Bleeding Tricolour: Sheahan on the 'well-orchestrated loss'

Remember when Queen's lost its regular-season finale 25-13 to Laurier and dropped from No. 2 to No. 4 in the last Top 10 poll prior to the OUA playoffs? Gaels coach Pat Sheahan, in Belleville, Ont., to speak at sports dinner (defensive coordinator Pat Tracey attended high school in the Friendly City, as did defensive back-kick returner Jimmy Allin) had a colourful way of describing that game:

"Queen's was already guaranteed top seed in the OUA playoffs.

"'So, in the final regular season game against Wilfrid Laurier, at 7-and-0 and learning from last year, anybody with a bruise did not play in Week 8,' said Sheahan. 'And, even though we didn't want to tip-toe into the playoffs, sometimes a well-orchestrated loss can pay off.' "

Suffice to say, it worked out a lot better than the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry took a dive ("who wants to laugh?") in an effort to sabotage a hack comedian named Kenny Bania.

Putting on the Queen's hat, there was a sort of calm descending after that result. (I made a point to attend a Windsor-Ottawa game to eliminate the distraction.) Neither of the top two tailbacks, Marty Gordon and Jimmy Therrien, dressed, and there was a feeling afterward that they would be fine in the playoffs so long as the offence could convert in situations like, say, second-and-5 and third-and-1. It seemed like it worked out.

Few seemed to figure it out what was happening at the time. Queen's dropped two spots in the polls for losing a nothing game. The same old questions were raised. Ottawa fans actually cheered when it was announced at Frank Clair Stadium that Laurier was beating Queen's, even though if a memory serves, a Golden Hawks might have helped the Gee-Gees' playoff seeding.

On a Queen's related-note, there is word defensive end Neil Puffer has earned a CFL free-agent shot with the Edmonton Eskimos. Unfortuanately, inside receiver Chris Ioannides will apparently not attend training camp with the B.C. Lions. Each player posted Facebook updates recently.

(The Seinfeld reference is apt. Remember the early episodes when Jerry sometimes worry a T-shirt from his alma mater, Queens College in New York City?)

Related:
Queen's coach praises Belleville duo; Sheahan says Allin, Tracey instrumental in Vanier Cup victory(Paul Svoboda, Belleville Intelligencer)

Bleeding Tricolour: Get out your 'all in' puns; Jimmy Allin is back

This is how poised Jim Allin is: He answered his cell phone while on a roller coaster.

The Queen's cornerbachas confirmed he will return to the Golden Gaels for a fifth season. Like with all players who have competed a degree and have eligibility remaining, he was on the fence.

"It's not 100% official, but unofficially, I can’t see myself not playing," said Allin, 23, who earned his life sciences degree and Queen's male athlete of the year award recently. "I'm not ready to be done yet."

Allin's unique skill set gives Queen's another dimension on defence and in the return game, where he was an all-Canadian kick returner in 2008 while making the second team as a D-back. He's only 5-foot-11, 170 lbs., but set a record in the shuttle run at the CFL evaluation camp in March. He's also a pretty heady player, an aspiring doctor who is leaning toward following in the footsteps of his dad, Dr. Jeffrey Allin, a family practitioner in Belleville, Ont.

The FAN 590's Mike Hogan went on record a few months back saying it would be a "travesty" if Allin, 23, didn't get a long look at the CFL camp. He was at Montreal's camp in the spring.

"When things didn't work out (in Montreal), it was a chance to take a step back and take a look at what I wanted to do," said Allin, who has an offer to study medicine in Brisbane, Australia (yep, in Queensland). "There's no way I’m ready to hang up yet ... it was a good experience with the Als, I have to believe everything works out the way it does for a reason. I'm looking forward to going deep into the season."

Of course, what happens to Queen's this year is first of all what happened to them the past two post-seasons. The Golden Gaels are 14-2 in the regular season the past two years, but lost home playoff games to Western and Ottawa.

"Last season was just like the year before, our season ended way too early," Allin says. "I don’t know if we weren't just ready. We definitely have to finish and win those games. I think we have the team that can do it."

The Gaels already got some welcome news when all-Canadian receiver Scott Valberg successfully appealed. The upshot is Queen's has lost its best interior D-lineman, Dee Sterling and force-of-nature feature back, Mike Giffin, to the pros, but they have returned their No. 1 pass receiver and best defender against the pass. That should be reassuring in Queen'sland.

Fronts: Doherty could slip, but where did you read that

Please do not hold your breath waiting for someone to make the connection between the Kingston Frontenacs management structure and OHL Prospects' view Fronts d-man Taylor Doherty is the league's biggest "faller" for the NHL draft:

"(Doherty) went into this season as a guy with the potential to go in the NHL lottery. But Doherty never took that step forward, as was expected. Offensively, he had a disappointing season, failing to match his stats from his rookie year. Defensively, he was exposed as a poor lateral mover and an undisciplined aggressor. In many cases, Doherty took a step backwards this season, rather than forwards. This caused his drop from potential lottery selection to possible third round selection."

(Click through, because somehow this Kingston Frontenacs post turned into a rant about Vernon Wells. That's the kind of weekend it was for the Blue Jays.)

Perish any thought that Doherty's development might have been impacted negatively by the last stint Larry Mavety had behind the Frontenacs bench, from the 12-game mark on in 2007-08 through the first third of last season. That probably did little very to aid Doherty's progress.

As a general point, it would be nicer to see more analytical coverage like the above one from Brock Otten making it into the traditional media when it comes to junior coverage, hell, any sports coverage in Canada, please excuse the gross generalization.

The NHL draft is approaching (June 26-27 in Montreal) It is good a time as any to make such a point. Chances are, in almost any city with a major junior hockey team, you will read the same rundown of which players with a tie to the area has a chance to be drafted, with the potential draftees saying the same extemporaneous comments about how it is a honour just to be drafted. It is in keeping with what a journo friend once suggested would be the ultimate headline, "Athlete hopes to win upcoming game." Sometimes it's as if the writer is looks at the player more the way a publicist looks at a client. (It can be stressed enough this is a general concern. The spur to say it didn't even come from a hockey story.)

Newspapers are limited by finite space, other priorities and cut-beyond-the-bone staffing levels (especially anywhere in Ontario, and you know who to thank). However, they should not turtle when it comes to trying to provide critical analysis, trying to increase understanding or provides a more cohesive picture of what's going on. People already know Big Bobby Clobber Jr. would like to be drafted, the higher the better, since that is why he has been playing hockey since age three. Having that in there, of course, is based on the false premise reality can only be shown through someone else's quotes.

There are piles of empirical evidence which show people want more detailed info. Instead, you can look forward to hearing the same-ol'-same-ol' draft hopeful clichés over the next 11, 12 days. I'm excited ... it's pretty surreal ... I haven't really thought about what team I'd like to be drafted by.

With Taylor Doherty, there is more to the story than just him being drafted. There's the story of how he went sideways a bit as a player in the eyes of informed observers, which jibes with what TVCogeco's Tim Cunningham said on Kinger's radio show during the Frontenacs season.

(Incidentally, the Belleville Bulls traded former Front Luke Pither to Barrie for three draft choices. So Luke Pither and Josh Brittain, Kingston's first-rounders in 2005 and '06, have been reunited. Brilliant!)

(What brought this on? Blame it on one OMD's column about the Blue Jays' Vernon Wells which ran in a Toronto newspaper over the weekend. The writer, who shall remain generic, had plenty of quotes from Wells, saying how he needs to put in extra work in the batting cage to snap out of his horrid hitting funk (now 0-for-17 and 138 at-bats without a home run). Of course, there was no mention of something most sentient Jays fans have already contemplated, that maybe this is as close to as good it gets for Wells. Five minutes of reading The Hardball Times or FanGraphs combined with a willingness to reason will show anyone that 40% of the way into a major league baseball season, a player's production has usually close to finding its own level, just like water. Of course, that cannot be allowed to creep into the picture. Vernon Wells is confident he's going to come around and be a 30-homer, 100-RBI guy like he was in 2006, so by God, write what he said.)

Bleeding Tricolour: Gaels' Allin headed to Alouettes training camp

A fun fact about Queen's Golden Gaels defensive back Jimmy Allin attending the Montréal Alouettes' upcoming rookie camp: It's a first step to competing for a spot against a guy whose record he broke.

Allin, as you might remember, set a record in the shuttle run at the CFL combine in March. The previous mark was held by current Alouettes safety Mathieu Proulx, which is kind of noteworthy (or not).

Speaking as a Gaels supporter, one has to have clear eyes. This could be seen as somewhat of a first step for Allin.

The Corbyville, Ont., native is headed to rookie camp as undrafted free agent who slipped through the CFL Canadian College Draft. That was perhaps since, as one can only assume he's sick of being reminded, he's undersized at 5-foot-10 and 170 lbs. However, Allin has some freaky athleticism, and he's also a very intelligent player (he took Life Sciences at Queen's, which is a bit more rigorous than English, eh).

The bottom line is Allin is going in as a bit of an underdog story, but there should be confidence he can at least earn a longer look from the CFL. To see him play is to know he's a unique talent. Queen's has a good track record with producing linemen, running backs and receivers who have rated a look from the pros, but Gaels d-backs getting such an opportunity has been fewer and farther between. Go get 'em, Jim.

(Cross-posted to cisblog.ca.

Frontenacs: One of these days — pow, right to the Moon, Springer!

A discussion on NHL Home Ice about Kingston Frontenacs centre Nathan Moon spoke to the poor job junior hockey's longest-running gong show has done with player development.

Russ Cohen and Shane Malloy, during The Hockey Prospect show on Saturday, mentioned Moon while talking about Pittsburgh Penguins prospects.

Very little would come as a surprise to those who follow the Fronts closely, or are familiar with how general mangler (not a typo) Larry Mavety has kept the franchise in the stone age when it comes to nurturing talent, Doug Gilmour's presence as coach be damned.

Malloy: "He (Moon) makes nice passes, he does some offensive things, but he needs to learn play away from the puck. I'd like to see more intensity and dedication, see him win more of the 1-on-1 battles."

Cohen: "You do wonder how long he has been getting by on that really good offensive ability ... I know he had averaged a point a game the past two seasons, but you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt. He needs to be able to show a better all-around game." (Emphasis mine.)

Each stressed Gilmour's coaching could be a boon to Moon's development. That optimism is certainly appreciated, since it's an article of faith it will get better in Gilmour's first full season, since hey, it can't get worse than 50 losses in 68 games.

(Granted, one can hear the spin-doctoring from nine months away. It will be framed as a great triumph if Kingston merely makes the playoffs next season. This means ignoring that 80% of the teams in the OHL get in and owner Doug Springer said at the start of last season their goal was "top four" in the Eastern Conference.)

By most accounts Moon improved during the second half of last season, particularly after being made for a healthy scratchy for a game just after Christmas. The hope here is he'll blossom, although Cohen noted that he probably needs to be in a different NHL organization than the Penguins, who have Jared Staal as their flippin' third-line centre.

Point being, though, what Cohen and Malloy said about Moon's flaws was a familiar refrain to anyone who's had to suffer His Royal Mavesty's creaky act in Eastern Ontario for the past two decades. The man's concept of hockey was hermetically sealed some time around 1989.

That explains his line of thinking, so-called, that "we need goal scorers" when even an ass-talker can figure out an offensive defenceman is the biggest difference-maker in the OHL. Hockey has changed from a freelancing, offensive game to a more structured two-way game. Pure goal scorers, the Tim Kerr types, are about as pertinent to a struggling team as tits on a motorcycle.

Gilmour seems to get that the Fronts need to build from the defensive end. However, it will take years to undo the damage Mavety has inflicted, yet he's still there since Springer in his infinite wisdom has given him a new four-year contract.

It's pretty clear what is implied when learned hockey minds are wondering, as Cohen did about Moon, if an 18-year-old NHL-drafted player is just getting by on natural ability. It ties in with a previous point that the Frontenacs are, to bogart Bucholtz's phrasing, "Unimaginative talent evaluators (who) tend to go with guys who are generally thought to be good by the scouting community." They're slave to orthodoxy when it comes who to take and don't do enough to help them get better once they're there.

(To go back to that point about early-year bias in hockey scouting, Nathan Moon's birthday is January 4. Josh Brittain, the 2006 first-rounder who was traded away last fall, was born one day earlier, Jan. 3, 1990.)

To use an academic analogy, it's as if Kingston, thanks to teams drafting in reverse order of their finish in the standings, gets the players who, as 16-year-old midget players, could get "soft A's" without studying much. Unfortunately, under Professor Mav, they don't learn how to work.

Relatively few players can pull "soft A's" at the OHL level. Detroit Red Wings forward Dan Cleary, for several years, is an example of Mav's hockey machine. Cleary got by on ability when he played for Mavety in Belleville in the 1990s, but he floundered in the NHL until he was 27. It's not a coincidence that he struggled after spending three years for the losingest coach/GM in OHL history. Cleary found his way to a progressive NHL organization, eventually, and his career has taken off.

Meantime, the Frontenacs' former rivals down down Highway 401 seem to be able to find puck-chasers whose grades, to torture the analogy, were "good enough to get in." Cases in point from the Bulls would include Shawn Matthias, Mike Murphy, P.K. Subban and Eric Tangradi. None of them was a first-round pick in the OHL draft, but all are now rising prospects in a NHL's teams system. OHL Prospects also deems the Bulls to have had the league's best defensive forward, Cory Tanaka, whom Duane paid homage to a few months ago. Tanaka should get a shot at the pros.

The Bulls were able to realize if you took a 75% student who studied hard, they could be just as good. Instead of soft A's, they got "Hard B's."

Gilmour told Rogers Sportsnet on Friday that he has two years left on his contract. There's no getting past the fact Mavety is still around the organization. The game passed him by before most of the Frontenacs' current players were even born, yet Springer keeps him around instead of surrounding Gilmour with people whose experience and understanding are actually relevant.

It has been 556 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

(Meantime, this is inside baseball, but do you think the Frontenacs website has any news about defenceman Erik Gudbranson, an Ottawa native, being invited to Canada's under-18 selection camp? Don't kid yourself. The Belleville Bulls, however, had a mention of Shawn Lalonde and Stephen Silas being invited to Hockey Canada camps.

Point being, this organization is no closer to learning how to do right by players just because it has a celebrity coach. Not to spread outhouse graffiti, but this might be the greatest message board comment ever left about the Kingston organization:

"Many years ago, a player was traded from Plymouth to Kingston. When the player left Plymouth, he was allowed to take his skates, his sticks, warm ups, pads, gloves, etc. Several years later, he was traded from Kingston. He had to return all of his equipment, right down to his jock strap. If you are a player, do you want to go to Kingston knowing that they are too cheap to let a player keep his jock? Or knowing that you may get a used jock? News of such cheapness gets around. Agents — oops, I mean advisers — let prospects know that some teams are better than others to play for.

Blog blast past: No place for homers

Belleville Bulls goalieMike Murphy, who hails from the Kingston area, capped his major junior hockey career today by being named the OHL's top goaltender for the second season in a row. From Jan. 5, 2009, here's a reminder that he might have won another prize.

There was no excuse not to argue on Mike Murphy's behalf a month ago — guilty as charged.

It is hard not to wonder, with the Canada-Sweden world junior final starting in a hour and our boys going in as underdogs (maybe even for real this time), how the Kingston-born Belleville Bulls goaltender might have done. Hockey Canada didn't invite the OHL's leading netminder to its selection camp. Its starter out of the Western Hockey League, Dustin Tokarski, has given up nine goals in the past two games. (One has to believe Tokarski will be fine tonight; it's not like this is Hardy Astrom.)

It is even harder to take issue without seeming hickish and dickish. What are you going to do — cheer for Sweden because Hockey Canada didn't invite the best goalie in the OHL who's from your hometown, and also cut the league's leading scorer, Taylor Hall, who's also from Kingston? Only a complete maroon would go that far.

It probably comes down to how junior hockey is followed and covered by the media. Who really has the legitimacy to argue for this player over that player, outside TSN's Pierre McGuire, ESPN The Magazine and sportsnet.ca's Gare Joyce and professional scouts. We're all Al Capp schmoes by comparison, even though the Contrarian Goaltender at the above-linked Brodeur Is A Fraud made a pretty convincing case that Murphy is outstanding when his numbers are put side-by-side with the other goaltenders Belleville has had across the past two seasons. Please keep in mind that includes Philipp Grubauer, who stopped 44-of-49 shots for Germany against Canada last week.

There's a fat chance that anyone other than a chap calling himself the Contrarian Goaltender will point out that Hockey Canada is prone to simply taking the goalies off the best defensive teams in the Western Hockey League. It's like fans, pun intended, are Stockholm Syndromed into going along with Hockey Canada's selections. How can you really take issue without looking provincial, or a hater who doesn't want to Canada win? Noam Chomsky, eat your heart out.

Murphy, by all accounts is the real deal, and while this will come as mewling by the wannabe president of the Mike Murphy Fan Club, it bears noting. Writing about junior hockey is already enough of a one-way ticket to obscurity, even by the standards of being a meaningless blogger. The way it works with this tournament, to echo the Jack Todd column from this morning's Montreal Gazette, is that it's very much "you're with us or you're against us," when it comes to Team Canada at the world juniors.

Chances are, if Canada should lose tonight — and please don't say this amounts to jinxing them — no one will say, well, they should have gone with Murphy. Tokarski will probably be fine, anyway.

They should have gone with Murphy. No one will ever know the difference. Sorry, Mike, for not saying it sooner. Go get that OHL championship.

He didn't, but he still had a hell of a run.

Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, Day 9ish

Forget the NHL for one sec ... how about Mike Murphy stopping 56 in double OT to extend the Belleville Bulls' season? And the Kingston Voyageurs are one win from a spot in the RBC Cup.

1. Not to be fatalistic about it, but Joe Thornton gives good coup de grace. Giving away the puck on the play that became Corey Perry's clinching goal Anaheim's 4-0 win over the somnambulant Sharks was perfect.
   
   It's so dire in San Jose that local columnists are revisiting the choice to draft Pat Falloon ahead of some guy named Scott Niedermayer back in 1991 with the No. 2 overall choice. The rationale was that they were going to take a defenceman in the second round, if that makes sense. (No.)
2. It was a rush hearing that Bob Gainey come about as close as a NHL GM ever will to channeling Jay Billington Bulworth. He aired out the Tampa Bay Lightning, defended Carey Price for acting like a 22-year-old (which he is). It was great. Nothing loosens someone's tongue like the vision of an ax flashing at the top of its arc, eh? When in doubt, blame the media and fans for Montreal losing 253 man-games to injury this season.
3. Game 5 of Carolina-New Jersey is the best game not enough people saw (guilty as charged). Fast-paced, up and down, minimal extra-curriculars after the whistle, hockey for art's sake.
   
4. If you really think about it, the Columbus Blue Jackets' beef makes sense. The referees will let everything go, but they always call a too-many-men penalty just because it's in the rulebook.
5. Sens Chirp is fanning the flames of Jason Spezza trade speculation again.

Anaheim leads San Jose 3-1 — This one is over like The Office, but kudos to Hockey Night in Canada's Scott Oake for some nice work during the 14-minute delay in the second period after a glass panel shattered. Oake had a report covering off the Ducks' non-sellout (1,000 empty seats) that managed not to attribute it to the recession or Angelenos' disinterest in hockey, noting

When play resumed, only one team realized it and that's that. Incidentally, Anaheim rookie Bobby Ryan has four goals in the playoffs; it's too bad for im the playoffs aren't factored into Calder Trophy voting (it's going to Steve Mason, right?).

Detroit sweeps Columbus 4-0 — The Blue Jackets at least went out on a semi-halfway positive note, forcing Detroit to win a rare 6-5 post-season game.

New Jersey leads Carolina 3-2 — Apparently it was something else, with the old master, Martin Brodeur, being just a smidge better than Cam Ward, who's still young but three years removed from being playoff MVP. Going the full seven seemed to be a likelihood.

Pittsburgh leads Philadelphia 3-2 — It's showings like Pittsburgh's that give credence to the old saw about the fourth win being the hardest one to get in a series. It was a dreary enough game to prompt flipping to an early-season Blue Jays telecast (not that they aren't a treat, but the standard practice is TV muted with the radio broadcast on).

The other series:

New York leads Washington 3-1 — Less than 10 per cent of teams come back from a 3-1 deficit, and the Capitals' chances pretty much rest on whether Mike Green snaps to after being slowed down by the flu. If he recovers, they can win.

Calgary, Chicago tied 2-2 — The question has become whether Calgary still has anyone left to play, with three regulars getting by on pills and needles and Andre Roy suspended for Game 5.

The next question is whether Miikka Kiprusoff, 2009, can steal a playoff game.

Vees for victory, Fronts for foundering

These are good times for a Kingston hockey fan.

The Kingston Kimco Voyageurs, after a 4-2 Game 4 win last night over the Oakville Blades, are a win away from the Ontario Junior Hockey League title. Kingston-born Mike Murphy has backstopped the Belleville Bulls, the city's "spring team" since the one actually located in the city seldom makes it beyond the solstice, to the OHL Eastern Conference final for the third consecutive year. (Is it too early to talk about Murphy leading Bellevegas in an OHL final vs. Kingston's Taylor Hall and the Windsor Spitfires?)

Meantime, over in a forgotten corner of the toy department, the Kingston Frontenacs keep on keepin' on. In the midst of a recession, with a big building to fill, celebrity coach Doug Gilmour, has been nearly invisible in the city as they try to sell hope for 2009-10. The club is also set to apply its faulty, no-account approach to the OHL draft in a month's time. They're drafting No. 2 and it's hard to screw that up. One beauty of sport is sometimes you can succeed in spite of yourself. That's kind of been the basis for GM-for-life Larry Mavety's entire front-office career.

Granted, bringing the Springer Frontenacs into a discussion about the Voyageurs almost sees to cheapen their accomplishment. Of course, if owner Doug Springer had ever given fans something to celebrate as he has on promised multiple occasions, the Vees would not seem unique.

On Kinger's sports show on CFRC 101.9 yesterday, TVCogeco and K-Rock 105.7's Tim Cunningham said you'd have to go back to the old Kingston Aces senior team of the late 1960s and early '70s for the last time a local hockey team had the city in such thrall. And Tim is an apposite observer of Kingston athletics if ever there was one.

The Vees have three chances to close out the Blades, beginning with Game 5 on Easter Sunday in Oakville. Every contest has been a one-goal game so far, since Adam McAllister sealed Friday's game with an empty-netter with 15 seconds remaining (although Kingston had 2-0 and 3-1 leads). Goalie Shawn Sirman, who has committed to play college hockey at Maine last season, made 38 saves. Oakville's one win so far, in Game 3 last Wednesday, required 19-plus minutes of overtime after the Vees had wiped out a three-goal lead on the road.

Words fail, really, and speaking of fail, there's the Frontenacs. As Tim noted, Gilmour should be "a lot more visible in the community ... he's a great asset and I don't think he's being used appropriately."

In other words, Gilmour has been a ghost since the season ended. That seems like a strange tack to take with the legendary former Leafs captain. An astute hockey fan might remember that overworked flunky Jeff Stilwell tried to blame the team's attendance problems on the recession during that farcical appearance before Kingston city council in February, when they were called on the carpet to (wink) talk about their marketing plan. Gilmour's presence, people were told, would help bring out more fans, so why he is not front and centre trying to help the franchise maintain its base of fans? People everywhere, although Kingston is cocooned somewhat since it's a government/university town, are evaluating their discretionary spending.

Season tickets for an OHL team which gives a contract extension to its general mangler (not a typo) despite having lost 99 of its last 141 games doesn't offer the necessary bang for one's buck. Oh, and they've gone 11 seasons without even making it to Game 7 of a first-round playoff series, let alone the second round.

A sizable chunk of people who have devoted their attention to the Vees for the past few weeks are probably the same season-ticket holders who were disguised as empty seats on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons this past winter at the Kingston Ratepayer Centre. They wouldn't mind some further reassurances that Gilmour is committed. He's shown excellent potential as a coach, but the point remains that the Fronts need a lot more than smart coaching before people believe in the franchise again.

Writing on sportsnet.ca this week, Gare Joyce said that, "... a few jackals in the Toronto media suggested that (Gilmour) was a publicity Band-Aid solution for a foundering Frontenacs franchise, one-and-out."

Joyce is in the know, but a fan's reasoning is that hiring Gilmour was a PR move if there is no evident sign of changes to the franchise's management structure. The second is there is no reason to speculate if Gilmour is in Kingston, hitting the hustings and trying to sell hope.

Meantime, the OHL draft is in a month. The Frontenacs could hit a home run, but they'll be swinging with their eyes closed.

Doug Springer and Larry Mavety, who has tenure despite the failures of the past eleven-ure, have a pretty sweet setup with the draft. Their out is that the scouts make the picks. Mavety just rubber-stamps their recommendations, so it's not his fault. Gilmour is now supposed to have more say over decisions on players, which raises the question of why in the name of Sam Pollock Springer has given Mavety a new three-year contract.

(Today's Whig-Standard notes that Daryl Borden, whom Mavety once chanced a second-round pick on, has backstopped the Brantford Golden Eagles into the Ontario Junior B championship. Once again, Mavety helps build winners everywhere except with the team which employs him.)

It could be that one report this week the Fronts were committed to drafting a forward with the No. 2 pick was erroneous. One would hope so, since that's a stupid approach. You don't draft based on the makeup of the club's roster. You're drafting high because the team is deficient throughout, not just at one position, so take the best player. The Fronts, coming off a 50-loss season, can use help everywhere. You can never have too many good defencemen, even as 17-year-old Erik Gudbranson and 18-year-old Taylor Doherty are both off at the world under-18 tournament.

The team could be headed toward another manifestation of their obsession with taking a "big guy who can score" instead of a top-end defenceman, even though the latter is a must-have in the OHL. In 2005, Mavety's scouts took Luke Pither (undrafted by the NHL, but having a good playoffs with, wait for it, Belleville) ahead of Drew Doughty, now a regular for the L.A. Kings at 19 years old. In '06, the scouts took Josh Brittain (a NHL fourth-rounder) ahead of future Atlanta Thrasher Zach Bogosian, who played in the NHL this season at age 18.

The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds will take Daniel Catenacci No. 1, since he's a speedy forward and an Italian, which will play well with the paisans in the Soo. Kingston defenceman Scott Harrington, who's moved up to the Vees for the playoffs, will be available, as is another d-man, Justin Sefton from the Kitchener-Waterloo area.

It's not some ass-talker's place to say who the Fronts should take. Then again, it shouldn't be Larry Mavety's place to say it either. Long post short, the Vees are a win away from a championship, and it's not clear who's steering the ship known as the HMCS Royal Mavesty.

It has been 536 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston. Having three former Fronts on the Voyageurs doesn't count.

(The photo of Budd Light is not gratuitous. The character in those beer commercials is played by an actor named Ryan Farrell who once played provincial Junior A hockey in Calgary, whereas Mike Farrell -- same surname! -- scored the game-winner for the Vees on Friday. It is totally relevant to the narrative.)

'Oh, Murphy, Murphy, me,' why didn't our younger self pick that team?

Let's not even spoil the vibe by pointing out which hometown team did not draft Mike Murphy, the OHL's best goaltender. It's coming right around the 50-second mark:



Murphy actually baited Sudbury's Matt Dias into going high glove side by faking a pokecheck, then snatched away a sure short-handed goal.

These are good times in Shelbyville Belleville, with Murphy and the Bulls up to 92 points, two up on Brampton to earn home-ice advantage through the first three round of the playoffs.

It is probably rude to point that out while Kingston Frontenacs owner Doug Springer ("Playoffs? Ooh, what are those?"), is walking around with his chest puffed out over the late-season window-dressing in Kingston. The Frontenacs' 4-3 shootout win over Barrie yesterday (Ethan Werek was credited by a crazy ricochet goal that forced overtime with one second left in regulation) meant that they have snatched the No. 2 overall draft position out of the jaws of picking No. 1, since they leapfrogged the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. They're also up to 43 points, meaning they will not be the first team in OHL history to have a double-digit drop three consecutive seasons.

The party line in Kingston is that there is no drop-dead, can't-miss phenom at the top of the 1993-born players available in the OHL annual cattle call, so it won't hurt if they pick second and can't get Daniel Catenacci. This presumes whoever they take No. 2 would report. Picking second isn't like picking No. 4 (Erik Gudbranson last season) or No. 9 (Ethan Werek in 2007); there is an expectation that the general manager should actually confirm the player will show if drafted.

The '07-09 Fronts are three points ahead of the '08-09 Bulls (95-92), with a game in hand. You know what, all of our legitimate questions, Springer really should be the OHL Executive of the Year. Clear some space on the mantle, Larry Mavety.

(A fellow OHL-following friend said yesterday that there's some discord in Sudbury, where Mike Foligno is GM-coach of a mediocre Wolves team. He was quickly disabused of that notion: "Well, if I've learned anything from the team I follow, it's that you need 12 years to get the full measure of a general manager, and even then you might need more time, like another three years.")

It has been 503 days since Doug Springer said he would do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

CIS Corner: Gaels' Allin amazes ...

Notes on our athletes/teams of interest from The 613 ...

Did you see who had the fastest time in the shuttle run at the CFL evaluation camp?

There are major sports-geek points to anyone who noticed Queen's Golden Gaels defensive back-kick returner Jim Allin (pictured), clocked 3.97 seconds. Who knows what that might lead to considering that Allin is only 5-foot-10 and 170 lbs. and we're not a CFL personnel guy, but nevertheless. Allin was the first player to do the shuttle run (sprint five yards to the left, 10 yards to the right, five to the left back to where you started) in less than four seconds, taking a 10th of the second off the mark set by Laval's Mathieu Proulx, who's now with the Montréal Alouettes, at the 2005 E-Camp.

For sheer point of context-less comparison, Samuel Giguère, the Sherbrooke receiver who spent last season on the taxi squad with the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, had the fastest shuttle run in 2008 at 4.10 seconds.

There was probably an argument for Allin as the Golden Gaels' MVP last season, no mean feat on a team which had the Presidents' Trophy winner on defence (Thaine Carter), a 1,000-yard receiver (Scott Valberg), a 1,000-yard rusher (Mike Giffin, who ran like an angry young man) and a QB, Dan Brannagan, who set a school mark for TD passes in a season. Allin, a former high school quarterback, did a bit of everything, play cornerback, defensive halfback, return kicks, hold the ball for field goals, carry the ball on gadget plays on offence. (According to assistant coach Ricky Jimmy, he was like the Viet Cong out there.)

Allin is a unique player. He's on the small side, but a player with his skillset who also aspires to be a doctor? Someone in the CFL would want him, right?

The results are on the CFL website and it's bad form to just do a regurge of what interested readers can find for themselves. It is probably best not to get into why it's fascinating that Matt Lambros, a 6-foot-2, 205-lb. wide receiver who played at Liberty University, has very small hands, measuring only 8¾ inches from the tip of his pinkie, especially if you're of a kind of mind where you'll actually write a post about free-throw shooting in Canadian university basketball.

Queen's had centre Dan Bederman, defensive end Osie Ukwuoma, defensive tackle Dee Sterling and inside linebacker Thaine Carter. Sterling was one of five players to bench-press 225 lbs. 23 times, which one would figure might help his draft status. Who knows, we're not an expert; those in the know seem very high on the Ottawa Gee-Gees linebacker, Mike Cornell.

You probably already heard, but the Bishop's Gaiters Jamall Lee, son of former Rough Riders star Orville Lee (and someone who counts Napanee's own Leroy Blugh, his coach at BU, as a huge influence), ran a 4.39-second 40-yard dash. Has the NFL heard about Lee?

• Napanee's Matteke Hutzler, as you probably heard, earned most outstanding player honours while helping Simon Fraser win the CIS women's basketball championship on the weekend. SFU beat host Regina 68-62 in the final, with Hutzler scoring 11 points and contributing two steals and an assist during the final 120 seconds when the Clan was dotting the i's and crossing the T's on its second national title in three years.
  
  By unofficial count, she also set some pretty inpenetrable screens for about four, maybe five Simon Fraser three-pointers.
  
  There is all sort of news about that at Campus Chatter and there was a liveblog at cisblog.ca.
• The Score's broadcast team of Jason Thom and Christine Stapleton had a pretty solid weekend. Thom got off great line when a Regina three-pointer became a long two because the player had her tippy-toes on the line. "She bought the nines when she should have bought the 8½'s."
  
  It made up for the broadcasters saying Hutzler was from Nepean, Ontario, not Napanee. You have no idea how often that has happened, especially in loud bars as undergrad. "Where are you from?" ... "Napanee." ... "Nepean?" ... "Sure, Nepean."
• The Ottawa Gee-Gees, who got the series-winner from Brittany Jones vs. Carleton, after 26 minutes of overtime SUnday, are headed to the CIS women's hockey championship for a third straight season. For anyone wondering, yes, it was the first time a Quebec conference series went to double overtime in all three games.
  
  Ottawa was 16-of-16 on the penalty kill, which probably swung the balance a bit in a series which had only nine goals in the equivalent of five 60-minute games.
• A tip of the cap is due to Queen's 'tender Melissa John for her 57-save effort on Saturday. Laurier needed three overtimes, and a 5-on-3 power play, before Lauren Barch could finally wrap up the series for the Golden Hawks.
  
  Kingston native Karly Powers, who went to high school across the street from Queen's at KCVI, scored the tying goal for Laurier.

There will be lots to come at TCB this week. Mark Wacyk is back on the horse over at cishoops.ca and it betters language to explain how that is wonderful.

Snark break ...

As you were camping out for Spinal Tap tickets. The sustain, listen to it ... I don't hear anything ... well, you would if it were playing.

Miami's chances of getting a MLS expansion team are deader than Jefferey Loria's prospects of a new ballpark for the Florida Marlins. In other words, great day to be a soccer fan in Ottawa or Vancouver who rooted for the Expos way back when (there have to be a few).

Barry Bonds' case: Everyone realizes this will never make it to trial, right? It's only the U.S. Bill of Rights, who cares?

Vernon Wells has one of the worst contracts in baseball. Try not to look so surprised.

Nashville wants to host a NHL all-star game. You are only a year too late to make jokes that this would kill the NHL in Nashville for good.

Baltimore Ravens defensive back Anwar Phillips should foreclose so well when he's on the field. None of this has been proven in court, but who knew someone could sink lower than playing for the Ravens?

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Tiger Stadium in Detroit might yet be saved.
• Anyone who has spent time around Belleville, Ontario, knows about the old Memorial Arena, which people love because it has no protective glass and the lowest sideboards around. It's too bad, then, that some fan had to get hit in the head with a puck and spoil it for everyone else.
  
• Last, but not least, try to work "bonehead gangster" into conversation at some point today.
  
  
  
  

That's all for now.

Brampton and Bollywood goes together like aloo gobi

A winning major junior hockey team smack dab in the middle of a huge South Asian enclave is brain candy for a sports obsessive, or at least the ultimate how-not-to from Marketing 101.

Toronto Star junior hockey reporter Sunaya Sapurji, over at Loose Pucks, is calling on the OHL's Brampton Battalion to have a Bollywood night next season in an attempt to get out new fans, just as Hockey Night in Canada telecasts are now available in Punjabi. The suggestion sort of hits on the mild obsessions with the OHL's endless expansion experiment in Toronto and the question of whether major junior hockey can be sold to a to people whose cultural frame of reference doesn't involve ice, snow and skates.

Brampton is a perfect storm in those regards, although there is no one catch-all for why it struggles to get fans out consistently despite being a solid team year-in, year-out under coach Stan Butler. (The Battalion did have a very respectable official attendance of 3,975 last Sunday, when they, ahem, lost 3-2 to the Belleville Bulls and Kingston-born Mike Murphy in a matchup of first-place clubs.) It has been touched on here, first by the bald guy in in November and by the other bald guy -- face the facts, Sagert -- in in January.

Sapurji is challenging this notion that junior hockey teams should only concentrate on the core audience of middle-class white parents and their hockey-playing daughters and sons, since those with roots in non-HPNs (hockey-playing nations) cannot be won over:

"Sorry, but that argument is lazy. If anyone is to blame it's the marketing people who either can't think outside the box, or have neither the desire nor the funds to reach out to said community.

"My Indian grandmother, who had never seen snow before moving to Europe in the late 60s, was a die-hard Montreal Canadiens fan. I'd find her watching Habs games all the time (mostly on French CBC) and I remember asking her why she watched them, since she didn't speak French and it was clear she had no clue what going on.

"She said she liked the Habs because they were fast and because they were 'fair'-- which I guess meant they weren't always penalty box. If my 70-year-old Parsi gran can fall in love with hockey, anyone can.

" ... In order for people to buy your product, they first have to know that product exists. Take out ads in the magazines and newspapers geared towards the South Asian community. Buy an ad during one of the 1,000 Indian TV shows on cable. Make an effort.

" ... Newcomers to Canada want to fit in. Kids in a new country want to be just like their Canadian friends.

"That's how I started going to OHL games, back when the Marlies played out of Maple Leaf Gardens. At that time you could go to Becker's and get coupons for discounted tickets. All my friends went, so I went. And I loved it. Hook the kids and you'll have fans for life.

"Next year when JK Gill and the Sudbury Wolves come to Brampton hold 'Bollywood or Bhangra Night in Brampton.' Invite local vendors to sell samosa and pakoras (if they're allowed), invite the local South Asian community, play Panjabi MC during the stoppages and get ex-OHLer and current Vancouver Canucks scout Harkie Singh to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff."

Sapurji is bang on (and, so much the better, her post referenced a 2007 Toronto Star article that our own Neil Acharya wrote about NHLer Manny Malhotra, whose dad is Indian). The Battalion have never been marketed properly. It's a huge market; ask Rupert Murdoch what reaching out to the Indian market has done for the English Premier League.

It's shortsighted not to make any effort to reach out to a visible minority group which has dollars to spend. (Part of the reason the Blue Jays were the first MLB team to draw four million fans was that they were very ahead of the curve when it came to appealing directly to female fans; Stephen Brunt noted in one of his books that the Jays, back in the '70s, even considered a marketing campaign aimed at the gay community, which many teams even today wouldn't do on a bet.)

At least these questions are starting to get asked by some journalists with a good-sized platform.
Of course, another suggestion for getting more fans out to OHL games in the GTA is to have play out of Maple Leaf Gardens again, like Eugene Melnyk wanted to do years ago with the now Mississauga St. Michael's Maors, but that's another post.

Related:
Bring Bollywood to Battalion (Sunaya Sapurji, Loose Pucks)
NHL play-by-play in Punjabi scores big time; Hockey Night in Canada experiment so successful it's likely to be expanded (Raveena Aulakh, Toronto Star, Feb. 16)

One Bullish career

In many ways it’s not a record any hockey player wants to break. Being the all-time games played leader in the Ontario Hockey League just means that you got stuck in junior. You’re good enough to stick around, but not good enough to get out.

That’s that negative way of looking at it anyway. The truth is that it’s a testament to dedication, determination and, yes, skill that should be recognized.

So congratulations goes out to Belleville’s Cory Tanaka who played his 329th career game today, mostly with the Bulls (and he did it in style, helping Belleville defeat Brampton 3-2 to open up a six-point lead on the Battalion n the race for top spot in the East).

The junior hockey star that never makes the bigs has a special place in Canadian culture. People look at them with a mix of envy and pity. How hard it must be to realize that you were so close, never to have made the final step.

Yet, to be a major player on a junior team – and you don’t stick around for five years playing nearly every game unless you are a contributor – that’s something too. You become part of the fabric of a community in a way that few of us do and although you could eventually become like that character in Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days, talking the ear off of someone you barely knew as a teenager while downing one too many beers, that doesn’t mean that it all didn’t matter.

Who knows what hockey is yet in Tanaka’s future (although Bulls fans hope it includes a second M-Cup run). It will probably involve the East Coast League, Europe or the CIS. But we do know what its history is. And it’s been pretty good. He’ll be an answer to a really tough trivia question. There are worse things to be.

Snark break...

Hey, don't snap our fundies...

Long-time NBA player David Wesley is now a student manager for the Baylor Bears. Wesley made $32 million in his NBA career, making him the richest man to end up passing out towels since Conrad Black.

The upside of William Houston stepping away from The Globe & Mail: Team 1200 employees in Ottawa won't have to read that their station "is hurting."

The New York Knicks' trip to Europe next season has apparently been deep-sixed. That's good. People hate America enough already.

The easy way out: Ottawa can afford either a CFL or MLS team, but people will support neither.

Some people pay money to see Eklund's phony trade predictions. The funny part is you can see them for free, which is what they're worth.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Kingston minor hockey product Mike Murphy of the Belleville Bulls got some virtual ink from Sports Illustrated. S.I., much like John Tavares last night, failed to notice Taylor Hall. That was a heavy hit. Between Kingston native Hall and the Frontenacs' Taylor Doherty levelling Tavares in the CHL top prospect game, Kingston is really doing a number on Tavares and London this month.
  
  Too soon?
• Gaius Charles, you will be missed on Friday Night Lights. Friday marked Smash Williams' final episode and it was a beaut. Smash's three touchdowns in the 2006 state championship game and the way he was so good to his mom and little sister will not be forgotten.
  
• Please spare a thought for the guys on the Oakville Seals senior hockey team, who just lost a teammate, Myles Marchenko, who died in his sleep recently, just 26 years old.
  
  (The Seals were part of the Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic sports beat back in the day. Hang in there, everybody.)

Fronts: Murphy's Law, Werek and Dougie's plausible deniability

It's a pretty nice little Saturday in terms of Kingston-related hockey stories — anything to avoid that whole "nine wins in 45 games" unpleasantness with the Springer Frontenacs.

Mike Koreen hit one out of the park with a profile on the pride of Inverary, Belleville Bulls goalie Mike Murphy. Damien Cox in the Toronto Star has a very nice piece on the Manchurian Coach, Doug Gilmour.

Meantime, it was noted last week Ethan Werek's draft status with the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau (43rd-ranked North American skater) was perhaps more of a reflection on the Fronts organization. Werek showed well during the CHL Top Prospects Game this week. Today, the the Frontenacs centre was praised as "sleeper pick"by Shane Malloy, who hosts Hockey Prospects Radio on NHL Home Ice (XM Radio 204).

Malloy noted (loose paraphrasing), "If I'm a NHL team, I'm taking him early. He's a player who displays a lot of intelligence, with our without the puck. He has very high hockey sense. I think he'll be a solid second-line centre.

A few moments later, Malloy added, "One more thing about Ethan Werek. He's a 17-year-old who was scheduled to go to Boston University before he decided to play in Kingston for Doug Gilmour. (Ed.'s note: Larry Mavety was still the coach in September — so Werek is really smart.) He graduated from high school a year early, he's taking business at Queen's University, and Queen's is a very prestigious university. That's the kind of intelligence we're talking about."

Getting back to Gilmour, it seems like Dougie! is going along by rote. Every item in the media about him coaching seems to have some quote along the lines of what he told Cox:

I didn't know the team, I didn't know the league ... It's been a tough learning curve. I've enjoyed it, as much as it has been painful at times to see the players so frustrated. They all want to take the next step. I'm here to teach these kids how to work."

The niggling little concern is that when every time Gilmour says, "I didn't know the league," it comes off, at least to paranoics who overthink these things, as him giving himself an out from Kingston — plausible deniability, in political argot. It's like how you say something because you're not ready to admit or face the truth.

Gilmour's hockey sense is rubbing off on the Fronts after The Royal Mavesty's disastrous coaching stint (Larry Mavety seems to taken the old Chinese table-tennis axiom that "a coach is best who coaches least," a little too literally). Sam from from The Canadian Stretford End noted in a comment last night that Gilmour, during last night's come-from-ahead 5-3 loss to — wait for it — Belleville, "was literally engineering the power play from the bench. He was just pointing to every player, then where they should be standing. It looked like a coach teaching an eight year old team how to position yourself on a power play. The worst part was the Doug was right in doing so."

It would asinine ass-talkery to doubt Gilmour's sincerity when he says he's committed to coach in Kingston next season.

Meantime, the gang at Fronts Talk have that last night, the Frontenacs had Special Olympics figure skater slated to perform and messed up his music. Apparently, they also had a ceremony for Belleville's P.K. Subban, the two-time Canadian world junior standout, but owner Doug Springer opted to not to come on the ice, since he's been booed during the last two pregame ceremonies (for long-time trainer Len Coyle and radio voice Jim Gilchrist).

Meantime, the Fronts try to break into double-digits in the win column tomorrow at 2 p.m. vs. Saginaw. Fun, fun.

Related:
Goalie a rising star ... and that's no Bull (Mike Koreen, Kingston Whig-Standard)
Gilmour has come full circle (Damien Cox, Toronto Star)

Hockey violence: New meaning to left-wing lock

The old line about how youth condemns, maturity condones seems germane after reading a semi-screed about hockey violence in the Saturday Star.

Most of us who are thinking, feeling people realize there is something a little twisted about cheering when two 19-year-olds fight at a major junior hockey game. The guilt is evident in how many synonyms exist for it — donnybrook, punch-up, brouhaha, mêlée, tussle. That doesn't constitute a "venomous, backward support for brawling," as the Star screedster, Sarah Barmak, claims.

It's an understanding that there is only what is, not what should be. Once again, for people who think they can pontificate on the Canadian zeitgeist even though they've never stepped out of their Toronto mindset (Barmak is a former editor at the U of T paper, The Varsity): "The notion of clean hockey in Canada is a pipe dream, unless the sport drops sharply in social import."

One would hope that some day that wouldn't be the case, but Barmak's bombast about hockey being a "bar room-style bloodsport" is not going to serve that purpose. It's only going to make a bigger wedge between the people who still defend fighting and those who have an open mind about banning it.

Change comes gradually, not from belittling people and quoting academics who actually claim that, "The NHL has not had a history of violence until quite recently." Gordon Russell of the University of Lethbridge, has evidently never heard of Eddie Shore or Red Horner, both of whom set records for penalties — and are both in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He's never heard of Sprague Cleghorn, either.

Do some research, people. The major misunderstanding of pieces of Barmakian bombast, beyond the obvious left-of-centre literalism, is not appreciating that every game has a view of the world attached. It's not like someone sat down one day and wrote out the rules of hockey and said, "Hey, let's allow fighting."

Hockey came into being in the late 19th and early 20th century, which was a time of social tension that goes way beyond our contemporary understanding. Canadians — and perhaps Barmak's apparent failure goes to show how poorly Canadian history is taught — weren't always so nice and genial.

In those days, there was virulent English-French tension (ever heard of D'Arcy McGee?), the Riel Rebellion, the struggle for women's suffrage, the Winnipeg General Strike and so on. Life was tough if you weren't a white man and we are so much better off that is not the case anymore. The idea that sports was a healthy release for male aggression, for boys to be boys, was also in vogue in that era in between the Civil War in the U.S. and the First World War. Of course, that was later discredited a thousand times over, but that doesn't mean it can be discounted for shaping the hockey mentality.

That helps explain why hockey has evolved differently in the U.S., Scandinavia and continental Europe. It is not media-inculcated; it's not because of big money, except to people who like to hate on the media and big money.

As for the apologists who point out that Canadians watch the World Juniors en masse even though it has no fighting, please. The short duration of the tournament, the automatic ejection for fighting, the unwillingness of U.S. and European players to drop their gloves and the panopticon effect of saturation media coverage all act to keep a lid on the rough stuff. No one fights at the World Juniors because there is so much emphasis placed on the games and so many people watching; it's a little different than a Saturday night game in Salmon Arm.

The fact also remains that the tournament took on a cultural significance for Canadians after one of our teams lost a gold medal for fighting. It would be too glib by half, but you could take from that the World Juniors have come mean so much because we want to prove we can win a major hockey tournament without resorting to the lowest common denominator (well, there's that, plus what else is on during the holidays?).

The point is, you change in drips and drabs, not through badgering. Not to be a condescending dickhead about it, but a writer such as Sarah Barmak will get a lot farther by trying to understand instead of thinking the worst of anyone who doesn't read from her songbook.

This notion of hockey free from skulduggery is way, way off, but if people gradually get less and less animated when there's a fight, if the leagues increase the penalties for it, it will start to disappear. The fact two OHL players were each suspended a game this week for removing their helmets before a fight will do more good (although it's only a modest start) than anything so doctrinaire.

Related:
Canada, we have a problem: Our national game has become inextricably linked with brutal violence (Sarah Barmak, Toronto Star)
OHL takes a stand on helmets (Terry Doyle, Loose Pucks, Jan. 8)

Fronts: The Winter of 43 for those double-dipping Dougies

Fair is fair, so let the record show the Kingston Frontenacs are undefeated in 2009 AD (anno domini, not "after Doug Springer," but dare to dream).

The Fronts whupped the Oshawa Generals 5-0 for just their second win at Kingston Ratepayer Centre since Doug Gilmour became coach. Most kidding aside, it's always great to see that team on the right side of the scoreboard. Attention should be paid, especially when someone, or someones (Kinger and myself) spent 15 minutes on CFRC yesterday where the hope was expressed that Springer might have an epiphany, "or what alcoholics call a moment of clarity, to quote Pulp Fiction."

Speaking of double-digits ... what no one has written is that the Frontenacs, now on pace for 38 points after seasons of, in reverse order, 52, 69 and 81 points (that was under Jim Hulton in 2005-06, those were the days), are in danger of setting a precedent for decline.

It has never happened in the OHL's modern history. A friend last night said, "Cornwall must have done it," referring to the late and lamented Royals, but even they avoided that distinction.

This might be a good rebuttal to the argument that the Frontenacs are genuinely rebuilding under owner Springer and The Royal Mavesty, AKA general manager Larry Mavety. You can basically use the last good year as a baseline -- Year 1.

Eighteen teams have experienced a double-digit dip in points two seasons in a row since 1974-75. Fifteen of them improved in Year 4, two had the exact same total and only one -- the now-defunct Cornwall Royals -- declined. Many of the franchises in this sample later ended up being sold or relocated.

• Sudbury Wolves, '75-76 to '78-79: 102, 80, 42, 81
  Year 4: +39
  
  
• Ottawa 67's, 1990-91 to '93-94: 80, 68, 40, 77
  Year 4: +37
  (The 67's still changed ownership a few seasons later).
  
  
• Cornwall/Newmarket Royals-Sarnia Sting, '91-92 to '94-95: 82, 67, 28, 53
  Year 4: +25
  (When you're in a comparison with a team which moved twice in three years, it's time to take a good hard look at your operation.)
  
  
• Sudbury ( '01-02 to '04-05): 81, 60, 38, 61
  Year 4: +23
  (The Wolves went to the OHL championship series two seasons later, 2006-07.)
  
  
• Barrie Colts (1998-99 to '01-02): 104, 93, 69, 87
  Year 4 : +18
  (Barrie won the OHL championship in 2000.)
  
  
• Belleville Bulls ('90-91 to '93-94): 83, 53, 66, 70
  Year 4: +17
  (Larry Mavety, give the man credit, coached those teams.)
  
  
• Brantford Alexanders ('76-77 to '79-80): 105, 76, 49, 64
  Year 4: +15
  (Franchise played in St. Catharines and Hamilton during the first two seasons; it moved back to Hamilton in 1984.)
  
  
• Kitchener Rangers ('96-97 to '99-00): 78, 64, 52, 66
  Year 4: +14
  (Peter DeBoer, now coach of the NHL's Florida Panthers, arrived two seasons later, 2001-02, and Kitchener won the league title in his second season.)
  
  
• Guelph Platers ('85-86 to '88-89): 84, 60, 47, 60
  Year 4: +13
  (Guess what? The Guelph team ended up moving to Owen Sound a couple years later.)
  
  
• Windsor Spitfires ('90-91 to '93-94): 70, 58, 43, 55
  Year 4: +12
  (Some will tell you that the Spitfires had the worst ownership in the OHL before Springer came along.)
  
  
• Oshawa Generals, '82-83 to '85-86: 93, 75, 66, 76
  Year 4: +10
  (It was only a nine-point drop that one season, but it's worth fudging a little since the Generals won the OHL championship in 1987.)
  
  
• Kingston Frontenacs, '99-00 to '02-03: 84, 68, 49, 56
  Year 4: +7
  (Ahem.)
  
  
• London Knights, '97-98 through '00-01: 85, 72, 54, 60
  Year 4: +6
  (The Knights won an OHL record-low three games and won a league-record 59, within the span of a decade. They did not have the same general manager all that time.)
  
  
• North Bay Centennials/Saginaw Spirit, '00-01 to '03-04: 72, 49, 34, 39
  Year 4: +5
  (The team moved!)
  
  
• Ottawa 67's, '99-00 to '02-03: 103, 91, 80, 84
  Year 4: +4
  (Ottawa won the OHL championship in 2001 and reached the final in 2005 -- and they never declined that much.)
  
  
• North Bay Centennials, '93-94 to '96-97: 97, 74, 35, 36
  Year 4: +1
  (And where are they now? Saginaw.)
  
  
• Toronto Marlboros ('83-84 to '86-87): 91, 73, 47, 47
  Year 4: Zero
  (The Marlboros moved within a couple seasons.)
  
  
• North Bay Centennials ('86-87 to '89-90): 94, 67, 54, 54
  Year 4: Zero
  
  
• Cornwall Royals ('87-88 to '90-91): 77, 67, 52, 47
  Year 4: Minus-5
  
  
• Kingston Frontenacs ('05-06 to '08-09): 81, 69, 52, ??
  Year 4: ??

The average improvement for these 18 double dippers was 12.8 points. The Frontenacs have already been on the low end of the curve once under Springer, who marked his 750th game as owner Friday.

At this rate, they will be the low end of the curve, barring a minor miracle over the final 29 games of this season that gets them up to 43 points and avoids a permanent place in stathead infamy.

Springer and his hockey people have their apologists, despite the fact the Frontenacs have won less than 40% of their games (296 of 750, counting playoffs) since he bought into the team in 1998. If the Frontenacs are rebuilding, a dubious proposition, then they're not doing so with the speed of other franchises who hit rock bottom and built themselves back up. All of them made a structural change -- new owner, new city, new front office. None of them tried to get a different result doing it the same way, which is a definition of insanity.

It's time for Springer to have his moment of clarity, in the small hope it might give the ol' hometown the hockey team it deserves. To the Kingston players, good job last night and good luck tonight in Belleville.

Snark break...

Come on, Sags ... calling Canada a post-literate society, you can't say that.

Canada beat Germany 5-1 last night at the world juniors. Never before has a team outshot its opponent by such a margin -- 49-13 -- and still come through such adversity.

Another great headline that could not be written: "Canucks Grubauered." By the way,

Forty-three-year-old Claude Lemieux has signed a NHL contract with the San Jose Sharks. He's older than Joseph -- the one in the Old Testament, not the one in Toronto.

The Detroit Lions are on the wrong side of another blowout, that being the competition for worst defence in recent NFL history. The two previous marks were each held by the Minnesota Vikings; those teams actually made the playoffs.

A Toronto columnist might need all of next year to live down writing of Mats Sundin that, "The guy's only crime is that he's not a mercenary, that he's true." (Down Goes Brown has the takedown.)

It's so nice to see philanthropic efforts pay off -- Oklahoma State and the University of Oregon have deep-pocketed donors and their teams are in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl.

Last, and certainly least, Darcy Tucker vs. Jordin Tootoo -- it's hard to figure out who to root for in that scenario.


This post was worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Please don't infer anything from the fact German goalie Philipp Grubauer, who made made 44 saves against Canada, plays for the Belleville Bulls. The Kingston Frontenacs brain trust would hate it if you said, "Does this mean Belleville's backup goalie is playing with more confidence than Kingston's starter?" or "does this show why you should take the CHL import draft seriously?"
• Last but not least, two weeks later, can someone please answer why it's significant that Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel) was wearing a No. 70 Vikings jersey on a recent episode of How I Met Your Mother? A playoff game hangs in the balance, plus someone here is pretty much addicted to that show, and why not?
  
  
  
  
• Happy New Year. Plans are to see Slovakia-Russia today at the World Juniors (and, uh, see if anyone is Blagoing tickets for the Sweden-Russia game).

Murphy rules, while Murphy's law rules in K-town...

The 613 earned some mentions in a holiday wishes column from Ryan Pyette, who covers the OHL for Sun Media.

"Retiring Ottawa 67's coach Brian Kilrea: A 2009 calendar with hockey in May. The worst goodbyes are the abrupt ones. After three decades behind the bench, surely the wily Killer will have one more long playoff run left in him this spring.

"Doug Gilmour: A heavy-duty shovel so the rookie coach can dig his Kingston Frontenacs out. The last-place Frontenacs have won just two of 13 games since the Maple Leafs great took over his hometown team on Nov. 17.

"Belleville Bulls goalie Mike Murphy: A full-time public relations assistant. He's the best goalie in the OHL, but not enough people know it."

Did everyone see the Fronts earn the distinction of most disappointing team in the OHL? It's important to burn that on your brain before management tries to claim that they were never going to be very good to begin with.

Related:
Gilmour needs a shovel (Ryan Pyette, Sun Media)

The year that was -- 11 things that made me smile in 2008

In honour of Listmas (what, that’s not what it’s called. With all the top 10 lists out there I could have sworn…), my own, personal, self-indulgent top 11 (cause we take things that extra step here at OOLF) sports moments of 2008.

You know, dear readers, we do have a comments section! Perhaps you could add a list of your own. Come on, it’s fun!

11 - Laval’s dominance
Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate the favourite. Cheering for an upset is always just a little more fun. But, if you can’t appreciate just how good the Laval Rouge et Or football program is, I’m not sure you are a fan of sport. No, the Rouge et Or didn’t provide fans with much drama in ’08 – they were too good – but standing on the field watching the players hold up yet another Vanier Cup, you knew you were surrounded by excellence. And, that’s what sports is about.

10 - Champions League final
And, this is coming from a Manchester City fan. I can’t think of a worse match-up than the all British Man U/Chelsea. But, the game made up for it -- a tale of two halves with United coming out strong and Chelsea storming back in the second. Chelsea was unlucky not to win it outright on the pitch, but United proved just resourceful enough to claim it on the penalties (with a little help from the pitch and a slip by John Terry). Often the big games fail to live up to the hype, but this was not a case of that.

9 - Carol Huynh wins gold for Canada
It was a looooong time coming with every half-wit humour columnist in the land cracking out the atlas to find Third World countries that had more medals than us Canucks. One of the great things about Olympics is there is always a where-did-that-one-come from medal. This was it for 2008 and it kicked of a second half of the Games that was as good for Canada as any other Olympics. When the lights went out, we had actually exceeded pre-game expectations and it was Huynh that got things going.

8- Belleville forcing game 7 in the OHL Final
Ultimately my Bulls – my hometown, childhood team, Bulls – came one game too short twice. But it was a nice little ride for this junior hockey fan. By storming back from 0-3 in the OHL final, Belleville briefly put itself in the national spotlight and, as anyone that cheers for small town teams will tell you, that doesn’t happen every day and you soak it all up when it does.

7 – The Pats lose!
If Laval taught me how to appreciate a favouritre, the Super Bowl reminded me of how good it feels to watch arrogance fall. It was a good game, but all history will remember is that the Pats got what was coming to them. And my inner, immature child loved every minute of it.

6 - The Men’s 8s do what is expected
Canada’s biggest favourite of the Beijing Games simply went out, pushed the pressure aside, and got the job done. And, in doing so cast off the personal demons from losing in 2004. There is something about the men’s 8s that is compelling. Maybe it’s the speed, or the power or maybe the tradition. But at the start of any Olympics this is one of the top three or four events I’d really like Canada to win.

5 – The Voyageurs Cup
But, mostly the way soccer fans in this country took to it. It had been 16-years since Canada had crowned a pro soccer champion in a legitimate competition. And, it had been far longer than that before anyone cared about who won. That changed in 2008, when the Voyageur’s Cup – paid for and donated to the CSA by the fans of the game – was awarded in front of 20,000 mostly disappointed fans in Toronto. Speaking personally, the day of the final game was the most intense I’ve ever experienced as a sports fan and the feeling at the final whistle was as awful as I can imagine. But, time gives me perspective and I still look back on the day and shake my head at just how far the game has come in such a short time.

4 – DeRo comes home
On the pitch 2008 was mostly a forgettable year for TFC fans, but an early Christmas present – the acquiring of Dwayne DeRosario—restored hope in the masses. DeRo (with apologizes to Jimmy Brennan) is the first Canadian star to come home to play and that matters a great deal to the supporters. Suddenly we feel even more connected to our little soccer club.

3 - Simon Whitfield’s silver
The man was out of this race about 10 times. He never looked comfortable. He often looked old and worn out. But, Simon Whitfield has a killer instinct that is sadly missing in most Canuck athletes. His final kick came up just short of gold, but his silver was, without a doubt, the Canadian performance of the Games.

2 - Usain Bolt goes really, really fast
It took 20-years, but I finally saw something more impressive than what Ben Johnson did in 1988. Officially he stopped the clock at 9.69 seconds, but he had more speed in him. It was scary and awe inspiring. And that was before he went 19.30 in the 200m.

1 - Barnsley!
I was sick the day that Barnsley played Liverpool in the FA Cup, which is how I improbably found myself in front of the tube in the middle of the day watching a soccer game that seemingly was a blowout waiting to happen. It was already 1-0 ‘Pool when I turned it on. But then Luke Steele started to make save after save. And then Stephen Foster got an out-of-the-blue equalizer. Suddenly I was sitting up, on the edge of the couch willing this little Championship team on. If only they could hold on to the draw and force a re-match in Barnsley, I thought. That would be something to see. But then Brian Howard scored in injury time causing me to literally start jumping up and down, giggling at the absurdity of it. Liverpool was out; Barnsley was through….

To play Chelsea. Surely they couldn’t pull another upset, could they?

Really, just watch this. If it doesn’t put a smile on your face you are likely dead and most certainly not a sports fan:


The next time a Big Four fan tries to tell you that no one cares about the FA Cup anymore, kindly tell them to stuff it.