Thursday, April 10, 2008

STARVED FOR SCORING IN MURPH DOG'S KITCHEN

A couple vaguely hometown hockey notes to keep us all going:

  • No doubt there's a great story behind a Kingston guy on the Belleville Bulls, Mike Murphy, going from fourth-round draft choice three years ago to top goaltender in the OHL.

    Both dailies, The Intel and The Whig, should have good takes tomorrow. Presumably it's a great ride for the Inverary native and all his people. The Bulls have dropped just one game in the first two rounds of the OHL playoffs; they should be favoured to reach the league championship series.

    It is a bit of a stretch to say that Murphy will be matched up against the goalie that Frontenacs GM-for-life Larry Mavety took ahead of him in 2005 if Belleville meets Oshawa in the next round. Daryl Borden, taken 44 picks earlier, hasn't played a minute in the playoffs for the Generals.

    (Then again, Mav is the same guy who rode with Andrew Raycroft and buried Mike Smith on the bench once upon a time. It made sense, then.)
  • Let's see how this plays out: An ex-Kingston city councillor, Rick Downes, is trying to have Mayor Harvey Rosen sacked over an alleged undeclared conflict of interest during the debate over Kingston's K-Rock Centre (AKA the Krock Pot).

    For 90 per cent of people, it's academic now that the arena is open for business. The other 10% might be able to enjoy it for a while.
  • Jim Dorey, the former NHL defenceman and one-time Kingston Canadians coach, was the subject of a Hockey News profile penned by good friend Neil Acharya.
  • Some cosmic force prompted checking The Canadian Press wire on Tuesday for an update on the Manitoba Junior Hockey League playoffs, a one-time sports beat during the Portage Daily Graphic days. The Terriers, coached by Blake Spiller, who along with his family were unfailingly accommodating around Centennial Arena and the local ball diamonds back in those days, won the league title by eliminating Winnipeg 5-2 in Game 5 on Tuesday.

    Several of the Terriers main cogs, including forwards Mike Audino, Eric Delong and Rob Roteliuk and d-man A.J. Spiller (the coach's son), were part of a pretty good Triple-A midget team back in the day. Here's hoping they can get reach the Royal Bank Cup next month in Cornwall.

(Thanks to the Kingston readers who sent along word of Murphy's honour.)

2 comments:

Andrew Bucholtz said...

Small thing: Downes is actually a former councillor, not a current one. He challenged Rosen in last summer's mayoral election (and almost won, only losing by 700 votes), and then ran for the NDP in the last provincial election. He's been feuding with Rosen forever, but this is a pretty big step to take: it sounds like he might have a case from the Whig story, though. It's also interesting that the other party involved (John P. Wright) owns K-Rock, which leases a building owned by Rosen Corp. and just happens to be the title sponsor of the new arena...

sager said...

Thanks, A.B., it's been fixed.

Nothing's been proven in court, but this does put Rosen's vow he was going to get the arena built in a new light, now don't it?

It got built, that's enough for most people. There are no saints in this story (regardless of what the KCAL folk might think about themselves).