This only happens to the Kingston Frontenacs -- it was reported before Game 3 yesterday vs. Oshawa that leading scorer Bobby Hughes quit the team between the third period and overtime of Sunday's epic (to borrow a term mountain climbers use when someone meets their maker at high altitude).
One never, ever presumes to know what's really going on within any sports team. However, you figure out what it says about who's in charge when a player can quit in the middle of a playoff series, then be welcomed back after GM-for-life Larry Mavety "brokered a deal," in The Whig-Standard's words. Suffice to say, everything you ever suspected about the Frontenacs being a gong show is out in the open.
It was almost an epilogue that they blew another lead last night, this time a mere two-goal advantage in a 7-4 loss o the Generals which put them behind three games to none in the best-of-7 first-round playoff series. The Fronts were up 2-0 in the second, but Oshawa scored two short-handed goals on the same Kingston power play (the first from former 67 Shea Kewin) to turn the game around. Cal Clutterbuck potted a hat trick and, talk about all lines firing, none of the Generals' seven goals were scored by you know who, John Tavares. Meantime, Kingston's three best players, Hughes, Cory Emmerton and Chris Stewart, were a combined minus-12 with one assist.
It would be a mild shock if Kingston's Bruce Cassidy is the coach of anything two weeks from now. Hughes feeling like quitting was his only choice after a tense week where captain Stewart was coping with a death in the family is totally understandable. He should have been forgiven, but at the same time, the thought will always be there that the same forgiveness would not have been extended to a third-line player, and that letting him come back amounted to throwing the coach under the bus. How does Cassidy, who'd benched Hughes over a couple defensive lapses, come back from having his attempt to instill discipline overruled? Why would he even want to?
Game 4 is Thursday back in Kingston. It will in all certainty be the final OHL playoff game ever held at the Memorial Centre, since there's no way the 'Shwa will have to come back for Game 6.
Bulls 5 67's 4 (series tied 1-1): Damn, but Ottawa would have been sitting pretty if it had been able to hang on to a pair of two-goal loads on home ice. Belleville's Bryan Cameron's power-play goal 56 seconds after a shortie made it 2-0 Ottawa midway through the second might stand as the turning point in the series.
Related:
Frontenacs in 3-0 hole (Doug Graham, Kingston Whig-Standard)
67's run out of luck (Don Brennan, Ottawa Sun)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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