As of Wednesday, he had yet to play a minute this season, but former Memorial Sea-Hawk guard Daniel Gordon is on the roster of the Island Storm of the National Basketball League of Canada. And Gordon isn’t the only player on Storm with a connection to St. John’s.
Forward Russell Byrd, who played 20 games for the NBL Canada’s St. John’s Edge last season, is tied for the scoring lead of the Storm, averaging 20.5 points per game. Mind you, it’s based on a small sample size, since the Charlottetown, P.E.I.-based Storm (1-1) have played just two games this fall, but Byrd is also among the top five scorers in the league.
The Edge (1-3) are in heading to the Maritimes this week, but won’t face the Storm; they take on Moncton Magic Saturday. Halifax Hurricanes Sunday and Cape Breton Highlanders Tuesday. That means Byrd, who joined the Storm (1-1) after signing a rare — at least for NBL Canada clubs — two-year free-agent deal, won’t meet his former team in mid-December, when the Island side takes on the Edge at Mile One Centre.
There won’t be a whole lot of familiar faces, given that only three St. John’s players — Carl English, Desmond Lee and Jarryn Skeete — are back from the 2017-18 edition of the club.
That means there are lot of former Edge hoopsters elsewhere this fall. One of them, centre/forward Grandy Glaze, is averaging a league-topping 13 rebounds a game for the expansion Sudbury Five. In September, the Edge dealt the rights to Glaze to the Windsor Express in the trade that brought guard Maurice Jones to St. John’s. A week later, Glaze was flipped to Sudbury for Juan Pattillo.
By the way, the Edge’s Lee is averaging nine boards a game to join Glaze among NBL Canada’s top rebounders and is hitting 52.6 per cent of his three-point shots, putting him in the top five in the league in that category as well.
Here are the present locations for some other players from last season’s inaugural Edge team:
• Forward Charles Hinkle, who was third overall in NBL Canada scoring last season, signed on earlier this month with Club Biguá in Uruguay’s top professional basketball league. The team is based in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo
• Forward Ryan Reid, who came to St. John’s midway through the schedule, is back playing in Japan, where he had been during the 2016-17 season.
• Like Hinkle, former Edge point guard Coron Williams is with a team in South America, playing in Argentina's top professional league.
• Guard Colton Ray, whose time in St. John’s was hampered by a knee injury, is playing in Europe with a team in Montenegro.
• Also in Europe is Tyler Haws. The American forward, who joined Reid and Williams as mid-season additions for St. John’s, signed on with a team in Spain’s second division.
