The Conception Bay Blues have been busy adding to their roster as they prepare for the East Coast Senior Hockey League season-opening weekend, making two picks in the ECSHL pre-season draft and announcing the addition of a couple of former Quebec Major Junior Hockey League players, both natives of Conception Bay South.
The two newly-signed players are forwards Kyle Tibbo and Kris Hodge.
Tibbo spent two years in the QMJHL with the Moncton Wildcats and Victoriaville Tigres before finishing up his junior career with the Maritime Hockey League’s Truro Bearcats, where he was the 2016-17 MHL player of the year, scoring 88 points, including 47 goals, and leading the Bearcats to a league championship.
The 22-year-old spent last season playing for Ryerson University.
Hodge, 23, also saw time with the Moncton Wildcats, but most of his QMJHL career was with the Shawinigan Cataractes.
He also spent a year in the MHL, putting up 72 points in 45 games with the Woodstock Slammers before heading to Acadia University for two seasons.
In the ECSHL draft, which saw selection of players not affiliated with league teams via their minor or junior associations, the Blues made the first overall selection, taking forward Cody Batten, a forward from Carbonear and a product of the Tri-Pen major midget program.
The Northeast Eagles took former Southern Shore Breakers and CeeBee Stars netminder Doug Pippy second overall. The move was designed to a vacancy created by an earlier trade that saw the Eagles deal their former netminder, Mark Yetman, to the Breakers.
Southern Shore drafted Barrie, Ont., native Keenan Kennedy, who played for Espanola Express in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League and then with the Calvin College Knights in Michigan last season. After the St. John’s Caps drafted Mitch Voisey, ECSHL newcomers Clarenville Caribous closed out the opening round by selecting Austin Meehan, a forward last played for New Jersey’s Mercer Chiefs of the Atlantic Youth Hockey Association.
Second-round choices were Springdale native Christian Pelley by the Blues, former St. John’s junior league and senior Caps player Brent Skiffington by Northeast and Adam Hooper by St. John’s.
The Blues open the new season when they host the Breakers 8 p.m. Friday at and are back on the ice at C.B.S. Stadium at 7 p.m. Saturday as they take on the Eagles.
The East Coast league has added the defending Herder Memorial champion Caribous in a reshuffling of provincial senior hockey. The Grand Falls-Windsor Cataracts and Gander Flyers, who had been part of the Central West Senior Hockey League with the Caribous, will compete against ECSHL teams on an interlocking basis, with the entire seven-team body coming under an umbrella known as the Newfoundland Senior Hockey League.