Day 1 of the tournament is today. The eight teams practiced this morning in preparation for tonight's games. A couple of quick notes from this morning ...

-- Good to see that Jiri Fischer is on the ice working with the Red Wings' prospects alongside Grand Rapids coaches Curt Fraser and Jim Paek.

-- Tampa Bay's top draft pick, Steve Stamkos, isn't here. I'm not sure whose decision that was, but it's never a good sign when a player is put in a different category than his peers. Stamkos was the top pick in this year's draft, but Zach Bogosian (third overall by Atlanta) is here. So is Alex Pietrangelo, the fourth overall pick by St. Louis. Columbus' Nikita Filatov (sixth overall) was slated to be here, but an injury sidelined him. (Drew Doughty, the second overall pick, is with Los Angeles, a team that doesn't participate in this tournament.) I'm sure that Stamkos will be just fine without this tournament, but make him into something set-apart. Alex Ovechkin played in this tournament. So did Erik Johnson and Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovachuk.