Wednesday Reset - Season 5 Begins

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We kicked off the 5th season of The Pipeline Show last night and had more interviews and discussion than we could possibly fit inside our two-hour time limit so there is bonus material in the archives.

As always, a new season also means a new intro to the show... and this one might be the best we've had yet. The intro from the last couple of seasons has been a bit long, this one is much shorter but packs in even more clips and highlights. (And it's still maybe not 100% done... I'm doing some tweaking).

This is a good place to mention some new sponsors who have joined us for Season 5. Madbrothers is THE place to go to get your officially licensed gear from Slap Shot and Youngblood. Jerseys, hats, t-shirts... and a lot more. "Old time hockey is just a mouse click away!" We're happy to be awarding a special $20 promo code each week during Bad Ass Trivia plus all of our listeners can now get a discount from MadBrothers simply by using PIPELINE as your promo code when purchasing!

We've also got a new apparel sponsor coming on board: Tee Box Apparel is in the process of making our new hats and toques which will be available to win during Bad Ass Trivia or in our contests.

J&J Wholesale Auto is now also on board sponsoring the Sports Doctor's updates. "Why pay retail when you can buy wholesale?"

When it comes to guest, we started the new season off with a bang. Each year we've spoken with the 1st overall pick from the upcoming NHL draft and yesterday the projected #1 prospect for 2010... Taylor Hall. The Windsor Spitfires star forward spoke with us at length about the Memorial Cup win, how he spent his summer and how much he's looking forward to getting the OHL year underway. What about the WJC in Saskatoon/Regina? The draft? Statistical goals? Taylor Hall talks about it all... HERE.

From the OHL we moved to the WHL and specifically our own back yard as the Oil Kings' annual pre-season tournament enabled us to catch up with a few players of note. Brett Breitkreuz might be a leading candidate for captaincy this year and will be expected to carry much of the offensive load for the team. We spoke with him about the upcoming year and about his invite to Oilers camp.

Keegan Lowe is the son of Oilers president Kevin Lowe and because of that, his selection by the Oil Kings had skeptics screaming "Nepotism!" Well, no one is sayng that now as the 16-year-old is pushing hard for a spot on the team, a full year before most expected he'd be. He's already made the choice to go the WHL route and we talked to him about that and everything else... HERE.

One extra interview that we couldn't squeeze in was with rookie forward Dylan Wruck who could be an impact player for the Oil Kings. He's a 17-year-old rookie but has enough offensive talent that he might be amongst the leading scorers fro freshmen this year. Hear that bonus interview HERE.

another player we spoke with in St.Albert was Buffalo Sabres prospect Tyler Ennis. Are his WHL days behind him? Ennis believes so and so does head coach Willie Desjardins. You can hear a conversation we had with Ennis at the end of the segment with Breitkreuz and Lowe plus HERE is an unaired discussion with coach Desjardins in regards to the Tigers this season and coaching for Canada at the 2010 WJC.

At the top of the hour we played some Bad Ass Trivia and talked to Corey Graham.

Last week Dean missed the live show because he was in Calgary taking in part of the Olympic camp. This week we played the interviews he did with the would-be Olympic rookies; Jonathon Toews, Milan Lucic, Drew Doughty and Steve Mason. Can any of these guys crack the line up? Are any of them considered to be a sure fire olympian? Which one of these "kids" already has 35 games with Hockey Canada under his belt, just 5 fewer than veteran Jarome Iginla? Hear it all, right HERE.

We ended this edition of TPS with some interviews we did with some Oiler prospects earlier this summer that we've just never aired; Jeff Petry and Alex Plante, two defencemen that are considered key prospects in the organization. Petry talks about his difficulties last year, how there is such a thing as too much ice time, the Steven Kampfer incident, and more. Plante looks back at the year that was, burying the hatchet with Dave Lowry and looks ahead to his pro career. Hear both of those interviews HERE.

I also spoke with Cam "Bam-Bam" Abney of the Everett Silvertips who Edmonton drafted last June. The WHL bruiser talked about last season, getting drafted, what the coaching change in Everett might mean for him and also how he plans to become the toughest of the league's togh guys. Hear that bonus interview HERE.

Like I said, a really overloaded show to kick of the new season.

Next Week: we begin our CHL previews by looking at the QMJHL plus we'll speak with a player considered to be one of the top prospects outside of the NHL and obviously lots of stuff from Oilers rookie camp as well!