THURSDAY

In Sherwood Park, the game of the night turned out to disappoint as Spruce Grove skates away from the Cru in their building. The Saints cruised to a 5-0 win with 5 different players scoring goals. Konrad Becker opened the scoring 6:51 into the first period for the Saints and surprise, surprise it was a powerplay goal. Spruce Grove went 2-4 on the night to improve their powerplay potency to 30.2% overall and 32.6% on the road. Josh Keizer, Tyler Barr, Brett Cameron and Scott Allen also scored. Travis Rolheiser made 37 stops in picking up his third shutout of the year. The Park was 0-6 on the man advantage as quarterback Nick Blair is still out of the lineup with a lower body injury. Brett Patchett came on in relief of Matt Esposito when the score was 4-0. Patchett is just relieved to be alive after being involved in a single vehicle accident when his car rolled down a cliff in the mountains of B.C. in early November. Patchett emerged almost unscathed. Unlike his team on this night.

In Lloydminster, the Bobcats down the Thunder 3-2. Voice of the Bobcats John "one G two T's" Spigott will have the recap later this morning.

In Calgary, it took 61:04 to open the scoring but Jarrett Granberg scored his league leading 27th to win it, 1-0, in overtime for Brooks. Chase Komistek made 44 saves against his former team as the 16 year old picked up his second shutout of the season. Aaron Dell stopped 26 in the losing effort. Bandits defenceman Justin Lutz and coach Brian Curran both served their one game suspensions for an altercation involving a referee Sunday afternoon in Sherwood Park. Brooks has now played four straight games that have ended in overtime, winning two, losing one and finishing tied in the other .

In Drumheller, after winning only one game in all of November the Dragons have now lost only one game in December. Drum wins their fourth straight with a 3-1 win over Camrose. Cam Lamoureux had assists on all three Dragon goals as John Bolka, Graham Klassen and Trevor Smyth all score. Matthew Schmermund added the only Kodiaks marker midway through the second period. Camrose tried desperately to come back in the third period, firing 20 shots at goaltender Garrett Sheehan but the only goal went to Smyth and proved to be the insurance marker the dragons wouldn't need. Despite their performance in November, Drumheller still managed to vault themselves back into third place in the South Division.

In Canmore, the Olds Grizzlys keep pace with Drumheller by scoring two third period goals in a come from behind 3-2 win over the Eagles. Shadoe Stoodley opened the scoring just over a minute into the second period off a feed from Brance Orban. David Fitzpatrick answered back 62 seconds later while University of Alaska Fairbanks committed defenceman Kaare Odegard gave Canmore the lead less than half way through the middle frame with his second of the year. Wade Bergman tied the game 3:34 into the third on an unassisted effort while Brance Orban picked up his second point of the night while scoring the eventual winner at 11:30 of the final period. The 20 year old Lethbridge product now has 19 goals on the year but that was his first game winner.

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Today's Economic update is provided by my older brother Jeff who is a ... well lets call him an investment banker ... in Victoria. To be honest I don't really know what he does but we decided long ago that one of us would make money and the other would work in radio.

Economic Models ... explained with cows

SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows.You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows.The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy....

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.

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Steven Seigo continues to be involved in full practices and should be listed as probably for the game tomorrow night in Brooks.

Ashton Hewson is still day to day with varying bumps and bruises suffered in games all last week. Today's practice will be a good test for 'Hewie' to see if he will be ready to go tomorrow or if he needs to miss a game or two.

Kirk Belyk is starting to handle a puck and even take some shots but the team doesn't expect him back until after Christmas. Good to see him back skating with the team though.

The coaching staff is continuing to stress to their team the importance of winning every battle on the ice and it's the second and third efforts that are going to win hockey games. Practice consists of a lot of one on one and two on two battles with players being told to make decisions sooner and to work for their chances.

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The team leaves for this 4 game in 5 night trip very early tomorrow morning in order to get to Brooks at a decent time to check into the hotel and have a few hours of the bus before game time.