Movement **UPDATED**

Tri-City Americans Governor/General Manager Bob Tory announced today that the team acquired 19-year-old defenseman Paul Sohor from the Everett Silvertips in exchange for 17-year-old forward prospect Zach McPhee.  (Tri-City Americans)

Sohor's a good D-man, no lie.  Surprised to see a trade within the division, those are more rare.  But acquiring a quality 19-year-old defenseman tells me that by midnight tomorrow either Schmdit or Stebner are the odd man out, either through trade or release.

**UPDATE**
Ams deal Stebner to Kelowna.

Tri-City Americans Governor/General Manager Bob Tory announced today that the team traded 20-year-old defenseman Zak Stebner and a 7th round pick in the 2011 Bantam Draft to the Kelowna Rockets in exchange for a 4th round pick in the 2011 Bantam Draft and a 8th round pick in the 2012 draft.  (Tri-City Americans)

Best of luck to Stebs, he is a great player and really a quality individual.

Tory states, "This was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever made next to trading Lassu and Tutschek for Dececco and Evans in Kootenay.

Stebner is a great kid and was involved in the community and a very good teammate.  And we all know what Proks brings."

Meanwhile Kelowna, to make room for Stebner, have released 20-year-old Brendon Wall

The Kelowna Rockets have acquired 20-year-old defenceman Zac Stebner from the Tri City Americans.

The Rockets acquired Stebner along with a 7th round bantam draft pick in 2011 in exchange for two picks in the annual WHL bantam draft: A fourth round pick in 2011 and an eighth rounder in 2012.

To clear roster space for Stebner, the Rockets were forced to release 20-year-old defenceman Brendon Wall.

"We lose a real solid player in Brendon Wall," said Rockets president/general manager Bruce Hamilton. "Unfortunately we can only have three 20-year-olds. It wasn't anything Brendon did. We had an opportunity to get a player that played in the league final last year and was a valuable player for Calgary."  (Kelowna Rockets)

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Alan Caldwell weighs in:

For the Americans, they only acquired Stebner six weeks ago from the Hitmen, and gave up a 3rd round pick in that deal. They only got a 4th round pick in return, and they had to swap a 7th for an 8th in order to get that 4th rounder too. So, clearly the Ams take a bit of a loss on the Stebner deals when all is said and done. I'm guessing they may not have expected Neal Prokop to be able to return and play as an overager this year?  (Small Thoughts At Large)

I would assume the Ams needed time to evaluate Neal and see if he'd be 100% to play but didn't want to turn down the opportunity to acquire Stebner as a back-up plan, for lack of a better term.  Bantam picks are a crapshoot.  And Bob Tory and the Ams scouting staff has a knack for finding diamonds in the rough in later draft picks.  Other rumor out there is that the Winterhawks were shopping Stebner originally and Tory wanted to keep them from getting their mitts on him.  But that's just scuttlebutt so who knows on that one.

I think having this whole 20-year-old situation dealt with will take a load off the boys' minds (until the trade deadline anyways) and they can relax and play some hockey!  It's my birthday party Friday night so I'm expecting a birthday win!