star game.

Former Halifax Mooseheads players that played were Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche), Brad Marchand (Boston Bruins), Andrew Bodnarchuk (Los Angles Kings), Brendan Duke, MacKenzie Weegar and Stephen MacAulay. Other celebrities that participated included James Sheppard (San Jose Sharks), Zach Sill (Pittsburgh Penguins), Shawn O'Donnell (New York Rangers), Mason McDonald (Charlottetown Islanders) and Jacob Brennan (Acadie-Bathurst Titan).

Jordan Boyd passed away last year during the Titan training camp because of an undiagnosed heart condition. The Bathurst team had selected him in the fourth round of the 2013 QMJHL Draft.

Start of something new

It's August once again which means that we are close to the beginning of yet another season of Mooseheads hockey. After three straight years of going to the semi finals in the President's Cup playoffs with a championship in the middle, are we in store for a sub par season before the start of a rebuild. We will have to wait and see until March but the roster that they have set up for the preseason is a mix of strong offensive veterans and some talented draftees that had to wait their turn.

The top players that led Halifax to the Memorial Cup championship in the 2012-13 season have all almost moved on past their junior careers and a couple more could move on after the start of the season. Despite Nathan MacKinnon, Jonathan Drouin, Konrad Abeltshauser, Stephen MacAulay, Trey Lewis and MacKenzie Weegar going on to better things, the Herd still have a good group but don't expect them to blow teams away like they have the last 2 seasons.

With the begining of the preseason just around the corner, it also begins another year of MooseCountry blogging and tweeting from me. This will be my second full season of posting articles.

This year on Moose Country:

• Top Herd
• Around the CHL
• Live tweet schedule (post of games I will be at and tweeting)
• Gameday previews and recaps
• Preseason game previews and recaps
• Training camp news
• News on recent former Moose players in the pros

New this season:
*VOTE for Star of the Month - at the end of each month you the fans will get to vote who should be the star of the month from the Top Herd choices
*STAT SUNDAY - will be done once a month, breaking down the Mooseheads stats in the past month
*Pages on Halifax Mooseheads history including players and event backgrounds
*CONTESTS - I will be doing a few contests this season. Make sure you are following my Twitter and Facebook pages for all the details and when they will happen

Alumni Taking Part In Jordan Boyd Hockey Challenge

About a year after Jordan Boyd passed away, his family continues to change the ways of junior hockey and celebrate his life. A fund was set up in his name by those close to him with the hope 'to recognize individuals in amateur hockey, in the form of a series of scholarships, who have demonstrated a passion for sportsmanship, learning, leadership and community.' This weekend another fundraiser will be happening to help raise money for those scholarships.


Photo: Hockey Challenge fundraise page

The Jordan Boyd Hockey Challenge will be played at the BMO Centre in Bedford, Nova Scotia on Saturday August 2nd. There will be 9 hours of games between six different teams made up of local hockey celebraties and local kids. An all-star game will be played at the end of the night.



There are a few former Halifax Mooseheads who will be taking part in the games. Player announcements have been made over the last couple of months and 3 players who have played for the Moose have been announced. 2011 Stanley Cup champions Brad Marchand will be taking part, so will current Monchester Monarchs Andrew Bodnarchuk. 2013 Rookie of the Year Nathan MacKinnon will also partipate.

Some names of Herd alumni that are on donation teams include Stephen MacAulay, Mackenzie Weegar and Brendan Duke. Other celebrity names include; James Sheppard, 2004 Stanley Cup champion Darren Rumble, Mason MacDonald and Jacob Brennan.

I will be at the BMO Centre on Saturday so come join me and support this great cause.

Here is the day's full schedule:

11am - 12pm:	Team Boyd vs Dads and Lads
12pm - 1pm:	Sedmha All Stars vs Cole Harbour All Stars
1pm - 2pm:	Rothesay Neterwood vs Bedford Blues Alumni
2pm - 3pm:	Team Boyd vs Sedmha All Stars
3pm - 4pm:	Dads and Lads vs Rothesay Neterwood
4pm - 5pm:	Bedford Blues Alumni vs Cole Harbour All Stars
5pm - 6pm:	3rd place Group 1 vs 3rd place Group 2
6pm - 7pm:	2nd place Group 1 vs 2nd place Group 2
7pm - 8pm:	1st place Group 1 vs 1st place Group 2

All Star Game
Date: August 2, 2014
Time: 8:30 pm
Overview: All celebrities will be split on to two teams with our top fundraisers for a final game. Admission is $5.00

For more info on the hockey challenge or to make a donation click here.

Moose Name Assistant Coach

The Halifax Mooseheads have named the replacement for former assistant coach Steve Hartley. Jon Greenwood will join Dom Ducharme and Jim Midgley on the bench during the upcoming season. Greenwood was named Coach of the Year for Nova Scotia Midget AAA, after leading the Cole Harbour WolfPack to a 26-6-0-1-1 record last season. General Manager Cam Russell had this to say about the hiring;

I’m extremely happy to have Jon join our team. His passion, work ethic and knowledge of the game will make him a welcome addition to an already great coaching staff.

Congratulations to Jon. You can follow him on Twitter at @jgreenwood19

Cape Breton To Play Overseas, Preseason Schedule Affected.

If you've been on the Halifax Mooseheads website recently you will notice that you can now see the season opener game in their upcoming games portion of the site. This is because of the cancellation of two away preseason games that were supposed to be played against the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. The Eagles will represent the Canadian Hockey League at the Junior Club World Cup tournament that will be held in Russia from August 22-30.

The announcement of the Eagles going overseas for part of their training camp leaves Halifax with one home preseason game this year. The August 23rd and August 28th games against Cape Breton were technically Mooseheads home contests with one being in Truro.

The two teams will still play on August 17 and September 6 however, both in Sydney.

Good luck to Cape Breton in the tournament.

Moose named to Futures List

The completion of the 2014 NHL entry draft, where only one of three Halifax Mooseheads ranked players were chosen, means that fans now turn their attention to the upcoming 2014-15 season and the 2015 draft. The National Hockey League puts out a list of players that are eligible for that year's draft. The NHL has released two lists for the 2015 draft; one for players playing in North American leagues even if they are from Europe and one for International leagues.

This year there are two Mooseheads that are on the list. Connor Moynihan and Timo Meier are just two of the 19 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League players listed.

Congratulations to Connor and Timo.

Moose at Development Camps

Even though just one Halifax Mooseheads player was drafted late last month, there are once again still plenty of Herd who have been invited to NHL development camps. Just like last year, the Montreal Canadiens have multiple Mooseheads players on their camp roster.

Jonathan Drouin - Tampa Bay (2013) - Tampa Bay Lightning development camp July 2-6
Nikolaj Ehlers - Winnipeg (2014) - Winnipeg Jets development camp July 7-11
Andrew Ryan - undrafted - invited Minnesota Wild development camp July 9-14
Brandon Vuic - undrafted - invited Calgary Flames development camp July 4-9
Matt Murphy - undrafted - invited to Ottawa Senators development camp July 1-7
MacKenzie Weegar - Florida (2013) - Florida Panthers development camp July 7-11
Zach Fucale - Montreal (2013) - Montreal Canadiens development camp July 7-11
Philippe Gadoury - undrafted - invited to Montreal Canadiens development camp July 7-11

A couple of former Halifax Mooseheads that were invited to camps as well:
Stefan Fournier - Monctreal Canadiens development camp
Randy Gazzola - San Jose Sharks development camp


This will be the second development camp for Andrew Ryan but third camp overall. Ryan, who will be spending his last junior season with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, was passed in the 2012 NHL draft but got the call from the St. Louis Blues to participate in their rookie camp in September. He was invited to the Philadelphia Flyers development camp last summer. Murphy was invited to the Traverse City tournament by the Blues back in September.