Clarke Re-signs, Yellow Horn Overseas, Signings By Team, Has Doyle Signed

Garrett Clarke Re-signs - photo by chlphotos.com

The Americans announced today that Garrett Clarke has re-signed for the 2013-2014 season. Clarke, who is noted for his toughness, grit and versatility played both forward and defense last year and led the Americans in penalty minutes with 223 in his rookie season. The 223 minutes is the single season record for the franchise. 
If you want to get reacquainted with Garrett take a look in the archives of this blog and read the player profile which talks about the journey Clarke made to the Americans. You can find it in the archives under, "Garrett Clarke, Player Profile" and the date is December 6, 2012. It is a great read even if you have read it before.
I think a good indication of Garrett's toughness is his summer job working for Other Side  Landscaping. For this guy who grew up in a very cool part of Canada to be working outside all day in the Texas heat says a lot. Garrett has already had up close and personal contact with snakes, tarantulas as well as a bout with poison ivy. I asked Clarke about his thoughts about playing for Allen in year two of his professional career and this is what he said, "It is a privilege to be able to call Allen my home for the upcoming season. I am looking forward to facing the challenge of defending our title this year. It is going to be exciting not only for us, but our fans located in North Texas."    

- With the Clarke signing the Americans now have seven players under contract for the upcoming season:

Tyler Ludwig
Trevor Ludwig
John Snowden
Phil Fox
Booter Bootland
Alex Lavoie
Garrett Clarke

- I have not included Chris Doyle on this list as the Americans have not announced that he has signed. My understanding is there are several steps to have a player signed. Even though his agent has put out on social media Chris has signed, before anything is official the contract has to be signed   by the coach and/or general manager, sent to CHL headquarters and approved with a signature. If the agent reported that Chris has signed the contract my guess is the other signatures have not all been completed. Usually the team and agent work together on the announcement but that apparently did not happen in this case. I assume it is just a matter of time until the I's are dotted and T's are crossed and this is official.

                                                                                                                                                                   
- Colton Yellow Horn who tore up the ECHL last year with 36 goals in 48 games for the Ontario Reign before being promoted to the AHL (Manchester Monarchs) has signed to play in the Austrian League. Next season Yellow will play for the for a team in Hungary called Sapa Fehervar AV19. Székesfehérvár is the name of the city and it's population is just over 100,000. Good Luck to Colton.

Colton Yellow Horn

- Wanted to give an update of player signings by team. Many Allen fans expressed concern about the lack of player signings a couple of weeks ago. At this point Allen has more players signed than any other team in the league. I gathered the following information on players signed through various means. I know it is a moving target and I may not have gotten everything but it is close. Here are the players signed by team:
Allen - 7
Tulsa - 5
Missouri - 4
St. Charles - 3
Arizona - 3
Quad City - 3
Denver - 2
Rapid City - 1
Brampton - 1
Wichita - 0

- Finally, I wanted to mention a great source of information about CHL hockey for you avid fans. I have gotten to know the guys who created the Minor League Hockey Report (MLHR) and they do great work from audio interviews, written interviews, statistics,  CHL headquarters information and much more. If you want more detail about what is going on around the league you can find MLHR through the following:

Web: minorleaguehockeyreport.com/
Twitter: Follow them at: @ML_HockeyReport
Facebook: Like them at "Minor League Hockey Report"