It’s been all over the fan boards this week that the Winnipeg Jets have signed goaltender David Aebischer, the former Avalanche/Canadiens/Coyotes prospect who has spent the last four years playing in Switzerland.

Technically, it’s true – the Jets confirm Aebischer will be in their training camp on a ‘try-out’ contract. Essentially, he is on loan from his club team in the Swiss league, Lugano, but is a real long-shot to unseat either Ondrej Pavelec or Chris Mason or even to be considered for a spot with the St. John’s IceCaps.

The 33-year-old product of Fribourg, Switzerland was drafted by the Avs in 1997 and played for the Swiss at the 1998 World Junior championships when they shocked the international hockey world by grabbing the bronze (the year Canada completely collapsed and finished eighth). Aebischer was named the all-star goaltender in that tournament; Canada had Roberto Luongo and Mathieu Garon between the pipes, just FYI.

In all likelihood Aebischer will be headed back to Lugano. If he was to stick, the Jets would have to come to a financial agreement with the Swiss club to get him signed to an NHL deal.

The Winnipeg Jets have added another product of the University of North Dakota, signing former Sioux defenceman Jake Marto to a one-year contract.

According to the Grand Forks Herald, Marto has signed a minor-league deal that will see him with either the St. John’s IceCaps or the Colorado Eagles of the East Coast Hockey League. Marto told The Herald a few teams had shown interest in him, but he had chatted with Jets assistant GM Craig Heisinger during the summer. Heisinger had also watched Marto play for the Sioux several times while he was running the show for the Manitoba Moose.

“He kept me informed as the summer went along and we got something finalized a couple of weeks ago,” Marto said. “I’m very excited. I was patient and let things kind of happen. I’m not sure what to expect, just taking it day-by-day. Whenever I get the opportunity, I’ve just got to jump on it and show what I can do. Hopefully, I can stay in the ‘A’.

A former North Dakota Mr. Hockey winner as the top high-school player in the state, Marto recently completed a four-year career with the Sioux. He played in 157 games, finishing with 21 goals, 41 assists and 62 points.

Funny what 15 years and a couple of plot twists can do for a guy’s image in this town.

So word came out Monday courtesy the Sports Business Journal that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman received a four per cent pay hike and is now making $7.5 million. It was a tidbit that barely drew a mention locally and nationally.

Interesting non-reaction.

You see, back in ’96, when the Jets were packing up and exiting for Phoenix – and in the years since – news like that would have had folks in this town all worked up in a lather and burning the man in effigy. Now the collective sense appears to be: "$7.5 mill for the guy who helped orchestrate the deal to bring the Jets back?... Sounds about right."

So there was Charlie Huddy Friday afternoon, standing in front of the True North/NHL banner not long after being formally introduced as an assistant coach of the Winnipeg Jets.

And listening to the long-time Edmonton Oiler – a five-time Stanley Cup champion while wearing the blue and orange – rave about the opportunity to come back to Canada, to Winnipeg, must have brought back a few old memories for diehard Jet fans.

Huddy, after all, was part of that Oiler dynasty that forever stood in the way of any kind of Jets’ postseason success -- including that (in)famous 1990 series in which the Oil came back from a 3-1 deficit in a series against Winnipeg to win in seven and ultimately grab the last of their Stanley Cup titles.

“A lot of great playoff series against them here, that’s for sure,” Huddy said. “I always tell people the series we were down and we ended coming back and beating the Jets was one of the kickers that led us to win a Stanley Cup... just going through that series of having to battle back and then move forward sent us on winning path.

We're debuting our new Winnipeg Jets-themed hockey blog today that yours truly and Tim Campbell will contribute to -- we hope -- fairly regularly, especially when NHL camps open in September.

This won't be the place for the breaking news -- that can always be found on the main page of our website -- but more a spot for us to tee-off on issues, provide links to cool stories/websites and, once the season begins, offer takes of life on the road following our NHL squad.

And so, here we go..

FIRST THINGS FIRST...

FIVE MORE THINGS WE’VE LEARNED WHILE WATCHING THE LAST WEEK OF THE STANLEY CUP DERBY...

1. It’s about Tyler Seguin of the Boston Bruins and all those moaning about the idiocy of Claude Julien’s decision to scratch the gifted young forward from the lineup until the last two games...

Well, count me among those who think Julien goofed.

Yes, we understand that prior to last Saturday — Seguin’s first playoff game — the kid had one point in 19 games and none in his last 11 to end the regular season. But all that skill has to show up, even in practice. The kid can play and only an injury to Patrice Bergeron got him back in the lineup, not some brainstorm from the boss.

Mini-rant O’ the Day:

Excuse me if I fell asleep and, while under the influence of my nightly Doritos and lager snack, missed the part where the Vancouver Canucks were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Derby.

Oh, they weren’t? That’s what I thought.

So what’s with all the fussing over their play through the first couple of rounds of the tournament?

Another week of NHL playoff hockey, another week of observations from one man’s perch..

1. The Washington Capitals stunning choke job against the Tampa Bay Lightning — and I say stunning because many folks, yours truly included, felt they would represent the Eastern Conference in the Stanley-Cup Final — could very well cost head coach Bruce Boudreau his job, although that’s not the early indication.

And that would not only be a shame if Boudreau was dumped, it would be wrong.

Look, it’s true that since Boudreau stepped behind the Caps’ bench they have lost Game 7 playoff games to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the historic collapse last year against Montreal. Their special teams were awful against the Bolts and, despite his efforts to change the approach of this squad to a more defensive-minded lot, they are swept from the Cup derby before mid-May.

Winnipeg Blue Bomber head coach Paul LaPolice slipped out of the latest in a series of the club’s CFL Canadian Draft meetings — no one’s counting, but Tuesday’s session could very well push the discussions total into triple digits — with an intriguing nugget:

D-Day — Draft Day — has been so all-consuming for the Bomber boss and his staff he even found himself throwing more ideas down on paper while on ‘vacation.’

“We’ve run through a lot of different scenarios, we’ve previously ranked our Top 50, reworked the rankings this week after meeting with (GM) Joe Mack and have talked about what it would take for us to trade if team wanted to move up in the third round or up to the fourth-overall pick,” began LaPolice. “I’m not saying we would trade, but we just want to have a ready list in case. But we may just take the players we like, too.

“And then last week when I was on vacation where we ranked players by position as to where we think they might go in each round so that we have projections for everyone in our Top 50. It’s totally an inexact science and I can assure you that in Round 1 people will be taken where everybody will go, ‘Whoa?!’ because everybody has different likes and different needs.

THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS AFTER ROUND 1 OF STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF ACTION...

1. Is there a first-round hero that got less ink than Tampa Bay goalie Dwayne Roloson? All the 41-year-old did was shut out Pittsburgh, on the road no less, in Game 7 and kicked out 207 of the 220 shots he faced in the series while posting a .941 save percentage. Get this: the Islanders traded him on Jan. 1 of this year for defenceman Ty Wishart. Ty Wishart?

2. They can breathe a sigh of relief now after knocking off the Montreal Canadiens, but the Boston Bruins better get their power-play fixed lickedy-split if they want to move on to the next round. The Bruins became the first team in NHL history to win a seven-game series without scoring on the man advantage (0 for 23). Yuck.

3. All kinds of theories being floated now as to why and how the Blackhawks were ousted in the first round one year after winning the Cup. There is the question about letting goaltender Antti Niemi leave in the summer and then paying Marty Turco $1.3 million to watch from the bench while Corey Crawford -- who earned $800,000 -- was outstanding in the Chicago net. And they'll certainly have more summer now to mull over the decisions to move Kris Versteeg, Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien for cap reasons after last year's title.

WHAT WE'VE LEARNED THROUGH THE FIRST WEEK OF THE NHL PLAYOFFS...

1. Let us begin by weighing in, briefly, on the whole headshot/cheapshot debate with this thought: when an ex-referee like Kerry Fraser is on the tube predicting Raffi Torres will be suspended for his hit on Brent Seabrook -- and we all know he wasn't -- and when players, coaches and GMs are in such disagreement about what is illegal and what is not, then the NHL clearly has a problem.

"It's hard to know where the line is," Los Angeles Kings coach Terry Murray, who didn't think Torres should have been suspended, said earlier this week.

"But that's the part we have to learn. There is danger. You're travelling at high speed. There's a lot of players who are getting into positions that are a little more vulnerable.

Gather round the ol’ keyboard, sports fans, as Ed Tait serves up his weekly collection of the goofy, wacky and fun stuff from the wide world of sports...

LEADING OFF...

No doubt NHL diehards have examined every piece of literature in the days leading up to the opening of the Stanley Cup derby on Wednesday night.

Hey, look, it’s what we do in the biz and in this country when it comes to hockey: examine everything from line matchups, special-teams strengths and weaknesses and who’ll play on the Canucks third line, etc, etc. etc.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers haven't announced it yet, but the paperwork is done and Tim Brown is heading north.

No, not the Oakland Raiders-Heisman-Trophy-winner Tim Brown, but the Tim Brown who starred at Rutgers as a fleet-footed receiver/returner.

The sports agency that represents Brown announced late Thursday that the 5-foot-8, 165 pounder had signed with the Bombers. He'll likely compete with Chris Garrett and others for kick-returning chores as a way to spell off starting corner Jovon Johnson from handling too much. Brown had stints with both the New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals last season after a spectacular career with the Scarlet Knights.

Watch some of his highlights: