Sommer's Gone

This is Roy Sommer. He was born in Oakland, California and played hockey there for Skyline High School 73-74. The following season he moved to Calgary to finish high school, eventually playing for Spruce Grove in the AJHL (then the Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL). He was drafted by Toronto in 1977 (6th round, 101st pick overall) and then signed by Edmonton as a free agent by Edmonton to begin a new decade-January 1, 1980.Roy Sommer had one shot in his entire career. He scored.Sommer got into coaching after his career and has been sending Sharks to the for awhile now.--If Guy Flaming had been around in 1980, Roy Sommer might have been on his Oilers Top 20 Prospects list. Guy's final list is here and contains the usual interesting facts I've come to look forward to almost as much as those July issues of the Hockey News that hilighted my childhood.Among the nuggets in this edition:He has Jeff Petry #1 (he's wrong, it's Riley Nash)Vande Velde has improved in many facets of the game including his physical conditioning and overall fitness levels. He has developed slowly but big centermen don't grow on trees and if he can keep up and score enough this guy could be extremely valuable. All those puck moving college kids (Chorney, Petry, Wild) are still under 200 pounds. How many of those guys can a team run out there every night?Alex Plante survived the Mandelbaum's and is completely healthy. And with that, he's gone. Flaming has signed on as contributor to the Hockey News, has his own radio show and can be read on his blog (Coming Down the Pipe!) which appears to the right on the Oiler blog list. He is no longer a writer for HF, robbing Oiler fans of the number one reason to visit the site. Was it a requirement of employment by the Hockey News that Flaming give up his post? Did Hockey's Future pull the plug when Flaming received a very impressive opportunity? Whatever the reason, Hockey's Future lost the most compelling reason this reader had for visiting. Source