HOCKEY TODAY... TOUGH ALL OVER FOR FRONTS, 67'S

OK, that's the Kingston Frontenacs we know -- outscored 11-4 over a weekend road trip with 45-plus shots allowed in each game, and no doubt, a very long bus ride back to the Limestone City.

To be fair, it was the odds-on Ontario Hockey League champions, the London Knights on Saturday night (5-2 on David Meckler's mortarboard trick). That was followed by a quick turnaround to play an afternoon game Sunday, which the Fronts lost 6-2 against, wait for it, the Saginaw Spirit.

So the Frontenacs may hear about this shellacking from the world's most famous faux fan of the Saginaw Spirit, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report. Just remember, Mr. Colbert -- or more to the point, the writers and researchers who prop you up -- the Frontenacs are not to be trifled with. You've been warned, remember. The job of tweaking the Frontenacs should kept to someone who's a local, but doesn't live in Kingston anymore -- and judging by the fact that schmozzle over replacing the dilapidated Memorial Centre is descending into new depths of farce, that's probably for the best. (Short synopsis: There's a motion before Kingston city council which could kill the arena project on Tuesday.)

67's WINLESS WEEKEND

The Fronts' hold on sixth place and a first-round playoff matchup vs. the Mississauga IceDogs intact. The Ottawa 67's were none too Swift themselves, losing their fifth in a row, 6-3 to those same IceDogs on an otherwise nice day at the Civic Centre.

Michael Swift had a hat trick for the IceDogs on a Murphy's Law kind of day for Ottawa, who played just well enough to lose. The topper came when Mississauga's Jordan Owens scored with the IceDogs playing two men short -- this happens like never -- to deflate the 67's after a brief rally earlier in the third period.

Maybe a butterfly flapped its wings in Malaysia and that caused the puck to skip by Julian Demers at the point and give the IceDogs' Mark Pietrangelo a gift rush that led to Owens' shortie, or this is a very fragile hockey team. Getting scored on while playing 5-on-3 -- even though it did make it seem kind of apt that 67's power plays are sponsored by a sanitation company -- doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It was like that all day for Ottawa: Cody Lindsay fanned in close moments before Swift opened the scoring (and got his second 35 seconds later) late in the first. When it was 2-1, IceDogs goalie Andrew Loverock (44 saves) got just enough of Brett Liscomb's wrister on a 2-on-1 to deflect it over the net, and the IceDogs came right back up the ice and scored. The 67's took 11 shots in the second before 'Sauga took one, but when the visitors finally got a puck on the net, it went in.

Throw in Tyler Cuma being knocked out of the game thanks to a dirty hit by 'Sauga's Jadran Beljo (who was thrown out the game), a Zamboni driver circling back twice during the first intermission to cover a patch of ice he'd missed and still failing to get all of it and Ottawa's Joe Grimaldi trying to start a fight in the all-but-the-crying stage and knocked down by the linesman, and it added up to a long day for the Barberpoles. One positive: Brian Kilrea switched up the lines between periods and put Mathieu Methot between Jamie McGinn and Matt Lahey, and the trio clicked for two goals before that backbreaking 5-on-3 goal.

Another highlight was the between-periods game between five- and six-year-old kids. Both of goaltenders staked out the same net and made a byline for it, slamming into each other like two 40-pound bull elephants. Good times.

NHL Scoreboard

Related:
Ready To Drop The Gloves With Stephen Colbert (Feb. 13)

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