Sept 28 might be a bit early for Jiricek to arrive, but it depends if/when the Blues assign him to Brantford. Visas might take a week but with the gov you never know if it will be smooth or take a little longer.
Tickets at home in Brantford can be challenging because it is a small venue. However, it generally isn’t much of a problem seeing them for away games.
That's what I was afraid of.
FWIW, the Blues do have a track record of sending junior players back pretty quickly when they aren't actually competing for an NHL job. I know we got Buchinger back to Guelph in time for him to play in their season opener last year, but he is a Canadian kid who played for Guelph before being drafted so it was easy to just slide him right into the lineup the instant he arrived at the rink. Probably not as smooth for a foreign player who has never played with the team before.
The Blues have been advertising the first 4 days of training camp, which starts today. We've got a couple preseason games this weekend too. My hope is that the plan is to get him on the ice for a few practices so fans can see our 1st round pick on the ice in our jersey, maybe get him into a preseason game, and then assign him to Brantford Sunday or Monday. NHL training camp reps can be valuable, but I think it makes a ton of sense to get him to Brantford ASAP in order to get him acclimated to his new team/league. We clearly want him to play a lead role in junior instead of being just a guy in a lower pro league, so it would make sense to get him to junior quickly.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion that these things are pretty murky. Looking forward to watching Bulldogs games again! My limited junior viewing is based around Blues prospects and I really enjoyed watching Robert Thomas in his limited time there.
