HOMETOWN BREAKDOWN: 67'S ROMP OVER FRONTS IS PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

Come back, Jim Hulton -- all is forgiven.

Just kidding. The main reason for writing that is to illustrate how hard it is to figure out where to start after listening to our Kingston Frontenacs somnabulate through a 4-1 home loss to the rival Ottawa 67's this afternoon.

There are any number of ways to simplify the Fronts' struggles. With regard to that Hulton crack, former NHL coach Bruce (Butch) Cassidy replaced popular local boy Hulton after last year's first-round playoff exit and the result so far this season is a 13-17-4-1 record, eighth in the Ontario Hockey League's Eastern Conference, for what everyone says is a talented team. You could easily be cynical about it and say, "Well, there was all this hoopla over Cassidy coming in, and he hasn't done much better than Hulton or any of the other 13 coaches Kingston's had in 33-plus mostly mediocre years of major junior hockey."

That's a little much, though, to say it's just Cassidy. I've been reading Scott Gray's The Mind of Bill James over the past couple days and he quotes something Bill James once wrote about how "sportswriters spend 90 percent of their intellectual lives looking for the switch" -- the one reason why a team won or it didn't. James probably didn't mean that in a mean or malicious way, and it isn't being quoted as such. Besides, reporters on ever-tighter deadlines need to think that way.

For the rest of us, it just means we end up bogged down in clichés. Do we really understand what we saw? The 67's, who came in with a four-game win streak, were "up," the Fronts were "down," the Jamie McGinn-Logan Couture-Matt Lahey line which scored all four Ottawa goals is "really in sync right now." Kingston was "fragile" after back-to-back losses to Belleville, and didn't show any "killer instinct," giving up the third 67's goal less than four minutes after Nathan Moon's tally pulled Kingston to within 2-1 midway through the second period.

One team wanted to go into the holiday break "on a winning note," the other played like they were thinking more about getting home to their families and friends. Ottawa goalie Brady Morrison, who made 37 saves to beat his old team for the fourth time this season, "has something to prove" every time he faces Kingston. And so on.

Does any of that, in and of itself, truly explain why the Fronts are sitting in seventh place in the conference? Not really. There is something weird afoot, though, when a team with six NHL draft choices is barely hanging on to a playoff position halfway through the season.

Then again, Kingston does have three 17-year-old defencemen and neither of the goalies they expected to have this season, including Daryl Borden (knee injury), are playing right now. That has contributed to Kingston being third-worst in the 20-team OHL in goals allowed (156).

Then again, nothing really matters until the playoffs anyways, as long as you get there. Oh well, whatever, never mind. The Frontenacs are just struggling right now. Everyone nod like we're all in agreement, and do truly understand.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

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