Tri-City Americans open pre-season training camp Thursday. Here’s how to watch

Hard to believe, but hockey is already here.

The Tri-City Americans open their pre-season training camp on Thursday at the Toyota Arena, which is next door to the Toyota Center in Kennewick where new seats are still being installed.

The Americans will have 61 players in the five-day camp, and fans are allowed to attend any session for free.

Included among those attending are Americans veteran goalie Tomas Suchanek; forwards Parker Bell, Tyson Greenway and Dwayne Jean Jr.; and defensemen Lukas Dragicevic and Marc Lajoie (the team captain).

Some of the locally grown talent will also get a chance to show off their skills: forwards Dominic Deery, Connor Ellingsen and James Lu; as well as defender Vincent Rodriguez.

Sessions begin each day at 9 a.m., with evening scrimmages going until 7:45 p.m.

The annual Blue-White game, which denotes the end of camp, will be held at 9 a.m. Monday.

▪ Burbank product Brogan Young, a defenseman, will be in the Regina Pats camp that begins on Friday. Young, 16, was picked two years in the American draft by Regina.

Motor sports

Hermiston Raceway will host the Labor Day Spectacular this coming weekend, a two-day event that runs Saturday and Sunday night.

The event will attract over 120 different race teams from the Northwest.

On Saturday night, the divisions racing will be the Northwest Pro Late Models (with a 75-lap main event), Speed Tour Modifieds, Tire Factory Tri-State Mini Stocks, AMCA Dwarf cars, and the local Street Stocks.

Sunday night’s racing will consist of the Northwest Super Late Model series with the Atomic 125, the Tire Factory Tri-State Hobby Stocks, INEX Legends regional qualifier, AMCA Dwarf cars, and the Hometown Heroes Bombers and Hornets.

Gates open at 4 p.m., racing begins at 6 p.m., on both days.

Go to Hermistonraceway.com to purchase tickets for either one day or both days.

College update

Eastern Washington University is off to a 1-2 start after completing its tournament last weekend in Memphis.

Sophomore Sage Brustad (Richland) has 40 kills already for the Eagles.

In a 3-0 win over Southern University, Brustad had 10 kills and 3 aces. Teammate Alyssa Radke (Connell) added 6 kills, while McKenna Collins (Irrigon) had 9 digs.

▪ True freshman Taryn Vrieling (Kamiakin) is off to a great start for the University of Idaho volleyball team.

The Vandals themselves have an 0-3 start to the season, but Vrieling — a frontline player — has 25 kills total in those matches.

▪ Central Washington University’s volleyball team defeated Minot State 3-0 on Aug. 27, and sophomore Kylie Thorne (Chiawana) helped the Wildcats to victory with 8 kills and 3 digs.

True freshman Morgan Maxwell (Richland) is also on the CWU team, and Leanna Shymanski (Kamiakin) is a graduate assistant coach for the Wildcats, who are 2-2 in this early part of the season.

Notes

Former Tri-City Herald sports writer Craig Craker is back in the sports business. Craker, who left the Herald about 10 years ago, eventually became the sports information director at Northwest Nazarene University (following in his late uncle Gil Craker’s steps).

Craker got out of the sports business for a while and tried other lines of work. Now, he’ll become the assistant director of Communications at Pacific Lutheran University.

▪ Here’s a friendly reminder regarding Thursday night NFL games: If you plan on watching from home — starting in Week 2 — you’ll need Amazon Prime to watch the game.

The company got the exclusive rights for Thursday night games this season, starting in Week 2 when the Kansas City Chiefs play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sept. 15.

The first Thursday night game — the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams — will be available to everyone on NBC on Sept. 8.

Now, according to a USA Today story, the NFL, Amazon Prime and DirecTV are still allowing the Thursday night games to be shown in restaurants and bars.

I guess we’ll see on Sept. 15.

Art Oberto

For four decades, there was always a certainty every time in late July when the unlimited hydroplanes came into Kennewick’s Lampson Pits for the annual Water Follies: a lot of boats and teams would show up, and so would Art Oberto.

The man, who at the age of 16 took over the family business when his father passed away, was a solid sponsor for a number of boats between 1975 and 2015.

Oberto could be seen wearing the colors of the Italian flag throughout the pits and up the river, handing out four-color pens that said “Stolen from Art ‘Oh Boy!’ Oberto.”

I’m not sure I ever met a more enthusiastic and positive person than Mr. Oberto, who passed away at the age of 95 last week.

He always had a joke for you, and he was always happy to see you each year.

What was cool was that Oberto — we always said his jerky products were the finest dried meats in all the land — had sponsored boats and teams for years that rarely had success. But then the Miss Madison team, with driver Steve David and then later Jimmy Shane, had a great run of national titles with Oberto as sponsor.

So it was always great to see he was finally rewarded with racing success.

In these later years, it became harder and harder for him to get to the Tri-Cities race site with his health problems.

Oberto was a bright, shining light. Not just in boat racing, but in life.

Jeff Morrow is former sports editor for the Tri-City Herald.