Wow, that was close. The Kingston Frontenacs almost had to play hockey in April.
Some, albeit no one with a shred of objectivity, were ready to call the season a Mav-ssive success long before the Fronts faceplanted with a 5-2 loss to the Brampton Battalion in Game 7 of their first-round series on Tuesday.
Another response, once we get past the banging-your-head-against-wall stage, is to laugh like hell, an emotion that's often been provoked during the dismal dozen seasons Doug Springer has owned the team. To sum up, the Frontenacs are the only top seed in the OHL playoffs to lose in the first round this spring. Only one of the other seven went more than five games in their series. Barrie, Mississauga St. Michaels and Windsor, the other three teams bidding for the 2011 Memorial Cup, each swept their series 4-0. Please keep in mind Kingston's opponent finished with only 62 points, nine less than the worst playoff team in the OHL's other, better conference. Also make note that Brampton had the edge in shots on goal in six of the seven games (no word what the tally was in shots at the net).
One has to believe the players gave all they could reasonably be expected to give, in light of the knowledge they're smart enough to know they're playing in a messed-up organization. The handwriting was on the wall once Ethan Werek went down with a MCL injury in Game 6. Regardless, the burn is still on Springer and GM Larry Mavety for once again displaying their knack for promising everything and delivering nothing.
The Frontenacs actually hit their attendance target in Game 7 for the first (and last) time this season, drawing a crowd of 5,133. The hell of it is wondering how much the casual fans' impressions will be coloured negatively by the team's flat effort in do-or-die game. On top of that, there was veteran leader Brian Lashoff literally leading with his head, drawing a double minor for head-butting that led to a Brampton power-play goal, plus two abuse-of-official game misconducts after the Battalion put in the empty-net clincher. It exacerbates when you lose and do don't it graciously.
Meantime, it's another early exit for a franchise which keeps saying it's going to be different, but never makes fundamental changes. It's not like someone did not see it coming last spring. The Frontenacs were trying to do just enough of a patching job that would allow them to get into the second round of the playoffs, earning them another five-year free pass from the public.
People weren't buying it this time. The club hit its original attendance target of 3,500 just eight times in 34 regular-season home dates. In the playoffs, even with the healthy turnout for Game 7, it averaged just 3,498.
Now they go into an off-season needing to replace their No. 1 (and only) goalie, Tyler Beskorowany, blueliners Lashoff and Jaroslav Kruzik (who became the second Front in recent years to quit the team mid-playoff series), and first-line forward Nathan Moon. That's a lot of 19-year-old talent to replace, especially since they're supposed to be hosting the Memorial Cup.
One wishes to not have to write these posts year after year to the attention span-challenged whose collective memory doesn't go past the Fronts' most recent win. None of the arguments about how change is needed with the Frontenacs -- a new role for the owner, new management -- have stopped being valid since the Fronts were among the 80% of OHL teams which make the playoffs. Getting the equivalent of a participant ribbon does not make you elite.
There is nothing like being right. Well, the Frontenacs reaching the second round would have been much sweeter, since it's getting harder to recall what that was like. At least there is another Game 7 on Wednesday, Kingston Vees vs. the Oakville Blades, where the Limestoners might win.
It has been 889 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
Showing posts with label Fronts Talk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fronts Talk. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Fronts: Kingston mayor puts the 'gall' in Cha Gheill!
Like Kinger says, a good hockey town supports good hockey.
Someone needs to put that in a memo for Kingston mayor Harvey Rosen, even though it falls under the heading, "I didn't know it was possible not to know that."
It's funny. A quick Google News check reveals His Worship's hypocrisy on the local sports front over the past week. The first match for Rosen is a press release announcing the mayor will be one of the speakers at today's rally honouring the Vanier Cup champion Queen's Golden Gaels (woo-hoo!). The second is from last week where he questioned "why there aren't more bums in the seats" at Kingston Frontenacs games, adding, "Kingston likes to pride itself on being a hockey city. I wonder."
Some would wonder how the mayor in good conscience can attach himself to a winner while expecting fellow sports-likers to support an abject loser such as the Springer Frontenacs, where the bums are in the owner's suite. Frankly, that stinks worse than TSN missing almost the whole first quarter of the Vanier Cup.
The Frontenacs are honouring the Golden Gaels before their game on Friday, as well they should. Some would say it assures people of seeing a great Kingston team at the K-Rock Centre between now and the Junior A Voyageurs hosting the RBC Cup in 2012.
No doubt a few wags this week have made variations on the same joke. Now that the Vees (central Canadian Junior A champions) and Queen's have each won a major championship (woo-hoo!), the Springer Frontenacs had better hurry up and win something. It works on so many levels. It's funny 'cause it's true.
It's also tragic. Everyone knows the Fronts can never win as long as Rosen's little buddy Doug Springer and the Frontenacs owner's pet dinosaur, GM-for-life Larry Mavety, are both around. What are they, sixth in the OHL's Leastern Conference? Do they get a parade for that too, Mr. Mayor, even though anyone with a brain knows sixth place is a garden-variety feat?
Point being, it was all kinds of wrongheaded for Rosen to fault fans instead of turning to the real culprits. As Kinger said on Fronts Talk:
The whole truth is you could write this about the Springer Frontenacs pretty much whenever. That makes Rosen's remarks nuttier than a pecan log. How could someone who lives in Kingston be so tone-deaf as to why the populace has tuned out the Fronts? They have the same doofi in charge who got them into this mess. Small wonder only diehards come out to the sterile K-Rock Centre.
It was fair to give it a chance at the start of the season and steer clear of snap judgments. The Fronts also lost their best NHL draft-eligible defenceman, Erik Gudbranson, for an extended period. That bought them a mulligan.
However, the progress that was promised has not materialized. The above-linked Kingston Whig-Standard article, written by a good and honourable reporter who is not normally on the sports beat, says the team is "hovering around .500." In fact, the Frontenacs have only 11 regulation-time wins in 30 games, a paltry total in such a weak conference. (Two of their 13 total victories have come in 4-on-4 overtime, which is not a good assessment of a team's true talent).
Of course, Springer also wants to host the Memorial Cup next season because the Frontenacs are so competitive with those Western Conference teams. They only got outscored 29-12 during a five-game stretch vs. the West; each of the four losses was by at least three goals.
There are trace elements of Doug Gilmour's influence on the ice. For instance, the players actually seem to have a screw's clue about defensive positioning, which no Mavety-led team has been accused of since 1990.
It all comes back to Springer retaining Mavety, the general mangler. How can Rosen be so willfully blind? Well, he did gave Springer a sweetheart deal on use of the K-Rock Centre. He did sign off on revenue projections most people knew would be unreachable so long as Springer refuses to get the crayon dislodged from his brain, which would give him the 30 missing IQ points he needs to realize his hockey operation is 30 years out-of-date.
You might remember coach "The Trades That Were Made, I Did" Gilmour had to hold out his knuckles to be rapped when the Frontenacs were called before city council last winter over theirmediocre record marketing plan. The party line was that it was Gilmour's team with his hand-picked players.
Then their draft looked suspiciously like a Mavety draft. (It's an open secret in OHL circles the Frontenacs are so clueless they actually ask 67's GM Brian Kilrea in Ottawa to make recommendations for their picks.) Then they traded for middling veterans to try to squeeze out a playoff spot in a league that only lets 80% of its teams into the dance. They failed to convince a local talent, Kingston Voyageurs centre Brock Higgs, to cast his lot with them (can't imagine why). Higgs has only been selected for the Canadian Junior Hockey League all-star game and accepted a scholarship to Rensselaer, which is as good at it gets when it comes to getting a Lexus education while playing U.S. college hockey. Remember, he's there for the degree.
(Anonymous apologists will claim Higgs could not help the Frontenacs. This stunning bit of logic ignores he is a comparable player with former Voyageur Mike Farrell, who seems to be helping the Frontenacs.)
It is ugly. Mavety has finger on the button and this man's touch is like iodine on a potato, forever blackening. As Mayor Rosen would say, you wonder if Gilmour is going to stay on once they don't get the Memorial Cup in 2011 (again). You wonder if about the team's commitment after it got waxed 4-1 at home two Sundays ago by a Plymouth team playing its third road game in 2½ games. (The Whalers went from being so weary they couldn't complete a 20-foot pass in the first period to winning easily.)
One would sense it if there was a change of culture around the hockey club. It's not there. As TVCogeco's Mark Potter said last winter, if Larry Mavety survives in Kingston, the OHL will not.
Even more ironically, while Rosen had the gall to call out long-suffering fans, Mavety has been thumbing through The Big Book of Bad Hockey for the right act of ass coverage. His usual move this time of season involves trading a quote-unquote unhappy or underperforming player (whose agent and potential future NHL team want him somewhere where there is actual interest in professional development), on the premise a talent dump will make the team better. This year, that favourite from the playbook is called "The Taylor Doherty."
Last season, it was "The Josh Brittain." Next season, it might be "the Ethan Werek." It doesn't actually stop the franchise from spinning its wheels. It works like a charm in terms of self-preservation and brain-baffling BS.
All that, and Harvey Rosen expects people to show up. Presumably, in the spirit of the late, great Max Jackson's sign-off ("if you can't play a sport, be one!"), Rosen will realize he was way out of bounds to criticize fans. He's a bright enough man to see the difference between the teams in Kingston.
Rosen was at the Vanier Cup. He must have heard people who would know say the Golden Gaels' success flows from their cerebral and classy coaches and permeates the entire program. The spirit emanates from the king. The Frontenacs are stuck with an owner who is a rare combination of arrogant and wrong and a GM who has outlasted his usefulness.
It has been 772 days since Doug Springer promised he would do whatever it takes to bring a winner to Kingston. Who knew Harvey Rosen has needed someone to toss him a clue line for at least that long? C'est la vie, and Cha Gheill!
Someone needs to put that in a memo for Kingston mayor Harvey Rosen, even though it falls under the heading, "I didn't know it was possible not to know that."
It's funny. A quick Google News check reveals His Worship's hypocrisy on the local sports front over the past week. The first match for Rosen is a press release announcing the mayor will be one of the speakers at today's rally honouring the Vanier Cup champion Queen's Golden Gaels (woo-hoo!). The second is from last week where he questioned "why there aren't more bums in the seats" at Kingston Frontenacs games, adding, "Kingston likes to pride itself on being a hockey city. I wonder."
Some would wonder how the mayor in good conscience can attach himself to a winner while expecting fellow sports-likers to support an abject loser such as the Springer Frontenacs, where the bums are in the owner's suite. Frankly, that stinks worse than TSN missing almost the whole first quarter of the Vanier Cup.
The Frontenacs are honouring the Golden Gaels before their game on Friday, as well they should. Some would say it assures people of seeing a great Kingston team at the K-Rock Centre between now and the Junior A Voyageurs hosting the RBC Cup in 2012.
No doubt a few wags this week have made variations on the same joke. Now that the Vees (central Canadian Junior A champions) and Queen's have each won a major championship (woo-hoo!), the Springer Frontenacs had better hurry up and win something. It works on so many levels. It's funny 'cause it's true.
It's also tragic. Everyone knows the Fronts can never win as long as Rosen's little buddy Doug Springer and the Frontenacs owner's pet dinosaur, GM-for-life Larry Mavety, are both around. What are they, sixth in the OHL's Leastern Conference? Do they get a parade for that too, Mr. Mayor, even though anyone with a brain knows sixth place is a garden-variety feat?
Point being, it was all kinds of wrongheaded for Rosen to fault fans instead of turning to the real culprits. As Kinger said on Fronts Talk:
"To imply that the fault lies with the fans for not showing up shows not just a lack of understanding of the real situation, but a condescension towards and contempt for the hockey fans that made his downtown arena idea a possibility.That feeling has been there for a long time, so don't be saying this is cynically timed with the Gaels' triumph. Saying so would be half-right, but not how you might think. It took this long since, as a Kingston expat, it seemed better to focus on Queen's playoff run, which embiggened the smallest man (I would know). However, eventually one's face needs a rest from smiling so much. So, you focus on the Fronts, who could make Giada De Laurentiis frown.
"How dare he impugn what I will always defend as one of the greatest hockey fan bases in the entire country.
"How dare he say anything but how honoured he is to preside over a city of such hockey intelligence; the birthplace of hockey and home of so many of its greatest historians and appreciators.
"How dare anyone bemoan the unwillingness of this city's working class to shell out money for inflated ticket prices and downright egregious concessions!
"It's not our fault, Mr. Mayor - it's the fault of the plutocrats who control this city, who try to foist never-ending mediocrity on a city that deserves much better, and expect the populace to be grateful that they're giving them time of day.
"People demand better than that because Kingston deserves better than mediocrity.
"It is the consumer's right to decide where his or her money is best spent.
"How can a man like Mr. Rosen, who made his mark as a savvy businessman, not understand the everlasting mantra that the customer is always right?
"You can't shame people into going to hockey games."
The whole truth is you could write this about the Springer Frontenacs pretty much whenever. That makes Rosen's remarks nuttier than a pecan log. How could someone who lives in Kingston be so tone-deaf as to why the populace has tuned out the Fronts? They have the same doofi in charge who got them into this mess. Small wonder only diehards come out to the sterile K-Rock Centre.
It was fair to give it a chance at the start of the season and steer clear of snap judgments. The Fronts also lost their best NHL draft-eligible defenceman, Erik Gudbranson, for an extended period. That bought them a mulligan.
However, the progress that was promised has not materialized. The above-linked Kingston Whig-Standard article, written by a good and honourable reporter who is not normally on the sports beat, says the team is "hovering around .500." In fact, the Frontenacs have only 11 regulation-time wins in 30 games, a paltry total in such a weak conference. (Two of their 13 total victories have come in 4-on-4 overtime, which is not a good assessment of a team's true talent).
Of course, Springer also wants to host the Memorial Cup next season because the Frontenacs are so competitive with those Western Conference teams. They only got outscored 29-12 during a five-game stretch vs. the West; each of the four losses was by at least three goals.
There are trace elements of Doug Gilmour's influence on the ice. For instance, the players actually seem to have a screw's clue about defensive positioning, which no Mavety-led team has been accused of since 1990.
It all comes back to Springer retaining Mavety, the general mangler. How can Rosen be so willfully blind? Well, he did gave Springer a sweetheart deal on use of the K-Rock Centre. He did sign off on revenue projections most people knew would be unreachable so long as Springer refuses to get the crayon dislodged from his brain, which would give him the 30 missing IQ points he needs to realize his hockey operation is 30 years out-of-date.
You might remember coach "The Trades That Were Made, I Did" Gilmour had to hold out his knuckles to be rapped when the Frontenacs were called before city council last winter over their
Then their draft looked suspiciously like a Mavety draft. (It's an open secret in OHL circles the Frontenacs are so clueless they actually ask 67's GM Brian Kilrea in Ottawa to make recommendations for their picks.) Then they traded for middling veterans to try to squeeze out a playoff spot in a league that only lets 80% of its teams into the dance. They failed to convince a local talent, Kingston Voyageurs centre Brock Higgs, to cast his lot with them (can't imagine why). Higgs has only been selected for the Canadian Junior Hockey League all-star game and accepted a scholarship to Rensselaer, which is as good at it gets when it comes to getting a Lexus education while playing U.S. college hockey. Remember, he's there for the degree.
(Anonymous apologists will claim Higgs could not help the Frontenacs. This stunning bit of logic ignores he is a comparable player with former Voyageur Mike Farrell, who seems to be helping the Frontenacs.)
It is ugly. Mavety has finger on the button and this man's touch is like iodine on a potato, forever blackening. As Mayor Rosen would say, you wonder if Gilmour is going to stay on once they don't get the Memorial Cup in 2011 (again). You wonder if about the team's commitment after it got waxed 4-1 at home two Sundays ago by a Plymouth team playing its third road game in 2½ games. (The Whalers went from being so weary they couldn't complete a 20-foot pass in the first period to winning easily.)
One would sense it if there was a change of culture around the hockey club. It's not there. As TVCogeco's Mark Potter said last winter, if Larry Mavety survives in Kingston, the OHL will not.
Even more ironically, while Rosen had the gall to call out long-suffering fans, Mavety has been thumbing through The Big Book of Bad Hockey for the right act of ass coverage. His usual move this time of season involves trading a quote-unquote unhappy or underperforming player (whose agent and potential future NHL team want him somewhere where there is actual interest in professional development), on the premise a talent dump will make the team better. This year, that favourite from the playbook is called "The Taylor Doherty."
Last season, it was "The Josh Brittain." Next season, it might be "the Ethan Werek." It doesn't actually stop the franchise from spinning its wheels. It works like a charm in terms of self-preservation and brain-baffling BS.
All that, and Harvey Rosen expects people to show up. Presumably, in the spirit of the late, great Max Jackson's sign-off ("if you can't play a sport, be one!"), Rosen will realize he was way out of bounds to criticize fans. He's a bright enough man to see the difference between the teams in Kingston.
Rosen was at the Vanier Cup. He must have heard people who would know say the Golden Gaels' success flows from their cerebral and classy coaches and permeates the entire program. The spirit emanates from the king. The Frontenacs are stuck with an owner who is a rare combination of arrogant and wrong and a GM who has outlasted his usefulness.
It has been 772 days since Doug Springer promised he would do whatever it takes to bring a winner to Kingston. Who knew Harvey Rosen has needed someone to toss him a clue line for at least that long? C'est la vie, and Cha Gheill!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Fronts: A Fine case for a lawsuit!
How many 18-year-olds could you get a picture of drinking? Many of them. Yet Soo Today, for reasons that have to be pretty goddamn original since there's nothing in our journalistic experience that would possibly justify this, chose to run a picture of newly minted Kingston Frontenacs forward Michael Fine getting his drink on next to a story about the trade between the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and Fronts.
"Despicable" is the word which comes to mind. Fine had been sent home by the Greyhounds for disciplinary reasons and told to wait for a trade. However, context is everything in the media. The article offers nothing to explain why there's a picture of a minor getting booze poured down his throat. There is no photo credit to explain how the picture was obtained.
Anyone's issues with alcohol are private and personal so long as he/she is not driving drunk. How do you know, unless you're inside the velvet rope in junior hockey, whether someone has a serious problem or simply the normal teenage issues with alcohol? Lots of people drink before achieving the age of majority (a lot don't, too) and their picture does not end up on a legitimate media outlet's website, so-called.
It is understood that there probably is a lot of gossip going around over why Fine was kicked off the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (whose general manager, Dave Torrie, has made a public objection to the picture being published), so such a picture might have seemed like a smoking gun.
Your guess is as to Soo Today's motivations as as good as any. Blame the TMZing of the media, blame small-town ignorance and insecurities ("Fine didn't realize how lucky he was that in Canada, we force someone to move 500 miles from home to pursue a career in pro hockey! We'll show him!").
Speaking from rather hard-won personal experience, it says here Fine, whose former team's home arena was the Steelback Centre for a time, should explore a lawsuit. The case law with libel and defamation in Canada is that the media has less leeway in smaller population centres. The Soo is not a very big place. Fine and the Frontenacs play a game in the Soo in about five weeks. Knowing the fringe element you get in junior hockey barns, someone is going to take that picture and blow it up to 24" by 48" size and hold it up on a stick.
Honestly, the reaction on this end would be the same even if Fine was not playing for my hometown team, the Kingston Frontenacs. No reasonable person is saying, "Great, we traded for a party boy." It's more live and let live, teenagers will be teenagers. The Frontenacs potentially gave up quite a bit (conditional draft choices which could become second-, third- and fifth-rounders across the next four years) if Fine plays to potential. Let's get real, though, this it is not the first time a hockey team traded for a player who had trouble sticking to the straight and narrow in his former city. It will not be the last, either. It's funny how this turns up about a junior hockey player most casual sports fans have never heard of, while no one knows why Dany Heatley ended finding his way to San Jose (just saying).
This is being written without knowing anything about Fine beyond stats and scouting reports, maybe it even looks good on him. No one presumes junior hockey players are saints, no one is going to be shocked by a Facebook-ish picture of a drunk teenager, so why do that? There's something to be said for showing some couth. Shame on Soo Today.
"Despicable" is the word which comes to mind. Fine had been sent home by the Greyhounds for disciplinary reasons and told to wait for a trade. However, context is everything in the media. The article offers nothing to explain why there's a picture of a minor getting booze poured down his throat. There is no photo credit to explain how the picture was obtained.
Anyone's issues with alcohol are private and personal so long as he/she is not driving drunk. How do you know, unless you're inside the velvet rope in junior hockey, whether someone has a serious problem or simply the normal teenage issues with alcohol? Lots of people drink before achieving the age of majority (a lot don't, too) and their picture does not end up on a legitimate media outlet's website, so-called.
It is understood that there probably is a lot of gossip going around over why Fine was kicked off the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (whose general manager, Dave Torrie, has made a public objection to the picture being published), so such a picture might have seemed like a smoking gun.Your guess is as to Soo Today's motivations as as good as any. Blame the TMZing of the media, blame small-town ignorance and insecurities ("Fine didn't realize how lucky he was that in Canada, we force someone to move 500 miles from home to pursue a career in pro hockey! We'll show him!").
Speaking from rather hard-won personal experience, it says here Fine, whose former team's home arena was the Steelback Centre for a time, should explore a lawsuit. The case law with libel and defamation in Canada is that the media has less leeway in smaller population centres. The Soo is not a very big place. Fine and the Frontenacs play a game in the Soo in about five weeks. Knowing the fringe element you get in junior hockey barns, someone is going to take that picture and blow it up to 24" by 48" size and hold it up on a stick.
Honestly, the reaction on this end would be the same even if Fine was not playing for my hometown team, the Kingston Frontenacs. No reasonable person is saying, "Great, we traded for a party boy." It's more live and let live, teenagers will be teenagers. The Frontenacs potentially gave up quite a bit (conditional draft choices which could become second-, third- and fifth-rounders across the next four years) if Fine plays to potential. Let's get real, though, this it is not the first time a hockey team traded for a player who had trouble sticking to the straight and narrow in his former city. It will not be the last, either. It's funny how this turns up about a junior hockey player most casual sports fans have never heard of, while no one knows why Dany Heatley ended finding his way to San Jose (just saying).
This is being written without knowing anything about Fine beyond stats and scouting reports, maybe it even looks good on him. No one presumes junior hockey players are saints, no one is going to be shocked by a Facebook-ish picture of a drunk teenager, so why do that? There's something to be said for showing some couth. Shame on Soo Today.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Fronts: Mike Farrell's beauty goal
Mike Farrell's sick short-handed goal was the lede in the Kingston Whig-Standard's Frontenacs game story on Monday — and it is not hard to see why. It was clearly the greatest moment in amateur or professional sports history, and Kingston history, too, since Brady Olsen was skating for the Queen's Golden Gaels.
Please do not pull a Kinger and point out it is ironic some people cheering for Farrell today just a few weeks ago were claiming Brock Higgs would have been in tough to make the Frontenacs, when Higgs was arguably more effective than Farrell during the Kingston Kimco Voyageurs' soul-stirring, life-affirming playoff run last spring. There is being right and being nice, and that was a nice goal. It's all bygones-be-bygones with the Frontenacs off to a 3-2-0 start (3-0 within the Eastern Conference, although two of those wins were over a suspect Niagara IceDogs teams).
(Clip via the Twitter of Steve Dangle and Puck Daddy.)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Fronts: Parks and re-creation; Mavric jets off to Rangers
The Kingston Frontenacs at least managed to get pared down to two goaltenders: Mavric Parks was the one to go, returning to his original team, the Kitchener Rangers, for a fifth-round draft choice.
Parks was one hell of an instinctive goalie. Maybe too good. He was prone to letting the occasionally softy, since the Frontenacs' defence often wrote checks no netminder could cash. He'll probably do OK in Kitchener, which won't necessarily mean Kingston was wrong. That will depend on how will John Cullen works out as a backup, how often he can spell off Tyler Beskorowany.
At some point, there will be an omnibus post about the Frontenacs' outlook. The regular-season opener at Niagara is coming up fast!
Related:
Top Gun Goalie Returns
Parks was one hell of an instinctive goalie. Maybe too good. He was prone to letting the occasionally softy, since the Frontenacs' defence often wrote checks no netminder could cash. He'll probably do OK in Kitchener, which won't necessarily mean Kingston was wrong. That will depend on how will John Cullen works out as a backup, how often he can spell off Tyler Beskorowany.
At some point, there will be an omnibus post about the Frontenacs' outlook. The regular-season opener at Niagara is coming up fast!
Related:
Top Gun Goalie Returns
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Fronts: Radio silence from now on?
Kingston Frontenacs fans have always appreciated irony (just Google "coping mechanism"), so they'll like this: a team whose arena bears the name of a hometown radio station might not have a hometown radio broadcaster this season.International man of mystery Tyler King posted on Fronts Talk he has "had three reliable people" inform him Corus Entertainment did not renew its radio rights to the Frontenacs. This would potentially cut off fans, since some road games are not telecast and not everyone who wants to tune in subscribes to TVCogeco (you can stream OHL games on the league's website, but it'll cost you). This is an opportunity, not another chance to bash.
The hierachy of needs here are 1) offering some ideas if indeed this is the case and 2) concern for the team's long-time radio voice, Jim Gilchrist, who deserves much better than being shunted aside with no one trying to find a solution.
It is hard to see the Frontenacs finding a taker among the six commercial FM stations in Kingston, not simply because Springer and GM Larry Mavety (get well soon, Mav) have alienated so much of the team's potential audience over the past decade.
In the larger picture, big media is all about "the next cost-cutting move in journalism" (Sports Biz With Darren Rovell, July 23). It's part the economy, part greed, too. In the NHL, at least three teams are simply simulcasting the TV audio this season, as Puck Daddy noted earlier this week. CTVGlobeMedia, as the CFL rights holder in Canada, does something similar on The Team 1200 in Ottawa. If you turn on the radio right now, there is the TSN commentary from Rod Black and Duane Forde, a few seconds behind the TV.
Close to home, Kingston's radio fare is a pretty good reflection of the ridiculous level of media concentration in Canada. Corus, Rogers Media and CTVGlobeMedia each own two FM stations. It is hard to the other two stepping in, especially if there is little promise of big ratings. Puck Daddy put hockey radio broadcasts into perspective.
"It doesn't have the romanticism of baseball radio. It doesn't have the necessity of football radio, a fact to which any fanatic husband or wife asked to run an errand on an autumn Sunday can attest.The two Rogers-owned stations (K-Rock 105.7 and KIX 93.5) are likely a non-starter, since the latter station already carries the Ottawa Senators, which would create conflicts.
"But hockey radio is vital to fans who can't catch the game on television (especially if they're in a market with untelevised games) or in the arena. It's also vital as an ancillary, or at times alternative, source of commentary and news for a given team. If the homers in the TV booth are insufferable, turn down the volume and pop on the headphones, right?"
CTVGlobeMedia owns an adult contempary station (FLY-FM, 98.3) and a modern rock station (98.9 The Drive). One can't see hockey being a good mesh with those formats, plus as we saw throughout this spring, that company's you know their definition of "local" seems to infer that everyone lives up the street from a television studio in California.
There is 88.7 FM in Napanee. It's a 6,000-watt station, though. Can you even get it from downtown Kingston?
Translation: The Fronts could be SOL. It is not entirely their fault, although if the team had gone 40-18-10 instead 18-40-10 last season, do you think this would be happening? It is more the nature of the radio beast. A major junior team whose market includes an all-sports station or an AM station which is still going strong (such as CFRA in Ottawa or AM980 in London, where Norman James' two-hour sports show debuted on Friday.
- Work with TVCogeco by streaming its commentary and make it available in the K-Rock Centre. You know how at a drive-in theatre, you tune your car radio to get the audio? They could do that for the fans who bring portable radios to home games.
- Partner with K-Rock 105.7 to stream games online. For home games, doing a 15-minute long pre- and/or post-game show over the air is also an option, since it adds something of value for people as they arrive at the arena or wait for their cars to warm up after leaving.
The bonus is there are people in place if the team makes a playoff run and there is enough widespread interest to justify putting the games on a FM station. - Put the games on CFRC 101.9 FM the year after Kinger graduates from Queen's, just to mess with him. That is not a serious suggestion.
Not having a broadcast alternative to people who don't get TVCogeco further weakens the Kingston Frontenacs brand, which has been weakened considerably in recent years by the team's lack of success and anger at Springer for refusing to make fundamental changes in the organization. The point in writing this is to offer some reasonable ideas such as working with existing partners to better serve the fans. Another hope larger media will realize it is a story if Jim Gilchrist, who has commentated Kingston games for 22 seasons, is sidelined.
It was newsworthy in the past when CFRC, which has a very small but fiercely loyal audience, had its future hanging in the balance. This is newsworthy, too, even if the Frontenacs in characteristic fashion don't want people to know their business.
(To be clear, that is just stating a preference as a reader, making it known. The media is stretched thin these days, which makes it harder to do stories outside of game coverage and features, because there is an opportunity cost, but people want to read 'em.)
Anyway, to the Frontenacs, don't be closed off to the notion of an Internet-only broadcast if doesn't work out with a commercial station (and one hopes it does). It might be swinging with the times and it build ties to the community. It's publicity. You fellas have not been drawing them in the way you have in the past.
It's time to get creative, and no, that doesn't include making the players model in fashion shows. (Language not safe for work, nor endorsed by this site.)
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
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.
People should not be satisfied by second-best, or seeing first-round talent slide to the second. K-town deserves better, honest.
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.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Fronts: Tired and true — Mavety between a K-Rock and a Harnden place
If one did not know better, you'd swear everyone was in cahoots to make sure the Kingston Frontenacs do not three-peat as playoff watchers.
The trade today for 20-year-old forward Zach Harnden along with Monday's move for fellow overage forward Kaine Geldart makes it pretty obvious how the season will set up for the Frontenacs. Getting Geldart and Harnden, two forwards with only a year left in the league, is right off page 125 of Larry Mavety's Big Book of Bad Hockey.
The subtext is that OHL would really like to see a turnaround in Kingston. It will be embarrassing for owner Doug "Whatever It Takes" Springer if the Frontenacs do not improve in Year 13 of Mav's five-year plan. The novelty of Doug Gilmour coaching in the OHL will soon wear off. The issue of a sweetheart arena deal for a subpar team could become hot-button during the municipal election in 2010, so it would help if they get in the playoffs.
The hope is they will. I am nothing if not a diehard fan. However, please try to see what goes along with Mavety falling back on what he knows, a reflex often peculiar to none-too-bright people. Mavety trades for "players we know," as The Royal Mavesty his ownself put it to the Kingston Whig-Standard. That means you get anyone whom another team believed had promise at age 16, since it's well-known how Mavety ranks as a talent evaluator (not very good) and how much he can impart to Gilmour (not very much). True to form, Mavety, who leads the world in trading for former first-rounders (and trading his own) is adding a player who as Loose Pucks noted, "was was Peterborough's first-round pick in the 2005 OHL Priority Selection. But his OHL numbers have topped out at 40 points during the 2007-08 season."
This is not aimed at Harnden and Geldart. They just work there, presumably (the Loose Pucks post, by the way, noted only that Harnden "could be back in the OHL for an overage year." Each could help the Frontenacs get back to the playoffs, probably more so the gritty Geldart. That is always, repeat always the hope.
However, you can see where this is headed, since it was predicted here 30 days ago:
One can reconcile the Frontenacs being unwilling to utilize the CHL Import Draft. It is understandable that Springer does not want to spend and Mavety will not go outside of his "players we know" comfort zone. (One would point out that no OHL team has turned up its nose at drafting high-end Europeans since Don Cherry's Mississauga IceDogs when it won like 16 games across three seasons about a decade ago, but it's not a requirement for OHL success.) The organization also has other fish to fry, like trying to shut up any local media who dare to cast a critical eye toward the team instead of towing the party line.
Anyway, there is a feeling people want to get behind the Frontenacs in Gilmour's first full season behind the bench. The point in writing this is in hope people do not get the wool pulled over their eyes during the season ahead. Setting a goal of simply making the playoffs is the absolute nadir of low-bar setting. Knowing that hockey tends to be a chummy old boys club, it would not come as a shock if a few teams were open to helping Mavety patch together a playoff team, quote-unquote. They owe him after him taking advantage of him so many teams over the years by fleecing him (get it?) in trades. (By the way, who gets the other overage spot now that two of the three are presumably accounted for by the new guys? Defencemen Corbin Crawford and/or Zack Fenwick must not be coming back.
It is certainly in OHL commissioner's David Branch's interest to have Gilmour be a success in Kingston instead of being part of a long-running gong show. Meantime, Kingston's city council and Mayor Harvey Rosen, probably needs the team to start showing real progress to keep the sweetheart arena deal with Springer from becoming an election issue.
In other words, there is a lot more to this than the Frontenacs picking up a little veteran experience. Welcome aboard, Zack Harnden. It has been 616 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
(Here are Harnden's stats juxtaposed against Luke Pither, the first-rounder from that same 2005 draft whom Mavety gave up on way too soon. It is apples to pears, but Pither had twice as many points last season as the great player Mavety just acquired, 72-34. A Petes fan on the New OHL Open Forum described him as a, "Slow, under-achieving guy with average hands. Thanks for the 3rd!)
The trade today for 20-year-old forward Zach Harnden along with Monday's move for fellow overage forward Kaine Geldart makes it pretty obvious how the season will set up for the Frontenacs. Getting Geldart and Harnden, two forwards with only a year left in the league, is right off page 125 of Larry Mavety's Big Book of Bad Hockey.
The subtext is that OHL would really like to see a turnaround in Kingston. It will be embarrassing for owner Doug "Whatever It Takes" Springer if the Frontenacs do not improve in Year 13 of Mav's five-year plan. The novelty of Doug Gilmour coaching in the OHL will soon wear off. The issue of a sweetheart arena deal for a subpar team could become hot-button during the municipal election in 2010, so it would help if they get in the playoffs.
The hope is they will. I am nothing if not a diehard fan. However, please try to see what goes along with Mavety falling back on what he knows, a reflex often peculiar to none-too-bright people. Mavety trades for "players we know," as The Royal Mavesty his ownself put it to the Kingston Whig-Standard. That means you get anyone whom another team believed had promise at age 16, since it's well-known how Mavety ranks as a talent evaluator (not very good) and how much he can impart to Gilmour (not very much). True to form, Mavety, who leads the world in trading for former first-rounders (and trading his own) is adding a player who as Loose Pucks noted, "was was Peterborough's first-round pick in the 2005 OHL Priority Selection. But his OHL numbers have topped out at 40 points during the 2007-08 season."
This is not aimed at Harnden and Geldart. They just work there, presumably (the Loose Pucks post, by the way, noted only that Harnden "could be back in the OHL for an overage year." Each could help the Frontenacs get back to the playoffs, probably more so the gritty Geldart. That is always, repeat always the hope.
However, you can see where this is headed, since it was predicted here 30 days ago:
"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." — May 30, 2009And as stated even earlier, this goes back to ...
"... a previous point that the Frontenacs are, in Andrew 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."Nothing against the two players the Frontenacs have added, but people have seen this movie before from Mavety and it's about as fresh as a Michael Bay summer blockbuster. There is no rebuilding, just the same ol' same ol': Trade for veterans, trade for forwards, ignore that you win by drafting smart and building out from the back end, goalies and defence (it did not take that much smarts to draft Erik Gudbranson).
One can reconcile the Frontenacs being unwilling to utilize the CHL Import Draft. It is understandable that Springer does not want to spend and Mavety will not go outside of his "players we know" comfort zone. (One would point out that no OHL team has turned up its nose at drafting high-end Europeans since Don Cherry's Mississauga IceDogs when it won like 16 games across three seasons about a decade ago, but it's not a requirement for OHL success.) The organization also has other fish to fry, like trying to shut up any local media who dare to cast a critical eye toward the team instead of towing the party line.
Anyway, there is a feeling people want to get behind the Frontenacs in Gilmour's first full season behind the bench. The point in writing this is in hope people do not get the wool pulled over their eyes during the season ahead. Setting a goal of simply making the playoffs is the absolute nadir of low-bar setting. Knowing that hockey tends to be a chummy old boys club, it would not come as a shock if a few teams were open to helping Mavety patch together a playoff team, quote-unquote. They owe him after him taking advantage of him so many teams over the years by fleecing him (get it?) in trades. (By the way, who gets the other overage spot now that two of the three are presumably accounted for by the new guys? Defencemen Corbin Crawford and/or Zack Fenwick must not be coming back.
It is certainly in OHL commissioner's David Branch's interest to have Gilmour be a success in Kingston instead of being part of a long-running gong show. Meantime, Kingston's city council and Mayor Harvey Rosen, probably needs the team to start showing real progress to keep the sweetheart arena deal with Springer from becoming an election issue.
In other words, there is a lot more to this than the Frontenacs picking up a little veteran experience. Welcome aboard, Zack Harnden. It has been 616 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
(Here are Harnden's stats juxtaposed against Luke Pither, the first-rounder from that same 2005 draft whom Mavety gave up on way too soon. It is apples to pears, but Pither had twice as many points last season as the great player Mavety just acquired, 72-34. A Petes fan on the New OHL Open Forum described him as a, "Slow, under-achieving guy with average hands. Thanks for the 3rd!)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Fronts: Who can it be walking out that door?
To quote a song lyric which was popular back when Larry Mavety was regarded as an up-and-coming manager of men, Who can it be now?
It has been all quiet on the trade front for the human comedy which is the Kingston Frontenacs, which has led to some message board buzz that a few players pulling a Heatley:
The only potential overagers who remained at the end of the season were defencemen Corbin Crawford and Zack Fenwick and forward George Lovatsis. Forward Bobby Mignardi, who would be a 19-year-old next season, might also be on the move, though that's just a wild guess based on his play, which was occasionally here-today, gone-tomorrow.
Fenwick is an interesting case since he had a call-up to the ECHL last season and originally went the NCAA route, playing a half-semester at Mercyhurst before joining Kingston midway through 2007. Corbin Crawford has been in the OHL four seasons, so he would have scholarship money waiting for him. Lovatsis has played two full seasons and part of a third.
Meantime, it is as if what this site has said about Kingston, lo, the past two-plus seasons is gaining traction. Back to the anonymous truth-sayer from:
Meantime, the song remains the same for Frontenacs owner Doug Springer's promises..
It has been all quiet on the trade front for the human comedy which is the Kingston Frontenacs, which has led to some message board buzz that a few players pulling a Heatley:
"There are at least 3 players on this current squad that have demanded/requested trades and have put a deadline in place for Mavety to move them. Two of these players already have CIS offers to play at the university level starting with the upcoming season and are willing to take their education money they are entitled to and move on. One other is more than willing to sit out the season if he is not traded. These are not random statements by a rambling fool, they are truths and realities of what some on this team want."Picture Kinger and yours truly circling faces in the team photo to narrow down the culprits, like the two reporters in Eight Men Out. Cue the rambling fool, since the Frontenacs are one occasion when this forum does not mind trading in the potentially specious. Which players from the Frontenacs would wish jump to Canadian university hockey while they still have junior eligibility remaining?
The only potential overagers who remained at the end of the season were defencemen Corbin Crawford and Zack Fenwick and forward George Lovatsis. Forward Bobby Mignardi, who would be a 19-year-old next season, might also be on the move, though that's just a wild guess based on his play, which was occasionally here-today, gone-tomorrow.Fenwick is an interesting case since he had a call-up to the ECHL last season and originally went the NCAA route, playing a half-semester at Mercyhurst before joining Kingston midway through 2007. Corbin Crawford has been in the OHL four seasons, so he would have scholarship money waiting for him. Lovatsis has played two full seasons and part of a third.
Meantime, it is as if what this site has said about Kingston, lo, the past two-plus seasons is gaining traction. Back to the anonymous truth-sayer from:
"With this current management of the Frontenacs organization, unless the player is a superstar or a golden child type player, they will not grab that brass ring as it is further away than they think. This team, under Larry Mavety, does not have the development system in place to help many of these players get to the pro level by way of high draft selection or heavy central scouting. Sure there is Ethan Werek and Erik Gudbranson on this squad, but they are the exception as the natural talent comes shining through. Other players that could have had opportunities with other teams to develop get stuck in the Mavety rut and their careers have stalled.Far be it to wonder why anyone would want to abandon ship. The belief aboard the HMCS Royal Mavesty has always been been that just because the water has risen from ankle-deep to knee-deep to waist-deep, that doesn't mean you should check if there's a leak. Let it sort itself out.
Meantime, the song remains the same for Frontenacs owner Doug Springer's promises..
It's not the future that I can seeIt has been 597 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
It's just my fantasy
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
OHL playoffs: Hunting for the reason London lost...
A butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tidal wave on the other side of the world.
In the spirit of that, it's fun to think that the London Knights losing four overtime games in the OHL semi-final series vs. the Windsor Spitfires all traces back to a crazy carom in Kingston at the end of January. There are better explanations for why the Windsor Spitfires, led by Kingston native Taylor Hall, won a series where every game went to overtime, including one in the hometown press from Spits d-man Ben Shutron, an ex-Frontenac: "I don't think it's just bounces. The puck doesn't lie out there. You have to work for your bounces."
The puck doesn't lie. That's brilliant. The focus probably should be on the turnaround in Windsor, which is off the OHL final just a few years after, wait for it, a change in management and ownership. It bears pointing out to people in Kingston who believe you can rebuild even though the house has slid off its foundation, causing the GM-for-life to fall off his rocking chair.
That can wait. Perhaps the cosmos decided the Knights did not need karma, since they had John Tavares and team honchos Dale and Mark Hunter have managed to break the spirit if not the letter of the law when it comes to the OHL draft.
Perhaps the annual airlift at the trade deadline worked against the Knights developing the team chemistry which is critical in playoff hockey. Getting Tavares might have been Pyrrhic, since it meant there were too many egos for the Hunters to stroke in that dressing room. The most talented team is the one which has a talent for taking the game by the throat, even when logic might say they shouldn't.
That said, it's easy, and fun, to believe that some great organizing principle might have decided the Knights deserved to have something bad befall them, and it all really started Jan. 30 in Kingston. For one night, the Frontenacs were not so godforsaken, beating the mighty Knights 3-2. Ethan Werek scored the game-winning goal with 4.5 seconds left in the game when a dump-in by Taylor Doherty struck a glass stanchion in the corner and went straight out in front of the net, gifting Werek with a chance to one-timed the puck behind Knights goalie Trevor Cann (around the 5:00 mark of the clip).
TVCogeco's fine commentator, Tim Cunningham noted, "You'll never see a place with stranger bounces than the K-Rock Centre." That might well be true, although the Ottawa Civic Centre, with its square corners peculiar to Eastern Canada arena construction, have yielded an odd carom of two in its day.
What no one could have known then was that bounce was a gift from the hockey gods. They know wel Kingston fans have, mixaphorically speaking, wandered the desert for quite some time. This was Kingston's 36th season in the OHL, so only four more to catch Moses and his followers.
Knights coach Dale Hunter, who in his playing days was known to occasionally be a sore loser, could not have appreciated that some higher power decided, for one night, to give a damn about Frontenacs fans, who have seemed completely forsook over the past couple years with owner Doug Springer and GM-for-life Larry Mavety. Forgive him, he knows not what he does.
All he saw was that his stacked team lost to the Kingston effing Frontenacs, and when they had a rematch four weeks later in London, he ran up the score at the end of the game. Tavares was going for the OHL career goal scoring record, so Hunter had him out on the power play with two minutes left in a blowout, goal-sucking like no one has goal-sucked before. Of all the games to pick to do the first liveblog ever of a Kingston Frontenacs game!
It seemed like only your agent, along with Kinger and maybe Mister DB from Fronts Talk, noticed.
However, the boys in the Ironic Punishment division went to work. Trevor Cann, God love him, who was a great bad-team goalie in Peterborough, never became the rock between the pipes London had envisioned. Hunter actually had to pull Daryl Borden, a former Frontenac, up from Junior B for Game 4 of the series, which almost worked. Tavares also became snakebitten, unable to score goals except on the power play. Only four of his 10 playoff goals came at even strength, which isn't very No. 1 overall pick-like (see Islanders Point Blank for discussion of same). Taylor Hall, who's supposed to go No. 1 in 2010, has scored eight of his 12 playoff goals at even strength. Hall's goal last night that got Windsor started on the road back from an early 2-0 deficit was on the PP, but please don't spoil the analogy.
Cann, by most accounts, stood on his head to keep London in the series on Wednesday with 49 saves, but there was no changing this "script," to borrow the London Free Press' wording.
It is an unlikely story Windsor is writing. Not only did every game go into overtime, but none lasted as long as 11 minutes, and there is the obvious point that great feats are possible for a team and a town once it is rid of lousy ownership and management. One should obviously be happy for everyone connected to the Spitfires, since these are tough times in Windsor. That would be the gracious move, but having a love-hate relationship with sports and having grace class are not one and the same, so why pretend?
There's some background that needed providing. There are more obvious explanations for why London lost and Windsor won, but it says here the Knights were doomed from March 1, when Dale Hunter rubbed it in the noses of Kingston Frontenacs fanbase, who are the hockey gods' chosen people, full as they are with suffering and true believers.
It's just a theory. You know the old saying how theories are like a cuss word that often comes up in conjunction the Hunter brothers. It ends, Everyone's got one.
Related:
Overtime kills Knights (Ryan Pyette, London Free Press)
In the spirit of that, it's fun to think that the London Knights losing four overtime games in the OHL semi-final series vs. the Windsor Spitfires all traces back to a crazy carom in Kingston at the end of January. There are better explanations for why the Windsor Spitfires, led by Kingston native Taylor Hall, won a series where every game went to overtime, including one in the hometown press from Spits d-man Ben Shutron, an ex-Frontenac: "I don't think it's just bounces. The puck doesn't lie out there. You have to work for your bounces."
The puck doesn't lie. That's brilliant. The focus probably should be on the turnaround in Windsor, which is off the OHL final just a few years after, wait for it, a change in management and ownership. It bears pointing out to people in Kingston who believe you can rebuild even though the house has slid off its foundation, causing the GM-for-life to fall off his rocking chair.
That can wait. Perhaps the cosmos decided the Knights did not need karma, since they had John Tavares and team honchos Dale and Mark Hunter have managed to break the spirit if not the letter of the law when it comes to the OHL draft.
Perhaps the annual airlift at the trade deadline worked against the Knights developing the team chemistry which is critical in playoff hockey. Getting Tavares might have been Pyrrhic, since it meant there were too many egos for the Hunters to stroke in that dressing room. The most talented team is the one which has a talent for taking the game by the throat, even when logic might say they shouldn't.
That said, it's easy, and fun, to believe that some great organizing principle might have decided the Knights deserved to have something bad befall them, and it all really started Jan. 30 in Kingston. For one night, the Frontenacs were not so godforsaken, beating the mighty Knights 3-2. Ethan Werek scored the game-winning goal with 4.5 seconds left in the game when a dump-in by Taylor Doherty struck a glass stanchion in the corner and went straight out in front of the net, gifting Werek with a chance to one-timed the puck behind Knights goalie Trevor Cann (around the 5:00 mark of the clip).
TVCogeco's fine commentator, Tim Cunningham noted, "You'll never see a place with stranger bounces than the K-Rock Centre." That might well be true, although the Ottawa Civic Centre, with its square corners peculiar to Eastern Canada arena construction, have yielded an odd carom of two in its day.
What no one could have known then was that bounce was a gift from the hockey gods. They know wel Kingston fans have, mixaphorically speaking, wandered the desert for quite some time. This was Kingston's 36th season in the OHL, so only four more to catch Moses and his followers.
Knights coach Dale Hunter, who in his playing days was known to occasionally be a sore loser, could not have appreciated that some higher power decided, for one night, to give a damn about Frontenacs fans, who have seemed completely forsook over the past couple years with owner Doug Springer and GM-for-life Larry Mavety. Forgive him, he knows not what he does.
All he saw was that his stacked team lost to the Kingston effing Frontenacs, and when they had a rematch four weeks later in London, he ran up the score at the end of the game. Tavares was going for the OHL career goal scoring record, so Hunter had him out on the power play with two minutes left in a blowout, goal-sucking like no one has goal-sucked before. Of all the games to pick to do the first liveblog ever of a Kingston Frontenacs game!
It seemed like only your agent, along with Kinger and maybe Mister DB from Fronts Talk, noticed.
However, the boys in the Ironic Punishment division went to work. Trevor Cann, God love him, who was a great bad-team goalie in Peterborough, never became the rock between the pipes London had envisioned. Hunter actually had to pull Daryl Borden, a former Frontenac, up from Junior B for Game 4 of the series, which almost worked. Tavares also became snakebitten, unable to score goals except on the power play. Only four of his 10 playoff goals came at even strength, which isn't very No. 1 overall pick-like (see Islanders Point Blank for discussion of same). Taylor Hall, who's supposed to go No. 1 in 2010, has scored eight of his 12 playoff goals at even strength. Hall's goal last night that got Windsor started on the road back from an early 2-0 deficit was on the PP, but please don't spoil the analogy.
Cann, by most accounts, stood on his head to keep London in the series on Wednesday with 49 saves, but there was no changing this "script," to borrow the London Free Press' wording.
It is an unlikely story Windsor is writing. Not only did every game go into overtime, but none lasted as long as 11 minutes, and there is the obvious point that great feats are possible for a team and a town once it is rid of lousy ownership and management. One should obviously be happy for everyone connected to the Spitfires, since these are tough times in Windsor. That would be the gracious move, but having a love-hate relationship with sports and having grace class are not one and the same, so why pretend?
There's some background that needed providing. There are more obvious explanations for why London lost and Windsor won, but it says here the Knights were doomed from March 1, when Dale Hunter rubbed it in the noses of Kingston Frontenacs fanbase, who are the hockey gods' chosen people, full as they are with suffering and true believers.
It's just a theory. You know the old saying how theories are like a cuss word that often comes up in conjunction the Hunter brothers. It ends, Everyone's got one.
Related:
Overtime kills Knights (Ryan Pyette, London Free Press)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Capturing the spirit of the thing...
The urban legend going around Kingston is that Frontenacs owner Doug Springer was heard saying the other day, "The Voyageurs must have had a really terrible season. Is that why the league is punishing by making them play all these extra games?"
Forgive Springer for that one; a Kingston junior hockey team being one win away from the league championship series is just such an alien concept to him. (The Ontario Junior Hockey League's Voyageurs are up 3-1 in the league semi-final with Huntsville.)
Relax, that is just a way to introduce the video tribute that MisterDB of Fronts Talk put together for Kinger.
It is beyond the pale to divine the intent of headline writers, but there are two ways to take the headline in the Kingston Whig-Standard's advancer, "Owner ensures Vees can have shot at glory." One is that it's simply capturing the spirit of the thing; for this site's purposes, it can be read as a thinly veiled shot at the owner of the city's other junior hockey team, the one which is No. 2 in its market.
Let it be said Doug Springer also ensures the Frontenacs can have a shot at glory. There's some glory in being in the running for the No. 1 or No. 2 overall draft choice, right?
Forgive Springer for that one; a Kingston junior hockey team being one win away from the league championship series is just such an alien concept to him. (The Ontario Junior Hockey League's Voyageurs are up 3-1 in the league semi-final with Huntsville.)
Relax, that is just a way to introduce the video tribute that MisterDB of Fronts Talk put together for Kinger.
It is beyond the pale to divine the intent of headline writers, but there are two ways to take the headline in the Kingston Whig-Standard's advancer, "Owner ensures Vees can have shot at glory." One is that it's simply capturing the spirit of the thing; for this site's purposes, it can be read as a thinly veiled shot at the owner of the city's other junior hockey team, the one which is No. 2 in its market.
Let it be said Doug Springer also ensures the Frontenacs can have a shot at glory. There's some glory in being in the running for the No. 1 or No. 2 overall draft choice, right?
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Fronts: Mav-ematical Elimination Day comes earlier every season
You can't skate away from yourself ... so often it is the case with the whole durned human comedy which is the Kingston Frontenacs.
Being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, thanks to a 7-2 loss to the John Tavares-led London Knights, was a perfect capper to this hockey weekend. Friday, Kinger reported on CFRC 101.9 that "de facto general manager for life" Larry Mavety is returning next season, citing "multiple sources close to the team." Forty-eight hours later, Justin Taylor, who was once drafted by Kingston but refused to report, tallying five points in the blowout (yes, Kingston was within a goal in the third period, but let's not kid ourselves). Taylor's hat-trick goal came when he snapped the puck in after a between-the-legs pass from Tavares. Taylor even wears the No. 93 once popularized by Kingston coach Doug Gilmour, so someone has a sense of humour.
All in all, as hard as the Kingston kids have competed, today encapsulated the bleakness of the whole situation with Frontenacs owner Doug Springer, who along with Mavety, was never mentioned once on the Rogers Sportsnet telecast in between all the, "JohnTavaresJohnTavaresJohnTavares ... DougGilmourDougGilmourDougGilmour." Springer, as far as anyone knows since Gods do not answer letters or interview requests, remains blinkered to Mavety's unsurpassed incompetence. No amount of gilding the Gilly from the cheerleaders in the press box about the improvement the team has shown under Dougie! or how the players are giving it their all can alter that reality.
Anything said about a particular game must be tempered by the knowledge it was Kingston's third game of the weekend and they were tired.
There is just no getting past knowing a national TV audience saw the whole gamut of what has been the norm in Kingston for the past decade. Running around in their defensive zone (like on the second goal, when the Knights' John Carlson was able to snap one in between the hash marks)? Check. A soft team getting pushed around physically? Check. Undisciplined penalties? Check. A game that was closer than it should have been thanks to good goaltending and an opponent who was fully aware it does not have to play its best to beat the Frontenacs? Check. Out-of-town announcers talking about what a great coach Doug Gilmour is? Check.
The best piece of news, via MisterDB of a Fronts Talk, was that Kingston will go drop its white Count Frontenac jersey next season and wear the much more popular Circle K next season. When the biggest positive of the day involves jerseys, you know it's bad.
The Frontenacs are three points ahead of Sault Ste. Marie in the Daniel Catenacci Derby. They have two games in hand over the Greyhounds, meaning there's a chance they can play their way out of the No. 1 overall choice. Would that not beat all.
Yes, it was only 3-2 in the third period, but that just says there's no staying power. Knights coach Dale Hunter also poured it on a bit, including putting Tavares out on the power play with less than two minutes left in a long-decided game. As a final insult, Tavares high-sticked Mavric Parks in the mask when the Kingston goalie (whose favourite Tragically Hip song should be So Hard Done By) took offence at the goal-grubbing after the final buzzer. It was too late by then, just like it was too late by the time Gilmour took the coaching reins in November after Springer futzed around for a year while Mavety was the permanent interim coach.
It's been said before and it will be said again, if Larry Mavety survives in Kingston, junior hockey won't. C'est la vie.
Thanks to Kinger, Mister DB and Andrew Bucholtz for taking part in the liveblog. Oh, once again, it has been 495 days since Doug Springer said he would do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
Being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, thanks to a 7-2 loss to the John Tavares-led London Knights, was a perfect capper to this hockey weekend. Friday, Kinger reported on CFRC 101.9 that "de facto general manager for life" Larry Mavety is returning next season, citing "multiple sources close to the team." Forty-eight hours later, Justin Taylor, who was once drafted by Kingston but refused to report, tallying five points in the blowout (yes, Kingston was within a goal in the third period, but let's not kid ourselves). Taylor's hat-trick goal came when he snapped the puck in after a between-the-legs pass from Tavares. Taylor even wears the No. 93 once popularized by Kingston coach Doug Gilmour, so someone has a sense of humour.
All in all, as hard as the Kingston kids have competed, today encapsulated the bleakness of the whole situation with Frontenacs owner Doug Springer, who along with Mavety, was never mentioned once on the Rogers Sportsnet telecast in between all the, "JohnTavaresJohnTavaresJohnTavares ... DougGilmourDougGilmourDougGilmour." Springer, as far as anyone knows since Gods do not answer letters or interview requests, remains blinkered to Mavety's unsurpassed incompetence. No amount of gilding the Gilly from the cheerleaders in the press box about the improvement the team has shown under Dougie! or how the players are giving it their all can alter that reality.
Anything said about a particular game must be tempered by the knowledge it was Kingston's third game of the weekend and they were tired.
There is just no getting past knowing a national TV audience saw the whole gamut of what has been the norm in Kingston for the past decade. Running around in their defensive zone (like on the second goal, when the Knights' John Carlson was able to snap one in between the hash marks)? Check. A soft team getting pushed around physically? Check. Undisciplined penalties? Check. A game that was closer than it should have been thanks to good goaltending and an opponent who was fully aware it does not have to play its best to beat the Frontenacs? Check. Out-of-town announcers talking about what a great coach Doug Gilmour is? Check.
The best piece of news, via MisterDB of a Fronts Talk, was that Kingston will go drop its white Count Frontenac jersey next season and wear the much more popular Circle K next season. When the biggest positive of the day involves jerseys, you know it's bad.
The Frontenacs are three points ahead of Sault Ste. Marie in the Daniel Catenacci Derby. They have two games in hand over the Greyhounds, meaning there's a chance they can play their way out of the No. 1 overall choice. Would that not beat all.
Yes, it was only 3-2 in the third period, but that just says there's no staying power. Knights coach Dale Hunter also poured it on a bit, including putting Tavares out on the power play with less than two minutes left in a long-decided game. As a final insult, Tavares high-sticked Mavric Parks in the mask when the Kingston goalie (whose favourite Tragically Hip song should be So Hard Done By) took offence at the goal-grubbing after the final buzzer. It was too late by then, just like it was too late by the time Gilmour took the coaching reins in November after Springer futzed around for a year while Mavety was the permanent interim coach.
It's been said before and it will be said again, if Larry Mavety survives in Kingston, junior hockey won't. C'est la vie.
Thanks to Kinger, Mister DB and Andrew Bucholtz for taking part in the liveblog. Oh, once again, it has been 495 days since Doug Springer said he would do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Fronts: Bad craziness; fear and loathing in the Limestone City
You would never read this in any Canadian paper, but then again, it is one that once employed Hunter S. Thompson:
As an added benefit, it's true and timely. The Springer Frontenacs are reprising the great window-dress of 2008, where they put together a few wins in low-loverage situations, demur from saying that general mangler (not a typo) Larry Mavety is might be getting a new contract, add water and stir.
It's not a commentary on anyone's professionalism, since everyone does that, but you would never read anything that frank in most smaller Canadian dailies in 10,000 years. It's probably the same Stateside, too, but typically there is a bit of self-censorship when you deal with athletes 20 and under, especially in a smaller community. Anything that you think is bulletin-board worthy is usually left out, sparing them and you the grief of a phone call from a coach, teacher or a member of the team executive the following day. Yes, you're trying to get some good clips that will help you move up to a bigger paper, but you have to live in the town, too.
It is not dishonest, just sensible. There's the whole aspect of having to go along to get along, plus the young person might realize you saved them some embarrassment and might be more open in future interviews. It doesn't take a journalism prof at Ryerson and/or Western to figure it out, although a journalism prof at Ryerson and/or Western wouldn't figure it out, which is why they ended up teaching journalism at Ryerson and/or Western. But I digress.
Frontenacs diehards will doubtless be pleased to hear that Peter Stevens, friend, fighter, humanitarian, healer is getting a shot to go to the next level. (Look at this: He pulled a punch because his helmet had come off, meaning the other guy wouldn't be able to hit him back. What a guy.)
Modestly talented players such as Stevens, as Duane touched on earlier this week, are the essence of junior hockey. They're good enough to dream, take nothing for granted and you're going to have to pry that stick out of their cold, dead hands. It's a 180 from the emerging class of NHLers who give off a sense of entitlement, since everyone has been telling them they were great since they made the Triple-A rep team at the age of nine (looking at you, Jason Spezza: When was the last time you skated on an outdoor rink without the team's PR department on hand to capture it for posterity?).
Players such as Stevens remind us of the old days when hockey was the only way out of the mines or off the farm. As an American who started late, he had bust ass to get into the OHL.
Meantime, a reporter whose beat includes portions of New Jersey, New York state and Pennsylvania ended up articulating what pretty much everyone has in Kingston for a good many years. The Frontenacs are anti-development so long as Mavety remains employed and owner Doug Springer avers that his GM-for-life is an "astute hockey man."
It is looking up with Doug Gilmour as coach, but there is no tabulating how much has squandered since 1999, mostly since Springer seems to like confrontation or admitting mistakes even less than he likes answering non-softball questions. That makes him no different from 94% of the North American male population. Thing is, precious few of them can afford to buy a major junior hockey team, have their buddy Harv (Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen) build them a $43-million arena and than raid city reserves when few can bear to pay $15-20 to watch a struggling team in an arena that has atmosphere. It also won't change so long as Mavety, who has fewer and fewer "connections" who are still active in hockey, is steering the ship.
Mark Potter told a "classic Mav" story on CFRC 101.9 with Kinger last week. About 10 years ago, the Frontenacs drafted a player who was considering going to the NCAA. He "got a letter" from the Fronts informing him camp started Aug. 30. The team never contacted him otherwise. He reported to camp and after two days, when he had to decide whether to stay on or leave and retain his NCAA eligibility, he went by the GM's office to say, "Mav, I'm leaving." Mavety looked up, "Who are you?"
The chance that the Times-Herald Record writer read Save The Fronts before writing an article on Stevens are pretty remote, so it's amusing he could just absolutely nail how nothing changes in Kingston with the Frontenacs. Players such as Peter Stevens come and go, we cheer their successes, but at the end of the day, the astute hockey man is there, always.
It has been 491 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
Related:
Chester native to play for Islanders' affiliate in Utah (Justin Rodriguez, Middletown Times-Herald Record)
"Stevens' dream is to someday play in the NHL. He doubts he would have received an opportunity to play for Utah if he hadn't been traded from the OHL's Kingston Frontenacs to Barrie, located three hours north of Toronto, last December. According to Stevens, Barrie does a better job promoting players and has more 'connections.' "The august Middletown Times-Herald Record did not actually quote much-loved former Kingston Frontenacs tough guy Peter Stevens saying he received an ECHL tryout with the New York Islanders organization in parts thanks to getting his freedom from the fun-in-dysfunctional Fronts. It's just that it's a sentence construction you would never, ever see in the Canadian media, thanks to junior hockey's culture of omertà .
As an added benefit, it's true and timely. The Springer Frontenacs are reprising the great window-dress of 2008, where they put together a few wins in low-loverage situations, demur from saying that general mangler (not a typo) Larry Mavety is might be getting a new contract, add water and stir.
It's not a commentary on anyone's professionalism, since everyone does that, but you would never read anything that frank in most smaller Canadian dailies in 10,000 years. It's probably the same Stateside, too, but typically there is a bit of self-censorship when you deal with athletes 20 and under, especially in a smaller community. Anything that you think is bulletin-board worthy is usually left out, sparing them and you the grief of a phone call from a coach, teacher or a member of the team executive the following day. Yes, you're trying to get some good clips that will help you move up to a bigger paper, but you have to live in the town, too.
It is not dishonest, just sensible. There's the whole aspect of having to go along to get along, plus the young person might realize you saved them some embarrassment and might be more open in future interviews. It doesn't take a journalism prof at Ryerson and/or Western to figure it out, although a journalism prof at Ryerson and/or Western wouldn't figure it out, which is why they ended up teaching journalism at Ryerson and/or Western. But I digress.
Frontenacs diehards will doubtless be pleased to hear that Peter Stevens, friend, fighter, humanitarian, healer is getting a shot to go to the next level. (Look at this: He pulled a punch because his helmet had come off, meaning the other guy wouldn't be able to hit him back. What a guy.)
Modestly talented players such as Stevens, as Duane touched on earlier this week, are the essence of junior hockey. They're good enough to dream, take nothing for granted and you're going to have to pry that stick out of their cold, dead hands. It's a 180 from the emerging class of NHLers who give off a sense of entitlement, since everyone has been telling them they were great since they made the Triple-A rep team at the age of nine (looking at you, Jason Spezza: When was the last time you skated on an outdoor rink without the team's PR department on hand to capture it for posterity?).
Players such as Stevens remind us of the old days when hockey was the only way out of the mines or off the farm. As an American who started late, he had bust ass to get into the OHL.
Meantime, a reporter whose beat includes portions of New Jersey, New York state and Pennsylvania ended up articulating what pretty much everyone has in Kingston for a good many years. The Frontenacs are anti-development so long as Mavety remains employed and owner Doug Springer avers that his GM-for-life is an "astute hockey man."
It is looking up with Doug Gilmour as coach, but there is no tabulating how much has squandered since 1999, mostly since Springer seems to like confrontation or admitting mistakes even less than he likes answering non-softball questions. That makes him no different from 94% of the North American male population. Thing is, precious few of them can afford to buy a major junior hockey team, have their buddy Harv (Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen) build them a $43-million arena and than raid city reserves when few can bear to pay $15-20 to watch a struggling team in an arena that has atmosphere. It also won't change so long as Mavety, who has fewer and fewer "connections" who are still active in hockey, is steering the ship.
Mark Potter told a "classic Mav" story on CFRC 101.9 with Kinger last week. About 10 years ago, the Frontenacs drafted a player who was considering going to the NCAA. He "got a letter" from the Fronts informing him camp started Aug. 30. The team never contacted him otherwise. He reported to camp and after two days, when he had to decide whether to stay on or leave and retain his NCAA eligibility, he went by the GM's office to say, "Mav, I'm leaving." Mavety looked up, "Who are you?"
The chance that the Times-Herald Record writer read Save The Fronts before writing an article on Stevens are pretty remote, so it's amusing he could just absolutely nail how nothing changes in Kingston with the Frontenacs. Players such as Peter Stevens come and go, we cheer their successes, but at the end of the day, the astute hockey man is there, always.
It has been 491 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.
Related:
Chester native to play for Islanders' affiliate in Utah (Justin Rodriguez, Middletown Times-Herald Record)
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Fronts: Don't make this hate on Nate week
No one's trying to pick on Nathan Moon. He has had seven points in the past two games, both of which the Kingston Frontenacs won to fashion, wait for it, their first winning streak all season.
Then again, the clip of Moon slashing Oshawa's James DeLory, who retaliated with extreme prejudice and got a 12-game suspension, has been all over the Internet. There was Moon, after all that, whacking Brampton's Sergei Grachev last night, and the colour commentator saying, initially, "I don't know why they would call Moon on this."
It only took 54 games and some surpassingly subpar goaltending from the Ottawa 67's Adam Courchaine and Brampton's Thomas McCollum, but the Frontenacs have won two in a row. It's great for the players, who have endured a lot of losing this season, but any excitement is tempered when you look at what some of the other OHL's former drop cases have done this season.
The Erie Otters, whom the Fronts coincidentally play tonight, are running sixth in the stacked Western Conference after being dismal for two seasons (33 points in 2006-07, 40 in '07-08). The other non-playoff team, the Owen Sound Attack, playing in the league's smallest market, are hanging on to the final playoff spot in the West.
The Soo Greyhounds, Kingston's competition in the Crater for Catenacci, Hunt for Harrington or Swoon For Sefton, have also gone younger than Kingston. Ten Greyhounds are 1991 or or '92 birthdate players, compared to just eight of the Frontenacs.
It is important to keep in mind how it works in the world of Fronts owner Doug Springer and GM-for-life Larry Mavety. The bar can be set as low as they like. Twenty-three wins in 68 games last season was enough for Springer to hang the Mission Accomplished banner. This edition of Limestone City Light Brigade has 12 wins with 14 games remaining; if they get to 17-18, they'll the season a success. You better agree, or Nathan Moon might take out one of your ankles.
Just kidding, Mooner. Great game last night; you have to cheer for anyone named Nathan with a birthday on Jan. 4.
Monday, February 09, 2009
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)
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)
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Fronts: About that whole community outreach thing
No wonder the Kingston Frontenacs keep talking about what an ambassador Peter Stevens was in the community, even though they traded him.
One fan claimed that a portion of the east-end stands and concourse (behind the goal Kingston shoots at in the first and third periods) was roped off for a private party. This kept regular customers — paying customers — from getting to their seats.
Meantime, after the 4-3 loss to the Oshawa Generals (who, post-John Tavares, are playing out the string with an almost all-rookie team), there was supposed to be an open skate where children could skate with the players. That went well, until, according to one fan, none of the players materialized.
This would be easy to shrug off if the win and loss totals in Kingston's 10-31-9 record were reversed. It is not the case when they have lost 80% of their games, the charity point for overtime and shootout losses notwithstanding. It hints at what others who are on the ground in Kingston, most notably Kinger's TVCogeco compatriots and regular radio guests Tim Cunningham and Mark Potter, have been saying about the anger toward the owner of the city's OHL team.
Pete Stevens, as 20-year-old overager, deserved a chance to play in the post-season in his final year of junior hockey. It's a little rich to see the adults trade on the young man's integrity after he's gone, especially when based on deed and P.R. flops, they fall short in this area themselves. It invalidates everything that Springer says about having a first-class operation. It's just baffling, since by most accounts the Springers operate with integrity in all their other businesses.
The point is the owner of the 10-win team which plays in a $43-million arena which the city's business and political movers and shakers wanted (and got) in the worst way, needs to start considering optics. How many times does this site need to say perception is reality. This being Canada and a small city, people probably are too quick to scream, "Elitism!" but you have to know how to play ball when your team doesn't play hockey particularly well.
Meantime, good for Peter Stevens. There is no intention to say why can't everyone be like him, since no one is perfect. It is no surprise he's earned a following in Barrie, and the noble profession of nursing should be happy to have him. Far be it to wonder if having played in Kingston for two-plus seasons helped cultivate a compassion for the stricken and enfeebled.
(The Fronts are in Ottawa on Sunday to play the Soixante-Septs. Yes, I will be there. Meantime, James DeLory of the Oshawa Generals, keep your head up.)
Related:
Lover/Fighter; Barrie Colts bruiser Peter Stevens is a menace on the ice. He's also a terribly nice guy off it (Ian Shantz, Barrie Examiner)
Verbal sparring with Stevens (Ian Shantz, Barrie Examiner)
Type rest of the post here
" 'I actually want to be a nurse,' said Stevens, sporting a swollen set of knuckles on his right hand, a souvenir courtesy a fight in a game last weekend against Niagara. 'I like helping people, so that's what I want to do when hockey's over with.' "A hockey player going into nursing makes a lot of sense, given the difficulty of attracting men to the profession. This article is a nice epilogue to the Springer Frontenacs' hilarious and sad appearance before Kingston city council this week. Stevens was invoked as an example of the organization's community outreach, even though he's no longer on the team and his character was instilled first by Mr. and Mrs. Stevens. The Fronts Talk-ers also made note that in terms on appeasing ticked-off fans, owner Doug Springer's team and the U.S. firm which runs the Kingston Ratepayer Centre apparently had the puck bounce over their sticks, again.
— Barrie Examiner
One fan claimed that a portion of the east-end stands and concourse (behind the goal Kingston shoots at in the first and third periods) was roped off for a private party. This kept regular customers — paying customers — from getting to their seats.
Meantime, after the 4-3 loss to the Oshawa Generals (who, post-John Tavares, are playing out the string with an almost all-rookie team), there was supposed to be an open skate where children could skate with the players. That went well, until, according to one fan, none of the players materialized.
This would be easy to shrug off if the win and loss totals in Kingston's 10-31-9 record were reversed. It is not the case when they have lost 80% of their games, the charity point for overtime and shootout losses notwithstanding. It hints at what others who are on the ground in Kingston, most notably Kinger's TVCogeco compatriots and regular radio guests Tim Cunningham and Mark Potter, have been saying about the anger toward the owner of the city's OHL team.
Pete Stevens, as 20-year-old overager, deserved a chance to play in the post-season in his final year of junior hockey. It's a little rich to see the adults trade on the young man's integrity after he's gone, especially when based on deed and P.R. flops, they fall short in this area themselves. It invalidates everything that Springer says about having a first-class operation. It's just baffling, since by most accounts the Springers operate with integrity in all their other businesses.
The point is the owner of the 10-win team which plays in a $43-million arena which the city's business and political movers and shakers wanted (and got) in the worst way, needs to start considering optics. How many times does this site need to say perception is reality. This being Canada and a small city, people probably are too quick to scream, "Elitism!" but you have to know how to play ball when your team doesn't play hockey particularly well.
Meantime, good for Peter Stevens. There is no intention to say why can't everyone be like him, since no one is perfect. It is no surprise he's earned a following in Barrie, and the noble profession of nursing should be happy to have him. Far be it to wonder if having played in Kingston for two-plus seasons helped cultivate a compassion for the stricken and enfeebled.
(The Fronts are in Ottawa on Sunday to play the Soixante-Septs. Yes, I will be there. Meantime, James DeLory of the Oshawa Generals, keep your head up.)
Related:
Lover/Fighter; Barrie Colts bruiser Peter Stevens is a menace on the ice. He's also a terribly nice guy off it (Ian Shantz, Barrie Examiner)
Verbal sparring with Stevens (Ian Shantz, Barrie Examiner)
Type rest of the post here
Saturday, January 24, 2009
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.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Hockey logic...
There is journalist and reader fatigue from the Great Canadian Hand-Wring over hockey violence, but you can stand for one more editorial.
Karlo Berkovich, a veteran sportswriter at the Waterloo Region Record, took the starch out of of some of the game's leaders, notably NHLPA boss Paul Kelly and OHL commissioner David Branch, whose league has banned players taking off their helmets before fighting.
Journalistically, there is some hypocrisy. It's one thing to have a good argument and not to attack people rather than their points, but it's better if you learn it, live it, love it. It is tough not to think that some of the same commentators who are coming on all serious now were the same ones who would be chuckling away in the press box when a scrap broke out on the ice.
Personally, I'm the exact opposite. When a fight starts, the hands stay folded in my lap, but there is awareness that until the rules change or the hockey mentality changes, a team which doesn't have an enforcer s vulnerable to opponents taking liberties with their players. On Dec. 12, the day Don Sanderson was critically injured, that was a topic of discussion on Kinger's show, Offsides, with respect to the Kingston Frontenacs. Their players were being run all over the ice because management, in its wisdom, had traded away tough guy Peter Stevens. Thankfully, no Kingston player has been seriously injured, either from an overly aggressive check or from fighting.
Once again, the changes that would work to eliminate fighting from hockey go way beyond rule changes and some editorializing journalists. Good on Berkovich for telling it like it is.
(Hockey Night in Canada clip captured by MisterDB from Fronts Talk. whose YouTube channel is a veritable treasure trove of Kinger's between-periods interviews on TV Cogeco in Kingston.)
Related:
Hockey fighting: The lunatics run the asylym, so let 'em (Karlo Berkovich, Waterloo Region Record)
Karlo Berkovich, a veteran sportswriter at the Waterloo Region Record, took the starch out of of some of the game's leaders, notably NHLPA boss Paul Kelly and OHL commissioner David Branch, whose league has banned players taking off their helmets before fighting.
"...you could also read (no doffing your helmet rule) another way -- that Branch is perfectly fine with fighting; he just wants fighters to keep their helmets on, not only to avoid injury but, c'mon, so one day, when a (Don) Sanderson incident happens in the OHL, the league can avoid a lawsuit.One big sticking point seems to be that Branch and Kelly are fine with half measures; in the former's case, anything to make this go away at least until next season. They're both politicians, versed in the art of the possible, and they have to manage the egos of some of those short-tempered puckheads, so there is some understanding.
"As for (the NHLPA's Paul) Kelly, he's hilarious. It's imperative that players must be protected from hits to the head. He's talking cheap shots, elbows to the chops (which the sainted best leader in the history of the known cosmos, Mark Messier, is always praised for). Those are no-no's. Hits to the head via a punch in a fight? Hey, by all means, boys, feel free. And take off your helmets while you're at it.
"(Kitchener Rangers player Mike Mascioli's) quote about not being happy about it because jobs will be lost is also unintentionally a scream. How about he look at it another way: learn to play properly and you'll have no worries.
"Not that any of this will convince any of the lunatics who continue to run the asylum, though. So to come full circle, let 'em. It could be -- as we've now, unfortunately, experienced -- their funeral."
Journalistically, there is some hypocrisy. It's one thing to have a good argument and not to attack people rather than their points, but it's better if you learn it, live it, love it. It is tough not to think that some of the same commentators who are coming on all serious now were the same ones who would be chuckling away in the press box when a scrap broke out on the ice.
Personally, I'm the exact opposite. When a fight starts, the hands stay folded in my lap, but there is awareness that until the rules change or the hockey mentality changes, a team which doesn't have an enforcer s vulnerable to opponents taking liberties with their players. On Dec. 12, the day Don Sanderson was critically injured, that was a topic of discussion on Kinger's show, Offsides, with respect to the Kingston Frontenacs. Their players were being run all over the ice because management, in its wisdom, had traded away tough guy Peter Stevens. Thankfully, no Kingston player has been seriously injured, either from an overly aggressive check or from fighting.
Once again, the changes that would work to eliminate fighting from hockey go way beyond rule changes and some editorializing journalists. Good on Berkovich for telling it like it is.
(Hockey Night in Canada clip captured by MisterDB from Fronts Talk. whose YouTube channel is a veritable treasure trove of Kinger's between-periods interviews on TV Cogeco in Kingston.)
Related:
Hockey fighting: The lunatics run the asylym, so let 'em (Karlo Berkovich, Waterloo Region Record)
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Cooperalls, brown pads and goal-scoring goalies
Attention must be paid when a two-decade-old clip of your hometown team's goalie scoring a goal resurfaces. Especially if you were one of the very few there when the Kingston Canadians' Chris Clifford did the deed in January 1987, since you were there as a birthday treat, getting to go to a hockey game on a school night.
Like Doug Jeffries at CKWS-TV put it: "All 1,200 fans in attendance roared their approval. It's something you don't see very often."
Kinger would say, "What's that? The Kingston OHL team actually admitting there are only 1,200 fans at their games?"
Monday, December 29, 2008
Fronts: Rearranging deck chairs on the HMCS Royal Mavesty
One New Year's Resolution is to pay Kingston Frontenacs GM-for-life Larry Mavety the odd compliment, even if it's of the left-handed variety.
The GM of the team which will be the last in the 60-team Canadian Hockey League to crack double digits in the win column this season (the Val-d'Or Foreurs go for the big one-oh tonight and the Portland Winter Hawks do so Wednesday) should get credit for his latest shuffle of spare parts, shipping Anthony Peters to Saginaw for a fifth-round draft pick and bringing in Kanata native Paul Dorsey to be the backup goalie. Give Mavety some credit. He actually managed to find a goalie who's coming from a team with a worse record than Kingston.
Dorsey, who bounced around the QMJHL as a backup as a 17-year-old last season, had been playing with the Restigouche Tigers, who far and away own the basement in the Maritime Junior A Hockey League (hardly the upper-echelon provincial Junior A league in Canada). The toothless Tigers have just five wins in 33 games this season and are scoring less than two goals per game, which means Dorsey has some grounding in what he can expect in Kingston. He actually did keep his save percentage a smidge above .900 while playing for a terrible team, which more or less made him a Maritime league equivalent to Mavric Parks, Kingston's No. 1 goalie.
Who knows, maybe there more to Dorsey than the numbers he put up as a backup in the QMJHL, or it it's just a classic Mavatism from a hockey atavism. When you're losing, just make sure you don't keep losing with the same guys. Anyone who says you have as much chance of getting anywhere making minor deals as a hamster does while running on his little wheel, well, who are they to find fault with someone hailed as an "astute hockey man" by no less a source than Fronts owner Doug Springer, the one who probably thinks Sam Pollock is a subspecies of fish?
Meantime, don't cry for a goalie who just jumped 15 spots in the overall OHL standings by going from Kingston to Saginaw. When you apply Frontenacs logic, it is Anthony Peters' fault that he wasn't a ridiculously good goalie despite never playing, never having anyone indicate they believe in him and never having anyone try to help him sharpen his skills. You know the drill with Mavety — if some player doesn't magically develop into a superstar, it's all his fault. It never has anything to do with the owner, the front office, the coaching or the other 19 players in their charge.
The Fronts weren't going to make the playoffs with Peters. They can miss them without him while he and fellow Kingston parolee Kyle Bochek are getting ready to play in the post-season with the surprising Spirit. The HMCS Royal Mavesty will sail on, even if the hole in the boat is as big as the one in the GM's head.
We should all be standing on shore, applauding Mavety. Hopefully, it won't come off as sarcastic.
Incidentally, Hockey Now, which is a freebie publication distributed at rinks in Ontario, gave Save The Fronts a plug recently:
Frontenacs trade goalie to Saginaw (Kingston Whig-Standard)
The GM of the team which will be the last in the 60-team Canadian Hockey League to crack double digits in the win column this season (the Val-d'Or Foreurs go for the big one-oh tonight and the Portland Winter Hawks do so Wednesday) should get credit for his latest shuffle of spare parts, shipping Anthony Peters to Saginaw for a fifth-round draft pick and bringing in Kanata native Paul Dorsey to be the backup goalie. Give Mavety some credit. He actually managed to find a goalie who's coming from a team with a worse record than Kingston.
Dorsey, who bounced around the QMJHL as a backup as a 17-year-old last season, had been playing with the Restigouche Tigers, who far and away own the basement in the Maritime Junior A Hockey League (hardly the upper-echelon provincial Junior A league in Canada). The toothless Tigers have just five wins in 33 games this season and are scoring less than two goals per game, which means Dorsey has some grounding in what he can expect in Kingston. He actually did keep his save percentage a smidge above .900 while playing for a terrible team, which more or less made him a Maritime league equivalent to Mavric Parks, Kingston's No. 1 goalie.
Who knows, maybe there more to Dorsey than the numbers he put up as a backup in the QMJHL, or it it's just a classic Mavatism from a hockey atavism. When you're losing, just make sure you don't keep losing with the same guys. Anyone who says you have as much chance of getting anywhere making minor deals as a hamster does while running on his little wheel, well, who are they to find fault with someone hailed as an "astute hockey man" by no less a source than Fronts owner Doug Springer, the one who probably thinks Sam Pollock is a subspecies of fish?
Meantime, don't cry for a goalie who just jumped 15 spots in the overall OHL standings by going from Kingston to Saginaw. When you apply Frontenacs logic, it is Anthony Peters' fault that he wasn't a ridiculously good goalie despite never playing, never having anyone indicate they believe in him and never having anyone try to help him sharpen his skills. You know the drill with Mavety — if some player doesn't magically develop into a superstar, it's all his fault. It never has anything to do with the owner, the front office, the coaching or the other 19 players in their charge.
The Fronts weren't going to make the playoffs with Peters. They can miss them without him while he and fellow Kingston parolee Kyle Bochek are getting ready to play in the post-season with the surprising Spirit. The HMCS Royal Mavesty will sail on, even if the hole in the boat is as big as the one in the GM's head.
We should all be standing on shore, applauding Mavety. Hopefully, it won't come off as sarcastic.
Incidentally, Hockey Now, which is a freebie publication distributed at rinks in Ontario, gave Save The Fronts a plug recently:
A fan site dedicated to ousting GM Larry Mavety (who they call the Royal Mavesty) and owner Doug Springer is gaining a lot of traction with area fans and makes some very strong points. It is savethefronts.wordpress.com.Related:
Frontenacs trade goalie to Saginaw (Kingston Whig-Standard)
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