Fronts: Not Gud! Great-branson gone for a month

Keeping the other site functioning has been a chore, so there hasn't been time to veheme about the Kingston Frontenacs.

Know this much: Erik Gudbranson's knee injury? TSN's Bob McKenzie Tweeted the big defenceman is "out minimum four weeks."

Great! Don't worry, Doug Gilmour is going to figure it out.

Related:
Top NHL draft prospect to miss a month (Sun Media)

Fronts: Clean slate and you're still throwing stones

As Kinger's hero has been wont to say, "Words mean things." Especially when those words are centred, bolded, italicized and put in enlarged type.

"They told me they had a deal with Kingston and would I accept it? I thought about it for a couple of days and said no ... I want to try and go for it in case it's my last year in the OHL."

— Guelph Storm forward Matthew Sisca, on why he turned down a trade to the Kingston Frontenacs

The story is from Monday, but what the hell. Good on the Kingston Whig-Standard for alerting readers to how owner Doug Springer's ramshackle franchise is viewed across the league.

The intent here is not to rip, but to convey that the Frontenacs long ago reached their limit with trading in fallacies. It seems best to head off the hype now rather than after the fact. Making the playoffs in a weak OHL Eastern Conference will not be proof there is a rebuilding program, pure and simple. By the same token, their collection of forwards with Ethan Werek and defencemen with Erik Gudbranson (who is wearing an alternate captain's A for Team Canada at the Ivan Hlinka world under-18 tournament this week in Europe and got a glowing notice in Sports Illustrated) is as good as they have had since 2005-06. Doug Gilmour has shown some promise as a coach.

One would say this is a critical year for the future of major junior hockey in Kingston. It should become a political hot potato if the primary tenant at the city of Kingston's $43-million downtown arena continues to be an also-ran at the box office and in the standings as 2009 becomes 2010. It goes double with an election in November. (Picture Mayor Harvey Rosen saying, "Again? This stupid province.")

Another subpar season will further the perception, as per the Sisca quote, that Kingston is the league's Siberia.

The situation with Brock Higgs is illustrative. Higgs is a Kingstonian who was drafted by the Frontenacs in 2008. Long story short, he elected to play Provincial Junior A across town with Kingston Kimco Voyageurs and go for a NCAA scholarship. His plan is to play at Canisius College in Buffalo, where he can play hockey, get an education and be tip taxi drivers generously.

This is kind of adaptation of a comment left some time ago at the awesome OHL Prospects. It kind of lays out why it is understandable a Kingston prospect would not want to play for his hometown club. Higgs is on NHL Central Scouting's radar screen, but he is no sure thing to get drafted.

It is far from a stunner that Brock Higgs would not jump to play for the Frontenacs. If you'll indulge me...

The player said in June it 'looks like' he is returning to the Kingston Kimco Voyageurs and will go to Canisius in 2010. He is 17 years old with the right to change his mind.

There is the education package if you end up going to a Canadian university after major junior. However, as OHL alum Jason Cassidy explained, it's determined by how high a player was drafted. Higgs was a fifth-rounder.

Meantime, and who knows how much stickiness this has with agents and parents, the Frontenacs are the franchise which was sued by a former player after Larry Mavety tried to deny him his education package. As the player, Brody Todd, told the Toronto Star (Nov. 26, 2006): "I was disgusted how they held this (education package) back from me after playing in the league for five years ... If I hadn't pushed and sued, I likely would have ended up with nothing."

There is a lot of antipathy among the sporting class in Kingston toward the Fronts.

Their owner, Springer, has a reputation for not being accountable to fans. They have not had a playoff series win since he bought the Fronts in the late 1990s, but he refuses to change the general manager. Meantime the city of Kingston, which was just ranked as one of Canada's worst-run cities in a Maclean's magazine report, built a $43-million downtown arena, thus making every Kingston taxpayer a stakeholder in the Frontenacs.

Nevertheless, when the city council tried to cover its butt last winter by demanding the Frontenacs appear at a public meeting to discuss their "marketing plan," (wink, wink), Springer refused to take questions. Instead, he had his PR person and Gilmour (who had been in the league for about 30 games at the point) speak.

It's also telling that whenever players on their way out of town are asked what they'll miss most about Kingston, they invariably pause and say, "The people, the city." It's never the organization.

The Frontenacs have a bad reputation. They need to change the culture, since as of right now, they're not part of the fabric of the community, in the manner of other major junior teams.

People in Kingston are pretty savvy. They know there's no rebuilding taking place as long as Springer interferes in hockey decisions and as long as Gilmour follows in the footsteps of Mavety, simply settling for making the playoffs. The attendance spike they got from Gilmour lasted about one game.

As for Higgs' personal choice, who knows? It could be his family is big on education. The Kingston paper had a feature on Higgs during the Voyageurs' playoff run which noted his older sister goes to Queen's University, a pretty prestigious academic institution.

Canisius is also a first-rate Catholic college. As a school in a border town, it is also sensitive to the academic needs of Canadians. There is a young woman from Ottawa who plays basketball there, Steph MacDonald. She pointed out to the Ottawa Sun two years ago that one of the determining factors in choosing that school was not having to worry about getting her credits accepted if she applied to do a post-graduate degree in Canada.

The OHL is a place to be for a high-end talent who's got a great shot at being drafted at age 18. I'm always coming from the perspective of being a Kingston fan — paraphrasing what Roger Ebert says about writing for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Chicago Sun-Times, the Frontenacs are my team. Doug Springer just happens to own it. It's a childish attachment, I know.

However, a fan has to be clear-eyed. There are a lot of reasons why Higgs would go the NCAA route. The advisers for another Kingston lad, Scott Harrington, made it known before the OHL draft that he did not want to be drafted by the Frontenacs. The "out" the Frontenacs had was that Harrington was not a clear-cut No. 2 overall pick, he was somewhere in the top 5-10 picks, plus they are fairly well-stocked on the back end with Gudbranson, Taylor Doherty and Brian Lashoff.

None of this is cut-and-dried. The situation can change quickly with a young player. If Higgs does report to the Frontenacs, I'll gladly eat my words. How's that for an out clause?

Admittedly, that is inflammatory rhetoric for mid-August, but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Springer set the bar last September when he told play-by-play man Jim Gilchrist during a between-periods interview that the team's goal was "top four" in the East. A season later, they have more talent and a reasonable facsimile of a coach with Gilmour, so why let Springer move the goalposts?

Long post shorter, they should get better. Werek should have a shot at a 40-goal season. Greatbranson will rattle opposing forwards' teeth during his draft year. However, let it be said this franchise is not starting with a clean slate.

It has been 658 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

Incidentally, here is what S.I. said about Greatbranson:

"Fast and fearless, Erik Gudbranson captained the Kingston Frontenacs last season despite being just 16 years old. The 6-3, 185-pound blueliner struggled in camp, but is regarded as a Mark Stuart-type: solid in his own end, strong skater and a great leader."

(He actually only wore the C for a handful of games, but still, Sports Illustrated.)

Fronts: Erik The Greatbranson pegged as Top-10 pick

Note the time and place: OHL Prospects says the Kingston Frontenacs defenceman Erik Gudbranson is "going to need to take a huge step back next year in order to NOT be a top 10 selection (in the NHL draft)." The World of Junior Hockey, meantime, rates him as a top-10 pick.

There is a rationale to writing a junior hockey post in the first full week of July, beyond unseasonably mild temps in the low 20s making it feel like mid-September. It is part of trying to help the diehards get primed for what the season has in store for the Fronts in the 12th year under owner Doug Springer, whose regime is still awaiting its first playoff series win.

Brock Otten's and Nathan Fournier's learned opinions are a good baseline with respect to the Erik The Greatbranson (you like it, feel free to steal it). Two learned hockey minds reckon that Gudbranson stands a rather good chance of becoming a high draft pick. It will be a reflection on the Fronts if he slips out of the first round, like his blueline brethren, Taylor Doherty, did in the past season before being taken by the San Jose Sharks at the bottom the second round 10 days ago in Montreal.

This might also serve as a passionate plea to the people paid to cover the major junior hockey team in the Limestone City. Please do not punt on addressing fans intelligently by towing the HMCS Royal Mavesty's party line. This is 2009. The "write what he said" approach to reportage does not work anymore. It flies about as well Springer infamous calling GM-for-life Larry Mavety "an astute hockey man" when the pair of them are well into their second decade without a playoff series win, with not a hint of change in sight in the organization's structure.

Point being, there have to be some standards beyond Springer and Mav's 11 levels of Fail. Kingston ratepayers have gifted Springer with a $43-million arena for a team which has been at the bottom of the standings and was called in front of city council last February over its poor play and subpar attendance figures (sorry, it was over their "marketing plan").

That is why it is good to get it down on record with Gudbranson. Please commit it to memory that a learned hockey mind feels that the Orleans native, who was captain of the gold medal-winning Team Ontario at the World Under-17 Challenge in January and did not look out of place as an underaged player at the world under-18 tournament in North Dakota this spring, could be a top 10 pick.

There should be no repeat of the self-back patting the Frontenacs organization indulged in after another Doherty was taken by San Jose. Similarly, the big d-man came into last season touted as a potential first-rounder ("Frontenacs defenceman Taylor Doherty, by the way, is being touted a first-rounder in at least one mock draft," this site, Nov. 7, 2008). His draft stock fell off the side of the cliff in the first half of the season, since playing for a gong-show franchise with poor coaching clearly slowed his development.

In Kingston, where going along to get along means having the memory of a fruit fly when it comes to the franchise's false promises and myriad stupidities, Tim Cunningham of TVCogeco and K-Rock 105.7 was about the only person in the traditional media who was honest about Doherty.

Everyone else, and no one is judging, was only to happy to write something along the lines of, "Interest in Messrs. Werek and Doherty rose smartly during the second half of the 2008-09 OHL season as both players honed individual skills and rounded out their games." (That is just generic, not specific; there is tremendous respect on this end for the veteran journo.) If Mavety said of Doherty and Ethan Werek prior to the draft that "those two guys are much better players today than they were a year ago," then it must be true. Never mind that Mavety, a losing GM whose propensity toward self-serving statements is surpassed only by his knack for self-preservation, is homogeneously unqualified to offer an informed assessment of a player's progress.

Saying that interest Doherty rose sharply in the second half of the season is true, at face value. It is just that first interest in the big rearguard had to drop drastically before it rose, marginally. He was touted as a first-round pick. That did not happen. Yet the Frontenacs were not held accountable. Meantime, some of the diehards at Fronts Talk believe Doherty will need a ticket out of Kingston to realize his potential.

"Doherty's game has so many holes in it that it'll take a top-notch organization with a track record of developing raw potential in order to fix it. I just don't see Kingston being that club. Especially with how high San Jose took Doherty (2nd round), I think that by about mid-season, if Doherty is still struggling here, you might see San Jose ask that he be dealt elsewhere. To be completely honest, I'm surprised Doherty's camp didn't ask for a trade last year, when it was obvious his game needed a lot of refining and he wasn't getting it here."

There is also speculation, idle mind you, whether NHL teams are cool with having their prospects develop, such as it were, in the Kingston organization. It is pretty evident, based on the moves Mavengil has made (Doug Gilmour says he's responsible for player personnel moves, but they look an awful lot like Mavety's), that the hope is just try to eke out a playoff berth.

People should not be satisfied by second-best, or seeing first-round talent slide to the second. K-town deserves better, honest.

CHL Playing Russian Roulette with KHL

Yesterday's Kontinental Hockey League (made up of teams from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Latvia) draft provided a few surprises for the North American, and particularly the Kingston hockey scene. The first surprise of course was when the hockey community over here discovered that this draft happened yesterday. In fact the 89th pick in the draft, Taylor Hall, says that he "didn't even know there was a draft." The second surprise for Kingston Frontenac fans came when they saw that Erik Gudbranson had been selected 62nd overall in the draft by Dynamo Moscow. This ending a week in which Gudbranson was called up to a Canadian Men's U-18 training camp as well.

After being drafted by Moscow, Gudbranson immediately confirmed that he plans to be at Frontenac training camp, come the start of the season. Hall will most likely ignore the call as well, opting to stay with Windsor for his last season before the NHL draft. So it looks as if the KHL's first attempt to pry young players away from the CHL, before they are eligible for the NHL draft, will not end well for the new look Russian League. It does however bring up a few interesting questions about the future of the CHL.

Gudbranson and Hall both indicated that impressing NHL scouts in their final season before their draft year, was the main reason they chose to stay in Ontario. The CHL has traditionally been the main route for players to enter the NHL draft. In the 2008 NHL draft twenty out of the thirty players taken in the first round, were taken from CHL teams. However the KHL and several other highly rated European Leagues may be challenging this old system.

Although popular in some countries like Sweden, and Russia the European Leagues receive next to nothing with respect to coverage in North America. In fact the most anyone ever hears about these leagues over here is during the Spengler Cup. On the other hand the CHL gets lots of coverage because it boasts "the next generation of NHL players". CHL attendances often shoot up when players like Tavares and in the past Crosby come to town. Local interest increases, as does national interest. Rogers Sportsnet often shows games featuring high profile players, and other sports stations give ample time on hockey shows to CHL prospects. The reason the CHL has this pull, is because of the high profile prospects that play in the league. European hockey leagues seem to be out to take away this pull and give North American hockey fans extra incentive to follow their leagues.

The CHL is a junior league, and a league in which most of the players will end up playing hockey as a past time. The KHL offers a very different proposition to young NHL draft prospects. It is a professional league, where young players will get exposure to a professional environment, and possibly higher level hockey. The biggest pull of the KHL to these young future-NHL players is the lower age restriction. To be drafted in the NHL the minimum age is eighteen. Gudbranson and Hall are both two young for this year's NHL draft, but both were selected in the KHL draft at the minimum age of seventeen. The KHL is trying to become the final step for junior players looking to get to the NHL.

The problem is until players start leaving to the KHL, the majority of scouts and media attention will stay in North America. So the players who are almost certainly NHL bound like Gudbranson and Hall won't want to take risks before their draft year. They are doing everything they can to ensure they are taken as high as possible in the NHL draft. The target of the KHL should be fringe players. The players who need that extra boost to make the NHL. These fringe players are the ones who are more likely to take that extra risk. The exposure to a professional environment may give these players that extra boost, and if they struggle at least they have a future in professional hockey even if it is not in the NHL. If these players start to make the jump to the KHL, other more established players may head to the KHL.

These new prospects would force the North American hockey crowd to start following and keeping tabs on the KHL. Although the limit on five foreigners per team in the KHL is not likely to change anytime soon, increasing the quality of these five players will attract this media attention to the domestic players as well. This is exactly what the KHL, and most European Leagues are looking for,but it also would represent all of the CHL's worst fears.

NOTE: Zach Kassian of the Peteborough Petes was also taken in the KHL draft 56th overall.

(Late) morning with Mr. Canoehead...

Stuff that should bounce off you like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...

Wondering how new Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Martin will handle the insatiable Quebec media after being in a southern U.S. city and big-small-town Ottawa for so many years. Roy Mlakar won't be there to ride herd.

Hockey fans who complain "superstars get all the calls" in the NBA when the NHL did not suspend Penguins star Evgeni Malkin for starting a fight in the last five minutes of the game. Jeff Blair's suggested title for Colin Campbell: "NHL Vice-President and Director Of Figuring Out What’s A Cheap Shot." The greasiness was compounded by the fact the NHL announced Malkin was off the hook via a press release at 11:48 p.m. (literally, the 11th hour.)

Michael Vick being a contentious issue, while there is a barely a peep about current Atlanta Falcons player Quinn Ojinnaka being allowed to play in the NFL after he allegedly "spat at his bride, tossed her down some stairs and then threw her out of their Georgia home in the wee hours."

What Vick did was carried out over a number of years, but it's not as if striking a woman is completely random. Take it away, Bud Poliquin:

"What Vick, Ojinnaka's former Atlanta teammate, did to become a pariah will forever and properly be considered heinous. Training dogs to fight, and then executing those who don't win, is certainly reprehensible . . . and Vick has the shattered life, career and finances to prove it.

"But at the end of the day, shouldn't battering people be more prominently placed in the great photo of disgraces than any act of abusing (and, yes, killing) dogs? And isn't battering people made even more abominable when the alleged batterer is a 6-foot-5, 305-pound man, and the identified batteree is a woman of significantly less height and ballast?

The knowledge that HBO, which passed on Mad Men and Breaking Bad, has given Joe Buck his own show.



Conan O'Brien debuting tonight as host of The Tonight Show. The commitment NBC has made to Conan is truly amazing. They've given him the best lead-in that petty jealousies can buy.

(Lord, please forgive anyone whose reaction to seeing Jay Leno sign off last Friday night was to scream at the TV, "The show should have gone to Letterman in the first place!" The line of succession should have gone Carson-Letterman-Conan. It's a pain that never ends.

It's a sin to say that about Leno. Like Stewie Griffin once said, the fact is the man is out there every night with fresh material and he's charming.

Last but not least, having to be the guy who makes this joke: "Kingston Frontenacs defenceman Erik Gudbranson was taken in the Continental Hockey League draft today. Playing in Russia would be an easy switch since he's already in junior hockey's Siberia." So much for trying to quit making Frontenacs jokes.

(Kingston's own Taylor Hall was taken too. Three OHLers were taken and two had Kingston ties. Crazy.)

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.)

Fronts: Werek, Gudbranson get glowing reviews...

Brock Otten at OHL Prospects had some observations about the Kingston Frontenacs' legitimate prospects after seeing them in action in St. Catharines earlier Sunday.

Suffice to say, those who follow the Fronts with clear eyes might not be surprised by Otten's observations. (Kingston lost 4-1 to the Niagara Ice Dogs, thanks for asking.)

Forwards

• Ethan Werek — "The best player on the ice for Kingston, no question. Werek was just about the only player generating real offensive chances for the Fronts ... I think this guy is a big NHL draft riser as he continues to get better and better."
• Nathan Moon (Penguins draft pick) — "I see the flashes of skill, but I don't see the effort level. The Fronts went down 4-0 at the beginning of the 2nd period, and he appeared to just give up. He stopped battling for loose pucks, and began to float."
• Colt Kennedy — "I'm not sure how much offensive ability he really has, but he's a good energy guy ... I've heard he is getting some minor attention for the 2009 draft though and could end up as a late pick."

Defencemen

• Taylor Doherty — "He was a complete non-factor. On the first Ice Dog goal by (ex-Frontenac Thomas) Middup, he failed to tie up his man going to the net, and Middup was able to bang home a juicy rebound. I don't think he attempted to rush the puck up ice once this game and looked tentative and scared with it on his stick. Early in the third period, he took a lazy hooking penalty in his own zone and I don't think he saw the ice again in the game. This was also the first game I've noticed his skating being a potential issue."
• Erik Gudbranson — "He actually showed more of a physical edge than I had seen before from him and he appears to be becoming more confident in using his size to his advantage ... He has great puck skills and a big shot, so it's disappointing to me that Coach Killer doesn't have him out there gaining experience on the PP."
• Brian Lashoff — "He enters the offensive zone effortlessly, and does a good job running the point on the powerplay, although I'd like to see him move around a little more as I found him to be a little stiff at the point."

Related:
Thoughts on Kingston from February 15 (Brock Otten, OHL Prospects)

Fronts: Now that was a Super Sunday

Sunday was a good one for a follower of the whole durned human comedy which is the Kingston Frontenacs. They owned the Ottawa 67's in an 8-6 win, while their no-account owner and GM got owned by the out-of-town media.

In between periods, coach Doug Gilmour had a sort of cryptic, kind of cocky response to question about the team's appearance before Kingston city council about its (wink) marketing plan. "It was all a miscommunication," he told Rogers TV, breaking eye contact with the interviewer. "And something that, uh, you know we – we have a lot of pride (in) how we want to build this team and the fan support and everything else that we had. So, uh, we stated our case. It was easy. It's over with. It will never happen again." (Emphasis mine. This is a team which has still yet to win two games in a row all season.)

Meantime, the out-of-town media went to town on owner Doug Springer and ceremonial GM-for-life Larry Mavety for not taking questions from Kingston city council last week. Ed Hand, the host, wouldn't even let Lee Versage hedge one bit, saying, "It doesn't look good. The owner should have been there and the general manager should have been there answering the questions – and they weren't."

Versage added, "I thought, unfair to put those two guys (Gilmour and marketing director Jeff Stilwell) in that situation ... The owner and the general manager, they kind of weren’t there and deflected it off.

"It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that the owner and the general manager should have been there and they’re trotting out the marketing guy and the coach because he's a big name," Versage added a few moments later.



It is not necessary to reiterate the argument about Springer and Mavety that have been made here since the tailend of the 2006-07 season. It is hilarious to see announcers in another OHL market criticize the owner and GM unaccountable, and Sunaya Sapurji of Loose Pucks call Kingston "the capital of OHL crazytown."

There is a phenomena involved when one's hometown junior hockey club is cursed with tragically bad management. It is like one has to wait until they're playing for pride before he's able to abandon himself to cheering for them. Fortunately for a Frontenacs fan, that point arrived before the official start of winter this season. It was obvious by late November that all that was at stake was how high their draft position would be (no worse than No. 2) and how many season-ticket holders they will lose once it became known Mavety will be back. At least Gilmour said "it wouldn't happen again" with respect to being frog-marched in front of city council.

In other words, watching Sunday's game from seats behind the Frontenacs bench was so choice. It started well, with rooie Erik Gudbranson beating two forecheckers to launch a scoring rush for the first goal. It was capped with the Limestone City's Light Brigade scoring five goals in the third period to send Ottawans home crabby. Ethan Werek was all over the ice and was rightly named the first star despite having only two points, albeit one of them coming on the go-ahead goal with 4:01 left in the game. Big defenceman Taylor Doherty delivered some huge hits and Mavric Parks, even though he gave up six goals, made some huge saves to keep his team in the hunt after it went down 3-1 early in the second period.

The afternoon was catered to Kingston. Ottawa had only 10 forwards and was playing its third game in three days. The goal which tied the game 5-5 in the third period came about thanks to a chintzy delay-of-game penalty when an Ottawa defenceman flipped the puck over the low glass, putting Kingston on a 5-on-3 power play.

That was just details. It was one of those games where both teams went up and down for 60 minutes and pretty much yielded to the flow of the game. It was nice, for lack of a better word, to see your hometown team lighting it up, as was the case in December when Kingston blew out the 67's 7-3 at the Civic Centre, also on a Sunday afternoon. (From the strange but true files, both of Kingston's highest-scoring games this season have come with yours truly in attendance.) It made someone prone to overthinking banish any thoughts of Doug Springer and Larry Mavety for 2½ hours, which you readers will know is saying something.

It has 475 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

Related:
Cuma out, 67's fall to Fronts (Chris Stevenson, Sun Media)

With the Fronts, the 401's a highway to the crazy zone

Taking a cue from Sunaya Sapurji at Loose Pucks, one would expect to see Rod Serling's ghost host the next Kingston Frontenacs telecast on TV Cogeco, instead of Kinger.

There are some major media outlets starting to echo the popular opinion that, quoth Sapurji, "when did Kingston become the capital of OHL Crazytown?" She also threw in a reference to the Twilight Zone, which was awesometacular.

Serling's catchphrase, "Submitted for your approval," is obviously lost on Frontenacs owner Doug Springer (left in photo, obviously). The movie/TV quote which comes closest to summing up Springer's tenure in Kingston is, "You'll get nothing, and like it!" a la the Ted Knight character in Caddyshack. Anyway, pent-up anger subliminated through cheap references aside, there is a growing clamour that something is rotten with the state of hockey in K-town. Mike Koreen, sports ed. at the hometown Whig-Standard, also started beating one of Kinger's favourite drums: What's going to happen to the team's season-ticket base, especially, as Springer told Koreen, "there's no reason to think otherwise" that GM-for-life Larry Mavety is going to return next season?

At least these questions are being asked by those with a larger forum. It will not help Kingston win any more games or achieve its first two-game win streak, in Game 50 of the season, tonight when it faces the Brampton Battalion, a very strong team. It won't cause Springer to smarten up and it will not bring fans back in the hometown, but at least it's getting harder to avoid the tough questions. Here's the best from Koreen and Sapurji, noting that the spoken word folk such as Kinger, Tim Cunningham and Mark Potter at TV Cogeco were early adopters:

Sapurji, Loose Pucks: if a team's owner isn't a qualified enough expert to talk about his own team, then maybe he isn't qualified enough to own the team?

Koreen, The Whig: The team is not going to have an easy time convincing some of its season ticket holders to renew next season, which could cause further attendance concerns at the beginning of next season. Expectations were high this year after Springer came out and said he expected the team to challenge for a top-four spot in the conference.

Those are welcome words to read, but not as welcome as "Frontenacs up for sale." It's a start. Kingston will continue to be the town that dreaded sundown, but only when the Springer Frontenacs have a home game that night.

(Ethan Werek, by the way, didn't look out of place in the OHL All-Star Game last night, scoring a goal as he and five Belleville Bulls skated for the winning East team. It follows that he wouldn't look out of place if coach Doug Gilmour put him in a shootout.)

It has been 471 days since Doug Springer said he would do "whatever it takes" to bring Kingston a winner. The worst part is we still don't know who stole the strawberries.





Related:
Fronts developing an identity: Gudbranson (Doug Graham, Kingston Whig-Standard)
What a waste of time; City council's grilling of Fronts achieved nothing (Mike Koreen, Kingston Whig-Standard)
K-Town moves into Twilight Zone (Sunaya Sapurji, Loose Pucks)

First OHL goal for Gudbranson

Ottawa's Erik Gudbranson, the Kingston Frontenacs much vaunted rookie defenceman, got his first OHL goal last night. Let's just leave it at that and ignore the whole blowing a three-goal lead vs. the Erie Otters last night. Gudbranson is going to look good in an Ottawa 67's or London Knights uniform someday.

Fronts: Call it the Daniel derby , damn it

Young Daniel Catenacci might be seeing a portent of his hockey future this Saturday.

Catenacci, as those of you who get the Sunday Star know, is the class of the "93s," in hockey argot. He is pegged to be the No. 1 pick in the OHL draft, which is the Kingston Frontenacs already have a death grip on. The smooth-skating centre's minor midget team, as it happens, has a game next weekend vs. Greater Kingston, which sports the same name, colours and crest as the city's de facto OHL team.

No doubt the Catenacci camp will do their homework about what awaits them in Kingston. It's even come to the point where this site's commenters are saying the local conspiracy theory is that the Frontenacs, under owner Doug Springer, are tanking so the municipality can't afford to keep paying for the K-Rock Centre and ends up having to sell it, likely for pennies on the dollar. (If that perception is out there, no wonder the actual turnout for Frontenacs games is so low.)

No doubt the Catenacci camp are great people, who will try not to tip their hand about their son's plans at any point before the draft. It's his future. They they have the right of first refusal when it comes to where Daniel will play hockey. The Hockey News reported several weeks ago -- when the Frontenacs finishing dead last did not seem like an inevitability -- that Catenacci was hoping to go the OHL route instead of the NCAA (one of his linemates with his midget team is already committed to play at the University of Maine).

It wasn't tied to Kingston story then, since there was still hope they would not be the worst team in the league. After all, Springer said the Frontenacs' goal was to finish in the top four of the OHL's Eastern Conference. There was, and is, no reason to doubt him -- after all, he didn't say which year -- outside of the fact the Frontenacs, with tonight's 5-2 loss in Oshawa, have won only 39% of their games since he and GM-for-life Larry Mavety came together to form the franchise's share-a-brain trust in a decade ago.

(The Frontenacs since Springer became owner, are 296-374-82 counting playoffs. That works out to a .448 winning percentage, yet there's never been, far as anyone can tell, any urgency to make any changes in the organization's hierarchy, namely the general mangler.)

There is a chance to have some fun with this, because in the words of David Letterman, "I just like causin' trouble." The cynics might already be scoffing that it will be a frosty Friday in July when a player who's supposed to be this good reports to such a ramshackle franchise, but the Frontenacs' saving grace is players such as Ethan Werek and Ottawa's own Erik Gudbranson (who earned a gold medal at the World Under-17s tonight, well done) who just need to be in the OHL to help their draft status and improve their bargaining power when they sign their first pro contract. Those kinds of players are too few and far between for one team to have 10 or 12 of them, even if they are the London Knights.

Anyway, the choice here is to call it the Daniel derby, although some rabblerousers were suggesting Crap for Catenacci, which is a bit rude to good boy from a good family. There will be plenty of time to talk about this, since the Frontenacs are 11 points clear of the next-worst team in the OHL. The marketing practically writes itself --he was born in '93! Give him Dougie Gilmour's old number!

Related:
Catenacci a powerhouse in 'sixth gear' (Lois Kalchman, Toronto Star)

Fronts: This is a holiday kiss, you Doug!

Josh Brittain has one hell of a tell.

The non-verbal cue that the ex-Kingston Frontenac gave near the tailend during a post-game interview with our own Tyler King on Friday is a lingering image from an all-time embarrassing weekend for Frontenacs owner Doug Springer. This presumes Springer, whom Save The Fronts has christened, "Doug Market Square," has any shame.

The latest debacle began with news the city of Kingston, which is in tough economically like most Ontario cities, is forking out a $600,000 "municipal subsidy" to the K-Rock Centre to make up the shortfall caused mostly by the Frontenacs' sluggish ticket sales. Springer's buddy, Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen, added that the city is expecting even less revenue from Fronts ticket sales in 2009. As Kinger pointed out on his radio show (which is available for download):

"You're basically being forced to buy Frontenacs tickets because the city is taking your tax dollars and shovelling it over to make up for the fact that nobody's buying Frontenacs tickets. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't."

That is taxation without representation. Taxes aren't being spent on what they should be going to and Kingstonians no longer have a team they are proud to have representing them. Far be it to suggest that a group of citizens should toss Springer and GM-for-life Larry Mavety into the harbour, or that a journalist should take off his shoes and throw them at Springer.

Springer's comeuppance was capped off with an 0-for-3 weekend, where the Fronts were outscored 17-7 and put themselves on pace for the lowest win total in franchise history. Word has also spread that they lost a top local player whom they drafted last season, 16-year-old forward Brock Higgs, who's elected to play college hockey at Canisius College.

To sum up to this point, they are in last place. They can't get a local talent to play for them. The city is throwing taxpayers' money at them.

Kingston needed a new arena like in 1980, but Springer has acted like a spoiled brat with his new $43-million-plus toy, reaffirming that he is, as TV Cogeco's Mark Potter put it a few weeks ago, the worst owner in the Ontario Hockey League. Teams go through lean times. Twenty-one seasons ago, the Canadians lost 28 games in a row. It is hard to imagine one that does it with such an air of cluelessness coming from the owner and The Royal Mavesty, who some wags have labelled as the owner's "pet dinosaur."

The scene at the K-Rock Centre Friday, when the Fronts lost 7-2 to the Barrie Colts, was an eye-opener for a first-time visitor. The K-Rock Pot gives off the vibe of one of those monstrous movie theatres set down next to a bunch of big-box stores. It is very comfortable, but there's no sense of history or shared experience, which is shameful, given Kingston's hockey history. How about huge lithographs of Kingston hockey legends -- Don Cherry, Kirk Muller, Gilmour, Ken Linseman, Jayna Hefford, Alyn McCauley, Jay McKee, Bill and Bun Cook, Fred O'Donnell, Jim Dorey, to cover those bare walls? The Ottawa Senators have the sweaters of area junior and minor hockey teams hanging in the 100-level concourse of Scotiabank Place, which does a great job of creating the vibe that it's a regional team and people who enter are part of something larger than themselves. At the K-Rock Centre, you're just getting the appearance that the team is Springer's play toy, or just another part of his business portfolio, a loss leader (which makes his periodic pronouncements of "whatever it takes" even more bile-raising).

There couldn't have been more than 1,700 people there (and even that's a couple hundred on the generous side) to watch the Fronts get hammered 7-2 by the Colts, with two of those goals coming from Brittain. It was Teddy Bear Toss night, so after Brittain got his second goal, a few fans tossed out stuffed animals. There's something about following hockey in Kingston that cultivates a sense of humour.

Anyway, so at the end of the game, Kinger had Brittain, the game's first star, for an interview at rinkside. A seasoned police interrogator -- the very kind the Kingston Police can't afford since the city cut money out of its budget and gave it to the K-Rock Centre -- or a psychologist could have a field day Brittain's non-verbal communcation. It's right at the 1:54-1:56 mark, after Kinger asks, "Final question for you: What do you think is the thing you're going to miss the most about being a Kingston Frontenac?"



As Brittain told Kinger and the TV Cogeco audience what he missed most about playing for the Fronts -- "I don't know, that’s a tough one. I, uh, can’t come up with anything" (which was telling enough) -- he reached up with his right hand and scratched his face.

Granted, it might not mean anything, but gestures like that can be indicative of when someone would rather not tell the whole truth. Brittain certainly has had his fill of having to be the teenage diplomat when it comes to his time with the Frontenacs, not wanting to say anything the least bit controversial that might get him labelled as having a bad attitude.

(As an aside, if there was any attitude problem, the Frontenacs created their own problem with the lack of boundaries. Brittain was a rookie in the 2007 playoffs when Mavety brokered a deal that let Bobby Hughes come back to the team after he quit between the third period and overtime of a playoff game.)

Peter Stevens, who went to Barrie with Brittain in that Dec. 3 trade, played it much the same way as Brittain when Kinger did a phone interview with him on the radio. Stevens, whose trade has meant it's open season on skilled players such as 17-year-old defenceman Taylor Doherty, simply called the Colts more "hockey-minded" -- so what are Kingston's minds on? -- and saying that he would miss the city itself.

The positives on the ice are fewer and farther between for the Frontenacs (7-22-6 with one game left before the holidays). Ethan Werek, amid all the losing, is at least demonstrating a scoring touch and perhaps should be the next player to take a turn wearing the captain's "C" under the Manchurian Coach, Dougie!. Werek accounted for three of the Fronts seven goals this weekend. Three of the other four came off the sticks off Werek's wingers, Andris Dzerins and Bobby Mignardi.

The Fronts had four different players score goals this weekend. Mississauga St. Michael's had six today in its 7-4 win over Kingston (the fourth time in six games that the Fronts have given up at least seven goals, ironically after they traded their best forward).

That is pretty thin gruel, especially given the success of the rival Belleville Bulls and the turnaround of the three other also-rans from last season. One can go on and on rhyming off facts and figures like an idiot savant, and what the hell, let's do that:

• Second straight season with fewer than 10 wins before the holiday break;
• No back-to-back wins yet this season;
• The three non-playoff teams of last season, Erie, Owen Sound and Sudbury, are all contending for the playoffs;
• Dead last in the 20-team in OHL on the power play and penalty kill;
  
• Jérôme Dupont's record since taking over the Gatineau Olympiques: 9-5-1 (Dupont lobbyed for the Kingston job);
  
• Doug Gilmour's record as Frontenacs coach: 2-9-1 (matching Bruce Cassidy's mark before he got the ax in 2007);
• Seven wins in 35 games puts the Fronts behind the franchise record-low win total of the '87-88 Canadians, who won 14 of 66 games (and promptly had a new owner and new name the next season);
  

There's a word for this and it starts and ends the same way as the owner's name, with the letter D and the suffix er -- disaster. Here's hoping that in the New Year, the right people, at City Hall and in the media, start asking questions about how it went so wrong down in K-Town -- and whether it's too late to undo the damage done over the past decade.

Something is rotten. It's as evident as what Josh Brittain thought better of saying Friday night.

(Small mea culpa: George Lovatsis, of course, came over in an early-season trade, meaning that he didn't have to make the team in training camp, as some Kinger's honorary co-host -- me -- put it Friday. Granted, you could say he had to make the Barrie Colts in training camp and ultimately didn't, which is how he ended up in Kingston. A goof is a goof.

Last, but not least, the Frontenacs will honour play-by-play man on Jim Gilchrist on Wednesday. Gilchrist recently called his 2,000th OHL game.)

Related:
Arena profits way off, city told; Council eyeing reserves to offset shortcomings (Rob Tripp, Kingston Whig-Standard)
Brotherly love; Sibling's cancer puts hockey into perspective for Gudbranson (Doug Graham, Kingston Whig-Standard)

Snark break...

As you were ... getting a charge out of making people run to the dictionary, even though the rest of us got it out of our system by the age of 22.

From Daily Norseman: "...the Chicago Bears are no longer owned by the McCaskey family. It turns out that the Chicago Bears are now owned by Adrian Peterson." (Well, actually, they're owned by Jared Allen; six of one, half-dozen of another.)

The Blue Jays are probably going to offer A.J. Burnett arbitration. It's their best chance to get back two first-round draft choices, along with J.P. Ricciardi's Punisher War Journal 6, his copy of Fletch and the remote to the clubhouse TV.

It's nice of the Buffalo Bills to start playing like the Argos the week before their game in Toronto. An officially sponsored tailgate party? Only in Toronto. Feel free to complain there are no vegan alternatives.

(And 49ers-Bills should have been the game to get moved to Rogers Centre.)

Jack Todd on the hiring of Brian Burke: "I don't think Sam Pollock and Scotty Bowman together could win in Toronto." Of course they wouldn't -- they wouldn't be able to trade with the California Golden Seals.

(By the way, the media-coined Pope Brian label is irony, on a number of levels. The Vatican hasn't had a lot to hold its head high over lately, either.)

The Patriots' white wide receiver Wes Welker can take a hit like a champ:



The preceding was worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Talk about being the presence of greatness ... talking about Ottawa native Erik Gudbranson getting to be interviewed by Kinger during yesterday's Frontenacs-Ottawa 67's game, not the other way around.
  
  
  
  Your goal today is to tack on "at least for now" into every sentence without anyone noticing.
• A tip of the cap to a few Ottawa-area women's hockey players ... Cumberland's Jennifer Chaisson got the go-ahead goal for the UConn Huskies in their win over Yale at the Nutmeg Classic tourney. She had two points in a win over Wayne State where Melissa Boal of Pakenham scored her 99th career goal. putting her one way from being the fifth player in NCAA history to score 100.
• The ol' alma mater, Ernestown Secondary School in Odessa, Ont., is having a fundraising drive for its football program You will donate, not just for the young men and women (well, one young woman, cornerback Sydney Compeau) who play for the Screaming Eagles, but for all the graduates of mid-'90s vintage who never got to pad up and lay out some Frontenac Falcon.

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

Fronts: And we still don't know who stole the strawberries!

The really amazing part of Kingston Frontenacs owner Doug Springer's most recent TV interview is that he's not rolling a pair of ball bearings in his hand.

A lay psychiatrist could have a field day with Springer's comportment. He seems unable to look TV Cogeco interviewer Mark Potter in the eye, among other things. You really have to see it for yourself, especially the assertions that GM-for-life Larry Mavety is a "a great hockey man."



Honestly, if the clip had not made it online, this would have sufficed.



Meantime, the Springer Frontenacs got some play in the National Post: "Cynics suggest the Gilmour hiring is merely a desperate attempt to temper the city's ill-feelings toward the club, put some people into the new rink, possibly give the club a chance to still make the playoffs and give Gilmour some much-needed head coaching experience."

The only cynics here are the Frontenacs organization, for making a change but not changing not the culture. They basically confessed that they never had a coaching search last summer -- it was going to be either Gilmour, or if he couldn't commit, The Royal Mavesty.

This "sorry franchise" (thank you thank you thank you, Don Campbell) does not have a real captain to lead it on the ice, but it does have its own Captain Queeg, cutting his own towline.

(Announced attendance for the second home game of the Doug Gilmour Experiment, a 4-2 loss to Brampton: 3,100. Erik Gudbranson, good player but still a 16-year-old rookie, was wearing the captain's "C" instead of NHL-drafted Josh Brittain.)

Related:
OHL welcomes celebrity coach (Don Campbell, CanWest News Service)
Captain by committee; Coach Gilmour to designate 'C' in segments (Doug Graham, Kingston Whig-Standard)

Snark break ...

As you were in mourning for Wendell ...

Scout.com's bowl projections list three college football teams from Michigan, but not the actual University of Michigan.

The NHL schedulemaker blew it, putting a Canadiens-Bruins game in Boston on the same night as a New England Patriots home game. Granted, it's not as if the NFL puts their schedule out in March.

The Jays might as well get Khalil Greene. He would be the best shortstop they've had since, what, Tony Fernández's second stint with the team?

The above was worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Erik Gudbranson being named to Team Ontario for the World Under-17 Challenge has been noted by Fronts Talk and Save The Fronts, but not on the Kingston Frontenacs website. Granted, the first two might be getting more traffic these days.
• Go here for the Chris Bosh vs. Baron Davis comedy skit challenge.
• Save the date: July 31, 2009 for Judd Apatow's Funny People. There might be an Arrested Development movie.
• BlogTO has an interview posted with Roger Lajoie, of the FAN 590 and every other media outlet in the GTA.
• Top 10 reasons why Ball State should be in the BCS.

Fronts: Beware the ides of Mav

A game seven months ago today between the Kingston Frontenacs and Sudbury Wolves illustrated the difference between a true rebuilding and one of your Larry Mavety rebuildings.

Junior hockey has not yet been Moneyballed the way the big pro sports have. It is not as if people have not been aware of the Fronts', uh, enigmatic approach to roster management, but it bears being broadcast. A commenter at the invaluable The New OHL Open Forum pointed out last week that the key difference between the Fronts and Sudbury, the other Eastern Conference team who missed the playoffs.

"The basic rule is when you are at the bottom you trade your best older players for good young players and high draft picks. That's in the junior hockey Management For Dummies manual.

A quick check from that March 14 blowout at the K-Rock Centre shows that the Wolves by that point were down to three players who were 19 years old or in an overage season. One of the two 19-year-olds skating for them that night did not return to the OHL, opting to play university hockey.

The Fronts, in contast, had seven players in the lineup that night who were either 19 or 20 years old -- seven players whom, no offence, were close to the finish line in the OHL. They might have done a great job playing for pride and to get the attention of pro and CIS scouts, but that was it.

It was plainly obvious that Mavety was hanging on to older players in an effort to squeeze out a few more wins -- no matter what it might do to the team's chances of being competitive the following season. Or as our buddy put it:

"... That meant that Kingston had to find players to fill 7 slots. An awful lot of players. While Sudbury had to find none and 2 to 3 of the new drafted players would push out players of less talent."

It's early yet, but Sudbury is off to a nice little 4-2-1 start.

The Frontenacs, with a fresh arrangement of deck chairs on the HMCS Royal Mavesty, have the same 2-6-1 record that they did after nine games a year ago. They have more talent, but in the immortal words of Maury Wills during his ill-starred stint as Seattle Mariners manager in the early '80s (the same period that most of Mavety's practice drills originate from, some would say), it's confused talent. That seems reflected by the Fronts having the worst special teams in the OHL (19th-ranked penalty kill and a power play that is 20th, dead last).

Thanks to one smart fan, it's clearer now why some major junior hockey clubs can quickly shoot back up to the peak of a cycle, while some keep skating in place. The Frontenacs have won two out of their past four games, living up the owner's semi-ultimatum. That assumes you ignore that they have been outshot by a collective 164-90 over that span and were 1-for-20 on the power play. The Windsor-based TV commentators apparently called the organization a "sideshow" during Monday's shutout loss to Taylor Hall and the Spitfires. You also have to ignore that Mavety once again blamed his players for the loss.

They are who owner Doug Springer thought they were, if you ignore the previous 10 paragraphs and the last 10 years.

(At least Orleans' Erik Gudbranson is an alrightnik -- clip via the invaluable MisterDB):

Fronts: Bobbing in a sea of Maviocrity and fans dressed as empty seats

It's kind of fun, not to mention a good coping mechanism, to imagine Kingston Frontenacs GM-for-life Larry Mavety getting tag-teamed by the Bobs from Office Space.

"What is it that you'd say that you do here?"

To borrow another line from a cult classic, Frontenacs owner Doug Springer is having a case of the Mondays.

Five games into the season (four real losses, one charity-pointer, an overtime loss) and the Fronts Talk-ers are already calling for Mavety's firing. It will also probably not take too long before the right people start asking questions about the team's announced attendance figures, which seem divorced from all reality.

On the plus side, it was a fun game to watch in person in Oshawa on Sunday night, at least for a period and a half.

Getting back to the attendance, the apparently inactive Fire Larry Mavety noted in February that the City of Kingston, which has a $1.50 surcharge on each ticket, is budgeted for 3,500 fans per game. It has also, if memory serves, projected revenues based on the Frontenacs having at least four home playoff dates. That means having home-ice advantage for a first-round series that goes the full seven games, as per Springer's opening-night vow, or reaching the second round. Of course, that hasn't been heard of in Kingston since before Springer owned the team.
 
It's early yet, but people are already peeved. Good for them. Here's a sampling from the diehards, God love 'em:

"Collectively, they don't play as a team. And that's the coaching staff's fault. There are no systems, it's basically five guys skating around doing what they think they should do. Sure, they try hard, but at the end of the day there's no cohesion on the ice.

"People point at last season's 'turnaround' (and I use that term loosely, since the team was still way under .500 under Mavety) as a reason that Mav could do good things with this year's squad. But one thing people need to remember, is the fact that John Murray stole game after game, after game for us last year. And John Murray's not around this year. He made up for a lot of the shortcomings of the team last year, and exaggerated how good the team actually was."

"(Springer) outright lied when he said he would do whatever it takes to build a successful franchise, he did absolutely nothing apart from reprise his geriatric coach from the prior ten years."

"I also had the pleasure of speaking with a few of the player parents that made their way to the (Oshawa) game as well as a couple of billets that made the trip and they all said the same thing - MAVETY HAS TO GO AND GO NOW!

I know I have said this before, but there are players that, if things don't change, they will be asking for trades.

It's no surprise. Fans were right ticked when Springer, ever indifferent, waited until mid-August to announce Mavety was returning as coach. Granted, in this corner, it seemed sporting to heed the spirit of the late, great Kingston sportscaster Max Jackson's sign-off, "If you can't play a sport, be one!" and wait at least until the 15-, 20-game mark before calling for a change in ownership or management. (To say nothing of writing another passionate plea for favourite son Kirk Muller to make like his former Montréal Canadiens teammate Patrick Roy (well, not completely like Roy) and buy his hometown junior hockey club?

His Royal Mavesty is flesh and bone like all of us. Who among us would not wish for a twenty-second chance to get something right?

Anyway, spending the weekend in Southern Ontario afforded me the opportunity to see the Fronts' 5-3 loss to John Tavares and the Oshawa Generals on Sunday. There's far too much of a time lag to rehash the who-what-where-when-why (the Fronts should put together five Ws so fast!), but here were some general thoughts:

• Five games is way too soon to use this line about the Frontenacs prize rookie defenceman: "Which Erik are we going to see — Gudbranson or Bad-branson?" There was a bit of both. Knocking Tavares off the puck on a 1-on-1 rush, and then knocking the future No. 1 overall pick on his duff was Gud. Getting two assists was Gud. 
  
  The Badbranson moments: Missing a clearing attempt and giving Oshawa a gift shot for its go-ahead goal. Gudbranson was trusted to kill a two-man disadvantage to start the third period, but made a weak clearing attempt that allowed Oshawa to keep the puck in the Kingston zone. Two passes later, Tavares had what stood up as the game-winning goal. (In fairness, Taylor Doherty would probably be out there, and he had taken the second penalty for roughing after the whistle.)
• In the second period, the Generals got Tavares' line out against Kingston's fourth line, but the Fronts came out ahead. Peter Stevens bumped Tavares, a fight broke out and Oshawa got the extra minor penalty. On the power play, though, Corbin Crawford hit the goalpost, missing a chance to go up by two goals. It was also karmic, especially considering how Kingston competed once it lost the lead.
• Overheard on Saturday at Queen's football win over York: "The Frontenacs will probably start 0-8 and Mavety will blame everybody but himself."
  
  Forty-eight hours later, Mavety tells the local paper that a couple of his players " obviously aren't as mentally tough as we thought they were" and have a "defeatist attitude." Hey, it's good to know that the coaching wasn't to blame.

Fronts: Oh, it's a hoot, seein' the world through Rosen-coloured glasses

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in any number of Kingston homes when the head of the household brought in the Saturday Whig-Standard (or logged on to thewhig.com).

In the front section, Mayor Harvey Rosen is offering vague reassurances that there's a plan to pay for for the shiny new K-Rock Pot without raising taxes. In sports, the new and improved Springer Frontenacs are 0-for-3 in the exhibition season after losing 3-2 last night against the Ottawa 67's.

Never mind that even a slow-witted, blog-writin' guy coulda deduced two years ago that the federal Tories likely didn't have a penny for an arena in Kingston. Harper and the boys are more about endearing themselves to urbanites and voters in rural communities that are "a good place to raise children," don't you know. Kingston and the Islands falls in no-man's land, especially since it's gone Liberal in every federal election since '88.)

The surcharge on tickets sold to Springer Frontenacs games will surely help make up the difference, since the Fronts thus far are generating some kind of buzz. In fairness, it's only pre-season and Mavric Parks, of Eganville, only had to make 47 saves to keep it close vs. Ottawa on Friday.

Erik Gudbranson also potted his unofficial first OHL goal. How about that? Well, at least our hypothetical newspaper reader can go out to the Chapters or the Indigo on Princess St. to find some new reading material for solace ... so long as he doesn't pick up the latest The Hockey News, which ranks the Belleville Bulls as the No. 2 team in Canada.

Why not the Fronts?

Hope, not unlike the reality of Larry Mavety being the GM-for-life of Limestone City Light Brigade, is eternal.

In the spirit of that, the Kingston Frontenacs should get credit for adding defenceman Jesse Hebscher from Sudbury today for a forward, Zach McGillis. You can never have too many D-men, right? McGillis might have ended up being caught in a numbers game at training camp due to a surfeit of 1990-birthdate forwards, so it's a decent get if Hebscher ends up being a sixth or seventh D-man who can scrap when it's needed.

In the past eight months, his Royal Mavness has dealt for Hebscher, Corbin Crawford, Kevin Christmas and Zack Fenwick. He also spent high draft choices on Ottawa native Erik Gudbrandson and Taylor Mort, to go along with a top-two defenceman, Taylor Doherty, who's entering his second season. Peter Stevens is still around as the utility player.

That should be a good enough back end to help the Fronts hold their own in a weak Eastern Conference in the next season -- or so you would think if you weren't acutely aware of how it's gone during the first decade of Doug Springer's plan for OHL domination. Finding some good overagers -- some of the diehards might feel that Matt Kang's worn out his welcome -- would be a next item on the agenda. Now that the Belleville Bulls are at the end of a cycle that peaked with a run to the Memorial Cup, the flight deck is clear for someone to make a run in the East.

(Incidentally, some of the pot-stirrers at Fronts Talk have made a note that former Frontenacs coach Dave Allison has bought a home in Kingston. Feel free not to read anything into that, since Springer is saving a salary by having Mavety come back as coach.)

Related:
Wolves acquire rights to McGillis (Sudbury Star)

FRONTS: ERIK THE GREAT

Mother Day's is about family. In that spirit, here's the feature that Rogers 22 in Ottawa ran last Thursday on the Kingston Frontenacs bright young hope, top draft choice Erik Gudbranson, and his family sticking together through his younger brother Dennis' leukemia fight.

(It's almost enough to make you believe the Frontenacs can turn it around. How can they not win with Gudbranson on their blueline for the next three seasons? His poise puts people twice his age to shame.)

Arash Madani likely doesn't need confirmation from here that he did a hell of a job. MisterDB from Fronts Talk came through with the video.