Predator's Training Camp Details, Good-Bye Dan, and Thursday Thoughts

The Nashville Predators revealed the details of the upcoming training camp which starts with the rookie camp on Monday and has the remainder of the players officially reporting on Friday, September 17.

Most of the action will take place at Centennial Sportsplex but will become more frequent at the Bridgestone Arena once exhibition games begin.

The rookie camp will run from September 13 to 16 and has an 18 man squad that will travel to Florida to play the Panther rookies on September 15 and 16.

The remainder of the players will go through physical testing on opening day of camp on September 17. The first full day of practices that will be open to the public will be on Saturday, September 18 and will involve the squad being divided into three groups that will be on the ice from 9:00 until 2:00.

Here is the link to the full camp schedule and a roster of all 56 players that have been invited to camp.

Among the campers are six non-roster invitees with various backgrounds. Scott Ford is a 30 year old defenseman who has played the last two seasons in Milwaukee. Wingers Chris Mueller and Mark Van Guilder each split time between Milwaukee and Cincinnati during the last year.

Scott Lehman is 24 year old defenseman that has been in the Atlanta Thrasher organization for the past four seasons and played one NHL game in 2009. He was a teammate of Kevin Klein for two years in the OHL from 2002-04.

Jamie Doornbosch is an undrafted, 20 year old defenseman, who has played four years in Peterborough and was a teammate of Pred's first round pick Austin Watson for the last part the season in 2010.

Cameron Wind is an 18 year old defenseman that was draft eligible in the 2010 Entry draft but was not picked in spite of being ranked as the 80th best North American skater going into the draft. He has played the last two seasons with Brampton in the OHL.

The other fifty players are either under contract with the Predators or are draftees of the team that have yet to sign a pro contract with the team.

Here is the complete schedule of preseason games

Wed., Sept. 15 Rookies at Florida 6 pm
Thu., Sept. 16 Rookies at Florida 11 am
Thu., Sept. 23 Carolina 7 pm
Fri., Sept. 24 at Carolina 6 pm
Sat., Sept. 25 Washington 7 pm
Mon., Sept. 27 Atlanta 7 pm
Wed., Sept. 29 at Atlanta 6 pm
Sun., Oct. 3 at Washington 11:30 am
*All times are Central.

Good-Bye Dan...

After the huge 48 hour uproar that Dan Ellis caused on Twitter, Dan Tweeted his farewell to his 12,000 plus fans.

Here is a transcript of the final series of Tweets:

@33dellis: I am grateful for those who have shown support in the last couple days but am incredibly sorry for those I have offended. Twitter was a great way to see inside the life of athletes outside of public media. But this is even too much for me. I feel bad for the sincere followers/fans who just wanted a glimpse of things from the inside. But with the recent explosion... I am shutting down my twitter because in no way shape or form do I want this to disrupt my team. I deeply care for my teammates and faithful followers. This has all been misconstrued to no end and ppl's feelings are getting hurt. There was never any intention in my tweets to undermine ppl who are in different income brackets. I donate 10% of my salary each year to.. Help under privileged kids across the world. as long as I play in the NHL my peldge will remain the same to The Garth Brooks Foundation. I deeply care for the less fortunate and make many efforts to be of even marginal help. I wish you all a happy twitter experience and... Hope you do not allow this misunderstanding to form the basis of your opinion of me. I welcome any of you to meet me in person to chat. But no longer will I xpress things through this medium. Thx again to all the good ppl I have met on twitter. I wish you all the very best. Peace out twitter!

Only time will tell if this is another one of his trolling episodes. As it stands now, the Twitterverse has lost one of its best.

Programming Note...

Last night as Chris Wassel's The Program Radio Show wound down, Rick Bartolotta announced that he was retiring from the show, leaving his co-hosts and the audience stunned in disbelief. He has been a co-host of the show, that is now in it's third season, from it's original incarnation. Rick will be missed by all as he is moving into a new chapter in his life.

In Pred Nation...

The Cody Franson signing was the final piece of the puzzle that the Preds needed to put in place before camp opens. Preds TV has this clip of Franson discussing the new contract and plans for the coming season. Jay Levin from the Preds gives his take on the signing.

After the signing, Josh Cooper spoke with David Poile who indicates that the team is ready for camp.

Stories about Franson's signing came from Amanda at Predlines, Jas Faulkner, Section 303, David Boclair, and Forechecker. Jim Diamond also has a piece with a couple of quotes from Cody.

Another note on Franson from @kcwilson: A switcheroo for newly inked Cody Franson this season - he will wear number 4.

Mark at The View From 111 has a poignant piece about Dan Ellis before he threw in the towel as did Paul McCann.

Another reminder is that the Peterson for Parkinson's Dinner is tonight at The Factory in Franklin with the golf tournament in the morning.

Chris Burton has the lowdown on Pekka Rinne at OnTheForecheck. It is difficult to make predictions for Peks without known who the back-up will be.

Around the NHL...

All Habs has a followup to last week's monumental piece on the MSM/New Media debate. It is also a must read.

PHT has the latest on the NHLPA's progress in negotiations with Donald Fehr.

A week from today the NHL can start drawing money from the City of Glendale to offset expenses for running the team while they continue to try to find a buyer.

The Stars are hoping to get more bidders for the team and move the process along but it has not happened reports Defending Big D. This is doing nothing for the fans who feel like they are in limbo. So that's two Pacific Division teams in the limbo state.

Damien Cox looks at the Leaf's goalie battle along with several other battles in net around the league.

Robyn Regehr wants to stay in Calgary in spite of all the rumors with his name attached.

So much for a season long battle of Alberta from @dantencer: Taking my first hard look at the Oilers schedule. They play Calgary 6 times and 5 of them take place in the first 26 days of the season.

In a strange cross between baseball and hockey, Sidney Crosby and several other Penguins took batting practice with the Pittsburgh Pirates yesterday. Sidney even launched a home run that can be seen here. He should have played in the Pirates game against the Braves last night when they got beat 9-3.

Intent To Blow has breaking news. In light of the @33dellis firestorm, the NHL is moving all CBA negotiations to Twitter. They also have news that the Puck Daddy may be in trouble.

Odds and Ends...

Is food eating a sport? I don't think so but a 105lb, 42 year old woman nicknamed "Black Widow" ate 181 buffalo wings in twelve minutes. Impressive but I wouldn't want to take her to dinner.

In astronomy terms, there was a near miss of Earth by two asteroids yesterday. They were never seen before Sunday. It just goes to show that we could be a few days away from going the way of the dinosaur with no chance to survive it.

I know this may be a heart-breaker for some but everything in the movie "Rudy" may not have been true.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass