How concerned are you with the overall level of play in the league? It looks to me like it could drop considerably which could be quite noticeable after the improvement over the past five years. What do you think?

Blue Jackets Sign Center Eric Boguniecki

Boguniecki has tallied 34-42-76 in 167 career NHL games
with Florida, St. Louis and Pittsburgh

The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed center Eric Boguniecki (pronounced
BOH-guhn-ih-kee) to a two-way National Hockey League - American Hockey League
contract, club President and General Manager Doug MacLean announced Tuesday. As
is club policy, terms were not disclosed.

KOMETS ADD VETERAN
SPEED
10-year pro Daniel Goneau agrees to terms
Kelly Miller re-signs

Fort Wayne, IN --- The Komets announced Tuesday that veteran skaters Daniel
Goneau and Kelly Miller have agreed to terms for 2006-07.

In some of these negotiations with players throughout the UHL. Nobody is announcing signings right now and we're into August. I think it's possible the Komets may have signed more players than any other UHL team, at least announced signings. I'll bet the debates are getting heated with both sides -- players and owners -- starting to get nervous.

As much as some people like to rail on the UHL all the time, the league did something very nice over the weekend by raising nearly $5,000 for St. Louis Children's Hospital with the Children's Classic Gold Tournament. Over 120 golfers participated. The league's 2006 all-star game raised over $10,000 for the hospital.

I can't imagine how difficult this was to pull off for such a small office staff, and every dime went to the hospital. The event drew people from as far away as Canada.

That is impressive.

I talked to David Franke this afternoon and he said there won't be any announcements until late this week at the earliest and probably next week.

That's good for me because high school football starts Friday and I'll be tied up working on preview stuff until then.

As for Colin, I knew he was having second thoughts, but he told me he was still committed to going to Italy this season. He really likes Pat Bingham, but he'll honor the contract he signed. P.C. already left for Europe to start his season.

How many of you are worried about the gas prices this winter possibly affecting your ability to go to Komets' games? Are some of you skipping season tickets because of it? If gas hits $4 per gallon, which kind of changes will you have to make or are you already making?

How many of you buy the paper, and how many of you read it on-line? Just reply with buy or on-line. Thanks.

From David Franke: ``I think what you are seeing in our league because of your hard
cap, we've actually got everybody slotted for X number of dollars. We have to
find guys who will play for the slotted area that we have in mind. That's one
reason why you're not seeing a rash of signings out of our league. We're
working with a hard cap and everybody is playing by the rules. It's just going
to take a while to get everything put together. We've got a lot offers out.''