PR - Saints

Saskatoon Saints Deal Spezza

July 15, 2005

With half the season gone, the Saints have decided to "re-launch" their TFHL 15 Season in hopes of reigniting their Championship aspirations. President, CEO, GM Geoffrey Young, who Saints' fans affectionately dubbed "El Duce" after this weeks franchise changing deal, held a press conference to discuss recent changes.

"Spezza is a bum, good riddance!" Coming to the team this week in return for former Rocket Richard winning centre Jason Spezza was fellow 20 year old Christopher Higgins who will now centre a line with 18 year old Devin Setogouchi (14GP, 18pts) and 19 year old Ryan Getzlaf (37GP, 34 pts). "This young trio will only improve each season as my #1 scoring line...I expect each of the forwards to produce over a point a game", says the GM who is anything but humble when discussing the future prospects of his young roster.

Other recent acquisitions included former Saint Roberto Luongo in net who is expected to finish the season in the new Saints colours. Luongo won the Vezina in TFHL 12 with the Wheat Kings. GM Young became unsettled when a Regina sports columnist asked about his acquistion and trading of almost every starting goaltender in the TFHL (sometimes more than once). "Maybe it's freudian; perhaps its my subconscious fear of commitment and failure rooted in my relationship with my father...or maybe you can go play hide and go fuck yourself!"

Other notable acquistions are Eric Staal and Pierre-Marc Bouchard who will be joining Brian McConnell on the Saints 3rd/4th lines. Along with the Sakic, Kostitsyn, Kobasew 2nd scoring line, the Saints hope to regain their previous (albeit brief) status as an elite offensive team over a season ago (i.e Forsberg, Sakic, Spezza, Gaborik combos).

Long Term Plans

Some questions surround the long term future of the Saints franchise with the recent Spezza trade but Young reassures fans that the future has never been so good for this franchise. With Sakic's 15M salary which expires after this season and the expected demotion of Ray Whitney (5.25M) to the farm for next season, the Saints are looking at a Pro salary with 20 players included of just around 12M dollars (with no mentionable RFA's) - this includes all current players minus Sakic, Nylander and Whitney. Whether this means Young will use that open space to sign short term UFA's is unclear, "I'm commited to bringing the best goaltender to this team so that within the next 3 seasons we will be able to have a formidable chance at the Cup for a prolonged period over the next decade with this core of young players. We have on defence, 20 year old Ballard, 19 year old Weber and Rozakov, 20 year old defensive specialist John "el presidente" Adams and Power play specialist David "can't play anything but the powerplay because of that bloody endurance thing" Turon. And there's those forwards guys, ya, those guys, lets just say if Higgins doesn't surpass Spezza's performance then there will be trouble for El Duce.