The end of an era in arena anachronisms!

Brian Kilrea's coaching career ended when the Ottawa 67's were eliminated in Game 7 overtime by the Niagara IceDogs in the playoffs, but really, this would make it official:



That post from a Facebook 67's fan group seems to have raised questions; either way, change is in the air.

During the World Junior championships in Ottawa last winter, the benches were on the north side, where the Soixys normally sit. The penalty boxes and sundry IIHF off-ice officials were on the south side, which is normally the visitors' bench. It is noteworthy that such talk is afoot now that Killer is no longer the coach. There's an off chance Kilrea might have resisted the move to have the benches on the same side. That has become a requirement throughout hockey, but it's understandable that Kilrea might have resisted, since he was used to having it a certain way (here one thinks of his contemporary Don Cherry's opinion, oft-expressed over the last 20 years, about putting the benches on the same side).

The setup kept the 67's from having to make a long change during the second period, which was arguably an unfair advantage for the home team, but no more so than those 3-in-3 weekends OHL fans must abide. Granted, the impact of the Civic Centre's unique architecture, where all of the seating on one side of the ice, has worked both ways in how it impacts the game. A poster on the New OHL Open Forum (which totally gets credit for this post idea) argued it has hurt the 67's:

"The biggest problem for the 67's was the opposing team had the opportunity of looking into the stands on the high side and seeing the capacity rink. All the 67's saw from the bench was the WALL. So, when you have 10,000 people cheering you on, you don't see them; therefore, you don't get as pumped up."

If they are going to be on the south side, then that has been rectified. Visiting teams will certainly lose the benefit of having an easier time making a change on the fly when a penalty expired, since the penalty boxes have been on that side of the ice.

The crux of this, though, really goes to what's lost when teams move into new arenas. This should not be taken as a young fogey's lament for an era that he is barely old enough to remember. The pathological nostalgia is best left to baby boomers. It's the loss of the little quirks of each arena which became part of the game's lore. The Civic Centre has its square corners, which as my contractor father points out, are peculiar to arenas built in Eastern Canada. The Peterborough Memorial Centre has similar square corners.

The Kingston Memorial Centre has benches on opposite sides of the ice. There was some intentional comedy during the third-last Frontenacs game there in February 2008 when Larry Mavety started to walk on to the ice during a shouting match with the Plymouth Whalers coach. The Memorial Centre also has its 200-by-92 ice surface, which was the Olympic dimensions when that arena was built (in the 1940s, not the 1890s, as some snarkers might have cracked). It was always a kick, as an adult, to overhear a group of four 11-year-olds looking at the ice surface, "Is that NHL size?" ... "No," the knowitall of the group might reply, "It's bigger," and of course his friends would doubt that an old barn in Kingston would have a rink seven feet wider than those in the NHL.

It is something which could only be absorbed by cultivating the habit at an early age, being a fan. You don't live in the world you were born into, though. Plus ça change!

(Thanks to Jason Cormier for the tip.)

Fronts: Dino Ciccarelli's ideas intrigue Doug Springer, who wishes to subscribe to his newsletter

Those at Kingston's august broadsheet deserve a round of beers for giving play to an out-of-conference OHL team firing its general manager in its Tuesday edition.

They should know that multiple readers e-mailed on Tuesday to pass on that the subtle dig was noticed, all saying some variation of, "I had to check to make sure it wasn't the Frontenacs." Well played. It was like an early April Fools' Day joke.

"The moves came less than 48 hours after the Sting were eliminated from the first round of the OHL playoffs. During the club's 15-year-history, it has won just three playoff rounds.

"(Owner Dino) Ciccarelli bluntly admitted the ownership must take the blame for the failure to produce a contender.

" 'I've got to tell you the frustration level is high and let's make no mistake about it, the buck stops with the owners,' Ciccarelli said.

"But he added the owners had only two options shake up the front office or sell the team.

"... He said Sarnia's record of drafting young players needs to get better. 'The only way to improve is through the draft. We have to draft a heck of a lot better than in the past.' " (Emphasis mine.)

Obviously, there's no reason why Kingston newsjunkies would see "fires GM" in a headline and get hopeful Frontenacs owner Doug Springer had given Larry Mavety his long-overdue Viking funeral.

Kingston has only won three playoff rounds in the 20 seasons since becoming the Frontenacs in 1989, granted. That is still no reason to be optimistic. His Royal Mavesty's contract extension has already inspired a lame Top 10 list.

Besides, as students of history know, the ones who were responsible for the collapse should get to keep calling the shots. It's much like how the Americans shouldn't have to change their screwed-up banking system just because it plunged the world into a global economic meltdown. Mavety isn't licked yet, he's going to figure a way out of this, really, honest. The last 12 years was just practice.

The Frontenacs, according to the paper, are going to draft a forward since Mavety believes the team needs some goal scorers. Far be it to point out that two players scored 30 goals this season for the Fronts, just as two players scored 30 while playing for the Belleville Bulls. Using Belleville as a benchmark might be unfair, but the Bulls are a rather successful franchise for a team which finished first in the OHL's Eastern Conference this season and made it to the Memorial Cup last season. Anyway, here's Mav in the morning's Whig-Standard:

" 'We’re still in the process (of deciding), I’d say it’s 70-30 (percentage wise) it will be a forward,' Mavety said. 'We’re looking at a team that only scored 200 goals last season. You don’t win in our league with 200 goals. We need some goal scorers.' "

Meantime, back on Planet Earth where the Internet is on computers now, some might have noticed that offensive juggernauts such as the Niagara IceDogs (213 goals), Mississauga St. Michaels Majors (229) and Saginaw Spirit (235) are among the eight teams left standing in the OHL playoffs.

Those eight teams left averaged 251.25 goals for, 207.5 against, compared to the Frontenacs' 200 for and 278 allowed.

In other words, Mavety's hockey machine was much farther below the curve defensively (71.5 goals worse) than offensively (51.25), yet his priority is goal scorers. What a schnorrer.

He's saying this after a season when the OHL only had two 50-goal men, which is the lowest in several seasons. Besides, the Fronts had a bona fide goal scorer, Josh Brittain, and traded him to Barrie, to say nothing of Cory Emmerton, Bobby Bolt, Bobby Hughes, Matt Kang and Chris Stewart, all of whom could snipe but never helped the team actually get anywhere.

An educated guess, going off the regular-season stats, is the biggest difference-maker on the ice for the top OHL clubs is a scoring defenceman. The biggest difference-maker, period full stop, is an owner who knows his assets from second base. Here are the top scorers off the blue line for each of the O's elite eight:

• Windsor: Ryan Ellis, 89 points; Rob Kwiet, 67
• Belleville: P.K. Subban, 76
• London: John Carlson, 76
  
• Mississauga: Cameron Gaunce, 64
• Saginaw: T.J. Brodie, 50
  
• Niagara: Drew Schiestel, 48; Alex Pietrangelo, 29 in 36 games after coming back from the NHL's St. Louis Blues
• Plymouth: Michal Jordan, 42
  
• Brampton: Ken Peroff, 31
  

It's a bit chicken-and-egg, but six of the eight teams still skating have a d-man among their top five point-getters. (Jordan was sixth on Plymouth despite missing 10 games; he also was a tema-high plus-28.) This might speak somewhat to having a team which can get out of its own end and move to the attack quickly, something that has rarely been said of any team Mavety has been involved during the past decade, except maybe when Jim Hulton was coaching in Kingston. (For anyone wondering, the Ottawa 67's top scoring defenceman, Julien Demers, was ninth on the team, and they're out of the playoffs, just saying.)

The Frontenacs should get the best player available. A franchise which has only won 43 of 136 games across the past two seasons needs help everywhere. When the GM doesn't really know what his team's big flaw is or what successful teams have that his team doesn't have, it really needs help.

It's not all bad. Kingston's new No. 1 junior hockey team, the Voyageurs, are set to face Oakville in the Ontario Junior Hockey League championship series. Fronts forward Ethan Werek, a gifted goal scorer by the way, will likely get named to the Canadian under-18 team today (Taylor Doherty is a maybe). Another local player, Jeremy Franklin, was recently nominated for Canadian Junior Hockey League player of the year honours.

Meantime, don't say Mavety cannot help build a contender. He still has the Mav-gic, so long as it's not for the team employing him. The Belleville Bulls, by unofficial count, have a half-dozen contributors who slipped by Kingston. Belleville got its goalie, Kingston minor hockey grad Mike Murphy, top two forwards Bryan Cameron and Eric Tangradi and shutdown defenceman Subban all in the 2005 draft, when Mavety had a higher draft slot.

Kingston's first-rounder from that season, Luke Pither, is now playing for the Bulls. Another Bellevegan, overage forward Brandon Mashinter, could have been picked up from Kitchener at the start of this season to complete an earlier deal, but Mavety instead opted for AHL and NHL-destined Yannick Weber. Meantime, the aforementioned Voyageurs are in the league final with three ex-Fronts in their lineup.

In other words, it was great to see a story about a team in another OHL market tying the can to its GM get big play. Meantime, big-time brownie points (in heaven, there are no brownie points on earth) to the hometown paper for working in digs of varying subtlety:

"En route to those four series triumphs, the Vees have seen their popularity and fan base mushroom dramatically, to the point, in fact, where dozens of ducat-seeking customers have been turned away. Interest is at an all-time high, thanks in large part to 15 post-season victories, generous media coverage and, of course, the sadly dependable early departure of the city's main puck-game tenant, the Frontenacs." (Emphasis mine.)

In the words of Stewie Griffin, "It feels right, Brian. It feels right." You can only take subtle stabs at Springer, whose skin is so thin — how thin is it? — that you could almost read a newspaper through it.

It has been 528 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winning team to Kingston.

Related:
Sarnia fires GM (Dan McCaffery, Sun Media, March 31)

Snark break ...

As you were picking up sides for 43-man squamish ... and who knew ER was still on the air?

Dane Cook's April Fools' joke was to announce that he's going to be in the next Twilight movie. People laughed for a couple minutes, then thought about later and couldn't figure out why they did.

For Ottawa sports fans scoring at home: On Monday, the baseball team folded, literally. On Tuesday, both hockey teams folded, figuratively.

Seriously, what a brutal end for the Ottawa 67's in Brian Kilrea's final season. Some might say it's too bad they didn't win for him, but really it's too bad they couldn't win for themselves. It's a youngish team beyond Logan Couture (who took the collar, going 0-for-4 in the OHL playoffs) and the other 19- and 20-year-olds.

Bob McCown, yesterday on Prime Time Sports: "Fewer hockey calls than we’ve ever, ever, ever had. Are you that bored? Are you that resigned to the Maple Leafs’ fate? Is there nothing to talk about?" Cripes, it's almost like the 24/7 hockey talk cured people of wanting to talk hockey.

Cox Bloc is switching teams, to the Canadiens. Make sure you check the calendar.

Norm Coleman suffered a big setback in his recount battle for a U.S. Senate Seat with Al Franken. If only there was someone to tell Coleman that he's good enough, he's smart enough and doggone it, people like him.

That was written with full awareness everyone told that joke yesterday.

Canadian Confucius says, playoffs start, attendance goes down.

It's commonplace enough to warrant comment: Does it seem odd that some junior hockey teams have attendance go down when the playoffs begin?

Out west, the Kelowna Rockets, who have had 174 regular-season sellouts in a row at Prospera Place, were only at about 75% last weekend, according to Regan's Rant. In one of our previous iterations in Halifax, it was general knowledge that the QMJHL's Mooseheads, who'd had some first-round flops, usually saw scores of empty seats in the opening round. They only got sellouts if they made the second.

(Update: The Chilliwack Progress noted Tuesday: "ticket sales in Chilliwack decreased approximately 13 per cent, one of the bigger dips in the (WHL). But almost everyone saw a drop, including the Vancouver Giants, who went 57-10-2-3 on the ice, but dipped around eight per cent at the gate.")

It's as much a question for the fans as it is for the teams. In the major pro leagues, demand increases when the playoffs begin. There is buzz. The playoffs start in junior and people start to tune out a bit; any and all explanations are welcome.

Once the weather warms up and the snow melts, the casual fans, the parents who might not care tremendously but will take their kids to the rink on a Sunday afternoon, scatter. Oftentimes their children are finishing their own minor hockey seasons, or beginning springtime activities.

It would be great to ask a couple OHL mavens if they just accept the reality that they're going to lose some of their fringier fans once they get past mid-March, especially if their ticketing strategy is anything like the Ottawa 67's. The Soixante-Septs' way of addressing the challenge of playing in a rink which is oversized for the OHL is to distribute a lot of tickets through group sales and vouchers handed out by their corporate partners to fill up a 9,500-seat building.

It is a great approach in the regular season (and, full disclosure, yours truly attended about a half-dozen games for free using vouchers). However, once the playoffs start and fans have to pay full freight, the 67's end up announcing attendance figures like 4,619 and 4,221, as they did last weekend vs. the Niagara IceDogs. In the press box prior to yesterday's doubleheader — the game they actually played and the one described by some fat, dumb and bald guy in the Ottawa Sun — a couple out-of-towners were wondering if the crowd was politely late. The rink was nearly empty at ten minutes to two. One would hope that the 67's made a nice profit off their 34 regular-season dates and a run to the second or third round of the playoffs

The recession isn't a catch-all explanation. It's quite possible people are just smart and realize that, as in the OHL's case, having 16 of 20 teams make the playoffs means the first round is next to meaningless. Maybe everyone's waiting for Round 2, but if they are, it's a lost opportunity for the leagues to whip up interest before the Stanley Cup playoffs push everything else out to the fringe.

Related:
Playoff Crowd Numbers (Regan's Rant)

Snark break ...

As you were lighting a cosmopolitan flare," whatever that is. Portland is closer to getting its soccer stadium and getting into MLS.

The NCAA Tournament begins in earnest one week today. Once you get past the whole not-paying-the-players part, it's a lot of fun to watch. Some of us prefer the CIS Final 8; it's a little more pure.

The all-hockey, all-the-time routine gets a bit tedious in Canada. As one wag put it, "At least we've got hockey. And Scandinavia, Minnesota and nobody else are very impressed."

Terrell Owens is signed and the more accomplished veteran receiver out there, Marvin Harrison, is sitting by the phone. That's not right. So much for maintaining blog silence on Terrell Owens joining the Buffalo Bills. Once you've called someone T-Emo, your feelings are pretty obvious.

There will be a hundred tributes to Ottawa 67's coach Brian Kilrea, so it probably won't hurt to joke that it's time to go if he honestly believes the Kingston Frontenacs are a "good young team." Seriously, Killer is great.

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

• Ricky Rubio would look good in a Raptors uniform; perish the thought.
  
• Eight days until the release of I Love You, Man.
  
• Using Twitter to bash NHL beat writers is just making it more dated, faster. Down Goes Brown, by the way, has some good thoughts on beat writers.
• Hey, the alma mater earned an OFSAA volleyball medal yesterday. The Ernestown Eagles, coached by Vicki Ward, earned the ancient bronze medal at the Double-A provincials in Kenora (they lost in the semifinal to Ottawa's Samuel Genest, which eventually took the silver).
• Remember the name: Tyson Hinz. He was a meast for the St. Matthew's Tigers in their run to the gold medal at the Ontario Triple-A championship in Ottawa this week. It's the second gold in a row for an Ottawa school.

Lee, damned lies and statistics ... nice try at hosing Tavares, you hosers

You know what they say, great at history, bad at math.

There is no reason to doubt Ottawa historian Jim McAuley's claim that former 67's star Peter Lee is still the Ontario Hockey League's all-time leading goal scorer, ahead of John Tavares. McAuley did his due diligence, having "poured" — or pored, as it were — "through game summaries of every game Lee played for the Ottawa 67's in the two disputed seasons (1972-73 and 1973-74), and determined that Lee actually scored 216 goals." (Ottawa Citizen, March 10.) The OHL did its own review and says Lee scored 213, meaning Tavares, now up to 215 with two games left in his season with the London Knights, is the record holder.

However, there is a difference between giving the facts and being truthful. It's fine to take what McAuley's evidence at face value (he's a historian, they don't have the imagination to make stuff up). Giving it without context is the equivalent of publishing the results of an opinion poll without adding that it's plus or minus 3.2 points, accurate 19 times out of 20 and all that jazz. It's irritating, especially when some crude cross-multiplication reveals Tavares might have scored in the neighbourhood of 300 goals in the OHL if he had played junior in Lee's day.

It's a mild irritant when the media give facts but not the truth. There is a difference, especially when you compare across eras in sports.

Let's set aside all the advances made in hockey in between Lee's final season with Ottawa in 1976 and today (short list: The use of video analysis in preparing for opponents, better coaching and equipment for goaltenders, more attention paid to defensive play, more physical play, bigger and faster players). Most of the changes in hockey, starting from the mid-1980s until after the 2004-05 NHL lockout, worked against players putting up gaudy goal totals.

The big matzo ball hanging out there with McAuley's research is that presumes that a goal in 2009 was easily achieved as it was in 1976, or that conversely, goals were equally hard to come by 30-plus years ago as they are in the modern game. Most of you who follow hockey could establish that simply isn't the case without benefit of a quick check over at hockeydb.com.

Here's a quick table of each player's season-by-season totals (games played, goals, total goals per game in all of his team's games and per-game average for the whole league; shootout goals weren't counted, but there wasn't time to factor out 4-on-4 overtime, so the averages for Tavares' area are actually higher than they should be, not lower). Just to be sporting, Lee gets credit for the two missing goals from 1972-73 that McAuley unearthed and the one tally from '73-74 (he scored one in '71-72, when he played a handful of games as a 15-year-old).

LEE:
’72-73: 63 27 10.06 9.74
’73-74: 69 39 8.13 8.34
’74-75: 70 68 10.87 9.18
’75-76: 66 81 9.42 9.43

TAVARES
’05-06: 65 45 8.19 6.94
’06-07: 67 72 8.97 7.34
’07-08: 59 40 7.97 6.80
’08-09: 32 26 7.14 6.70 (with Oshawa)
’08-09: 23 32 7.08 -- (with London)

Tavares' feats came in a era of much tighter-checking defence. Those per-game totals from the past four seasons are probably a bit on the high side, since you would have to factor out goals scored in 4-on-4 overtime, which didn't exist when Lee played for the 67's (I subtracted shootout goals from team totals). Tavares has put up numbers in a lower-scoring era.

For anyone wondering, the 67's were not the highest-scoring team in the OHL. In '75-76, they scored 331 goals, fourth-most in a 12-team league. The previous season, '74-75, under a rookie coach named Brian Kilrea, they scored 379, second in the league, but allowed a league-worst 382.

This doesn't mean 67's owner Jeff Hunt was wrong to ask McAuley to look into Lee's totals. Hunt was trying to do right by all concerned when he noticed a discrepancy between his franchise's records and the official league book.

Facts are facts, but they're trumped by the truth that Tavares' 215 goals in the 2000s are harder-earned than Lee's 215, 213 or 216 more than three decades ago. There were a lot more goals in the typical major junior game of Lee's era than in Tavares'.

Just for kicks, here's how each player would have done in the other guy's era, taking his goals per game and plugging into the league average.

TAVARES
’72-73: 65 63 10.06 9.74
’73-74: 67 81 8.13 8.34
’74-75: 59 54 10.87 9.18
’75-76: 55 81 9.42 9.43

LEE
’05-06: 63 19 8.19 6.94
’06-07 69 34 8.97 7.34
’07-08 70 50 7.97 6.80
’08-09 66 58 n/a 6.70

Tavares' total comes out to 279 goals. (Please bear in mind that this is purely hypothetical and just for fun.)

As an add-on, keep in mind that top-end junior phenoms such as him always take a hit on their stats since they usually miss about nine or 10 games while they're off defending Canada's honour at the world junior hockey championship. That scenario didn't exist for Lee. Tavares could have scored another eight goals in his third season, when he missed nine games, and popped in another 16 during the 11 he's sat out this season.

That brings Tavares up to 303. How many he would have had is inconclusive, but his goals-per-game totals, put into context, surpass Lee's by a fair margin.

This is not about who was the better hockey player as a teen, since it's fairly obvious who comes out the winner in that argument (January-born Lee would have been 16 years, eight months old when he began his first full season in '72-73, while Tavares' debut in the league came on the eve of his 15th birthday).

Granted, there's a lot of assumptions being made (hence the use of "crude cross-multiplication" and "in the neighbourhood" up top). It's also doubtful Brian Kilrea would have been putting Tavares out on the power play with one minute left in a 7-2 game, but that was another post.

Regardless, doing some crude number-crunching beats "pouring" over microfiche any day of the week. In sports, it's absolutely essential to put a player's stats into a historical context before you present your case. No disrespect, but that should not be lost on someone who's a historian.

Related:
Tavares record in question? (Patrick King, sportsnet.ca)
Lee unsure if Tavares broke goal-scoring record (Joe O'Connor, National Post)
Ottawa historian challenges Tavares' goal-scoring record (Wayne Scanlan, Ottawa Citizen)

Fronts: Paging Dr. Cox; time to talk some sense into the newbie

Only in Leafland can a coach's celebrity count for more than whether the celebrity can coach.

The OHL needs to pass a new rule: Teams can't honour a visiting coach who's been behind the bench for fewer games than the Ottawa 67's Brian Kilrea has seasons. It's on another level of fail when said coach works for Doug Springer. (Irony: Kilrea's last visit to Kingston is on Wednesday.)

Perhaps Barrie Colts owner Howie Campbell, given that half the teams in the OHL are down at the gate this season, can be excused for honouring Kingston Frontenacs coach Doug Gilmour Saturday before his Colts pinned another loss on the league's donkey team. Anything to sell tickets, right? He shouldn't be, though.

Speaking as a Frontenacs and Leafs follower, Gilmour has to be looked at as a newbie coach in in the OHL's worst organization. That is what he is today. The Fronts have four wins in the past two months, even though they are an improved team. People have to stop looking at what Gilmour did for Toronto back in 1993 and '94. It's like The Sopranos: It's over.

It was a rookie mistake for Gilmour to take part in something that has almost nothing to do with his current role in hockey.

So what if "the Colts organization wanted to do something special for Gilmour, to quote the Barrie Examiner? You could read into that that the Colts highers-up are such big Leafs fans that they thought gosh darn golly gee what the heck, let's honour Number Ninety-Three, Dougie Gilmour so we can say Barrie did it before our big-city cousins in Toronto do it Jan. 31. (About that: Gilmour says he bought the Kingston players' tickets for that game; one report suggests otherwise.)

Kilrea, who is in his final season, deserves every tribute he gets for what he's done in the OHL for more than 30 seasons. It cheapens what's being done for him and long-time assistant coach Bert O'Brien around the league when OHL teams get carried away with honouring ex-players on the flimsiest pretense.

The Mississauga St. Michael's Majors held a sweater retirement several weeks ago for Hall of Famer Dave Keon, on the premise that he played for the original Majors decades ago when they were based in downtown Toronto. The Colts were even more out of line — the team didn't even exist when Gilmour played in the OHL.

Granted, the Colts might have something akin to executive privilege. They have the right since they have won as many OHL championships as the Frontenacs have playoff series in the past 13 seasons — once! Also please keep in mind, Barrie started as an expansion team in 1995, while the Frontenacs, under their oblivious owner, Springer, and GM-for-life Larry Mavety on, have merely been reduced to an expansion outfit.

Not knowing much about Howie Campbell, it's presumable he, like anyone with a measure of sanity, would plan major changes if his team was dead last in the 60-team Canadian Hockey League. Springer won't even comtemplate that, which has given rise to a persistent rumour he's sabotaging the Frontenacs so that the city-owned K-Rock Centre's revenues will fall so low that the city council will put up it up for sale, where he'll swoop in like Rogers did with the Skydome.

Well, what other explanation is there for why the owner of a 9-31-8 team with the worst goals-for and goals-against totals in OHL carries on like the only change fans deserve is from the arena's vending machines? Paraphrasing someting Dr. Cox (the character on Scrubs, not his Toronto Star namesake) once said, the only way Springer could be more useless right now is if he actually were the wall of the K-Rock Centre.

Springer is on record as saying Mavety is an "astute hockey man," which has become an Internet meme among Frontenacs fans. In light of the fact Gilmour let it drop late last week that he would be "consulting with Mav," about how to improve the team, Springer seems dead set against making any changes. To once again quote Sacred Heart's prickly Perry, that makes him worse than useless.

(Scrubs references, Sagert? Someone is single and works odd hours.)

Last summer, when everyone and her/his dog knew that The Royal Mavesty was returning as the permanent interim coach, but Springer held off on any announcement until the deadline passed for season-ticket holders to renew their seats. That might not happen again. A humble suggestion might be that season-ticket holders should start letting the team know how they feel about renewing..

(Typical of the no-account Kingston front office, the only e-mail listed on the website is that of Jeff Stilwell, the P.R. man. In other words, the P.R. guy is more accountable than the general manager and owner-president-governor who signs his paycheques.)

In other words, in light of all that, it's impossible to sit idly by and watch the Colts contribute to the charade that having Gilmour behind the bench is making any big difference in Kingston. As a sidebar to this, it's kind of funny that Gilmour told the Toronto Star that he got the Frontenacs players "all tickets up in the nosebleeds," for his tribute night. He might have been joking, or maybe this is just gossip dignified in print:

"When Doug Gilmour's jersey is honoured at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night, his Kingston Frontenacs players will be in attendance. But he had nothing to do with getting them tickets. Turns out, Mike Zigomanis of the Penguins, as a goodwill gesture to his former junior team and knowing nothing of the Gilmour ceremony, bought 34 tickets for the Fronts players to watch the Pens play."
— Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun

Who knows and who cares bought the tickets for the players.

It might have been a joke that has backfired on Gilmour's part. Well, nine wins in 48 games is a joke, but one cannot say the Gilmour experiment has backfired.

It's worked perfectly. The big reason Springer and Mavety hired Gilmour, in the absence of being able to get quality applicants because the word is out on those two, was to trade off his celebrity and deflect attention from the ramshackle organization. Shame on the Barrie Colts for helping the sham seem legit.

(Simmons link via Torontosportsmedia's Weblog)

Snark break...

First things first: Cox Bloc presented its Mittenstringer of the Year honour last night.

Paul Maurice's money quote on coming back with the Carolina Hurricanes to coach against the Leafs: "It’s absolutely personal. You get fired, you want to see that team lose every game for the next ten years." Before Leafs fans take offence, find out what hotshot eight-year-old will be available in the the 2018 draft.

Research suggests a lack of projectile weapons was what doomed the Neanderthals. That sounds like what happened Josh Towers when he pitched for the Jays. (Towers is the newest Washington National.)

The Montreal Canadiens are going to stop saying whether a player has an upper-body injury or a lower-body injury. In a related story, the world will spin off its axis today at noon (12:30 in Newfoundland and Labrador).

The only way not to be brought down by the Raptors' struggles is if you picked up Andrea Bargnani in your fantasy league two weeks ago. Thirty-one points, 10 rebounds last night? Losing at home to a bad Chicago Bulls team is superfluous.

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

• Former Ottawa 67's goalie Danny Battochio, who now plays for St. Francis Xavier, was named CIS male athlete of the week. What, no love for Lethbridge's Scott Bowles, who stopped 74 of 75 shots in a pair of Pronghorns wins last week?
• The fact I know that is sad, but it will be even sadder if you don't visit cisblog.ca.
• Thirty-six hours until Friday Nights Lights is back on TV, at least for those who do not dabble in the dark world of torrents (or get DirecTV).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fronts: Surprise shot-kicking enjoyed by some!

It was nice to be able to make the "We're No. 1 sign" because the Frontenacs were rolling, not because of where they'll drafting next spring. Let's not even analyze it, that was a beautiful sight.

CIS Corner: Ottawa's Galas is Als right

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

FOOTBALL

• Erik Galas, the McGill second-team all-Canadian receiver who set an all-time record for career pass catches, has signed with the Montreal Alouettes, the school announced this morning. He'll have a tough road on a team with Ben Cahoon and Dave Stala enconsced among its Canadian receivers, so wish him well.
• Manotick's Scott Mitchell and his Rice Owls teammates won't have to travel far for their bowl game. Rice, with Mitchell starting at left tackle, is headed to the Texas Bowl, right at Houston's Reliant Stadium, where they sometimes practise.
  
  The Dec. 30 game will be on the NFL Network, so for any Ottawa readers, it might be worth tuning in, especially if Rice ends up playing Notre Dame.
  
  Mitchell's a good story, just in terms of how quickly he's matured in two seasons at Rice. He started at left tackle for Rice as a true freshman in the second half of last season. He was playing at only 234 lbs. absurdly light for a left tackle in high school, let alone a NCAA D-1 program.

HOCKEY

• The OHL put out a press release Thursday afternoon detailing the 300-some players who are receiving scholarship money while attending a Canadian university. It might (or might not) be worth noting that 67's forward Corey Cowick and backup goalie Adam Courchaine are already attending Carleton.
  
  The Ravens have 11 OHL alumni on their roster (and goalie Alex Archibald played four years in the WHL). Queen's, in contrast, has just three ex-OHLers; the Gee-Gees aren't listed.
• Since no one is actually playing again until January, here are the baseball standings for the eastern half of the OUA, with each team's remaining games in brackets:
  
  
  1. UQTR: -- (11)
  2. Toronto: 8 (13)
  3. Concordia: 5½ (13)
  4. Carleton: 5½ (12)
  5. Ottawa 6 (15)
  6. McGill: 6½ (14)
     
  7. Queen's: 8½ (11)
  8. RMC: 10 (12)
  9. Ryerson: 11 (14)
     
     
  The way the standings read, Carleton is in the No. 3 seed, but Concordia (one point back with a game in hand) gets listed ahead of them. A Carleton-Ottawa playoff series would really do a lot for university hockey in this city, at least one would hope. It's never going to hold a candle to the 67's when it comes to the public's attention, but hey, that might just be an expression of good taste.
  
  Queen's situation is even more dire than the standings suggest. Their first five games in the New Year are against Lakehead (twice), Laurier, Waterloo and Carleton, each of whom is in or has been in the Top 10 this season. One hopes they didn't use up all their karma with that upset win of Trois-Rivieres last weekend.

Snark break ...

The gauntlet has been thrown down ... for today's edition, every item is a variation on "Riddle me this." ...

... How is that in 1980, Canada and the U.S. boycotted the Olympics in a Communist country because a nation was occupying Afghanistan; but in 2008, Canada and U.S. are attending the Olympics in a Communist country despite occupying Afghanistan?

... How is that anyone believes that Barry Bonds will show up in San Fran on Saturday?

... How is that in Alberta, that republic of outlaws loosely allied with the rest of Canada, Edmonton politicians are looking for public financing for a new arena for the Oilers? Strangely enough, all those other loser provinces which are teeming with tax-and-spend socialist sandal-wearers managed to build new NHL arenas with almost 100% private money. (Glove tap to the Battle of Alberta.)

How can it be that God lives in Saskatchewan ... when the matchless Little General, Ron Lancaster, is fighting cancer and the Saskatchewan Roughriders' best receiver, Matt Dominguez, has a career-ending injury?

(Digression: Please don't take this as an attempt to make light of something that is very real and very scary for Lancaster, his family and anyone who loves the CFL and the people who made it great.

Laughter is the best medicine, right? It's a corny joke, but you can just scroll down to where the italicization ends. A Saskatchewan farmer dies and goes to heaven ... as he's being taken around, it's explained to him that in heaven, everyone gets to pretend to be whoever he or she wants to be.

They pass a hockey rink where a man dressed in a Montreal Canadiens No. 9 sweater is shooting pucks into a net. "That man is from Quebec," the farmer is told. "He thinks he's Maurice Richard."

At the other end of the ice, a figure in a Boston Bruins sweater is weaving around the ice. "That man is from Parry Sound. He thinks he's Bobby Orr."

They walk a bit more until they pass a field where a man in a green-and-white Saskatchewan Roughriders uniform, flowing beard protruding over his single-bar facemask, is throwing a football through an old tire.

"That's God. He thinks he's Ron Lancaster.")

... How is that Kingston Frontenacs GM-for-life Larry Mavety can look visionary? The OHL might pull out of junior hockey's import draft. That wouldn't change a thing for the Frontenacs, who haven't participated in it for years.

(Ottawa 67's coach Brian Kilrea says, "Some GMs and owners feel they are being manipulated by the entire process." Now they know how the players feel. Picture Boon and Otter in Animal House. "He can't do that to our pledges!" ... "Only we can do that to our pledges.")

... How is that Paris Hilton could come off as more politically astute than Sen. John McCain's campaign team?

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Great job, Senator McCain. You just let Ms. Hilton hit the reset button on her 15 minutes.

... last but not least, via ShysterBall, how can a building feature "rustic, urban architecture" when rustic and urban are two completely different things?

(Short answer: The thesaurus feature on Microsoft Word exists so dumb people can try to sound important. Not that I'm accusing anyone of that. I'm fired, aren't I? Oh yeah. Well, I don't even really work here. That's what makes this so difficult.)

(Clip via Deus Ex Malcontent.)

OUT OF EARSHOT, OUT OF MIND

The latest joke going around: "When was the last time you listened to The Team 1200 other than for a hockey game?

"I don't know. What year is this?"

The question for the readers in Ottawa, who is counting on The Team for their daily fix of sports chat? The experience on this end across the past two years has gone from listening regularly, to occasionally, to only during hockey games, to not being able to remember the last time I tuned in. Colleagues and friends report a similar experience.

No offence; the station will be essentially listening once the Sens start to unravel during the Stanley Cup playoffs, but other than that, it's not relevant. The FAN 590 on digital cable or the simulcasts The Score and Sportsnet air of sports talk radio shows for a couple hours a day seem like a pretty good poor man's alternative to The Team's offerings.

Carl Kiiffner gets credit for picking up on this at the UORB; judging by the makeover the station gave its website, only two teams exist — the Senators and 67's. It could be that the all-Sens, all-the-time approach has put off some people, who believe the best sports talk radio is where everyone gets a say about all things sporting. Listen to The FAN 590; Chuck Swirsky has the 1-4 p.m. slot and oftentimes they won't talk about the NHL.

In the late-morning slot, you can hear Mike Hogan and Mike Toth on The Bullpen talk knowledgeably about second-tier stuff such as CIS football or Provincial Junior A Hockey because they're into it. Perhaps that vibe exists at The Team, but judging by the presence it didn't have at the Ottawa Rapids' first press conference on Feb. 14 and at the CIS Final 8 men's basketball championship the weekend before last, they're hiding it under a bushel. Of course, with respect to the hoops, maybe they just couldn't find the building where it was being held.

STEWART: VIVA BELLEVEGAS

The puck drops on the Ontario Hockey League playoffs tonight. Since he's an all-around great guy and the team he covers didn't make it -- but at least had the good sense to bottom out properly and luck into John McFarland, unlike certain teams that Larry Mavety whipped to a 52-point season -- Trevor Stewart will give periodic updates.

The Eastern Conference playoffs start with four divisional rivalries. That probably doesn't mean the teams will dispense with the silly feeling-out process that usually takes up most of Game 1 of any series. Unfortunately for three teams, that one game will make up a good part of their series. There's such a big gap between the East’s top four teams and it’s bottom four, it’s hard not to like the favourites -- except Oshawa.

Essentially, the East is Belleville's to lose. The same was true a year ago when the Bulls lost the conference final in six games to the upstart Sudbury Wolves. With that experience plus eight NHL-drafted players, this year’s Bulls are the only team in the East that could stand a chance against the best of the West.

Belleville (1) vs. Peterborough (8)
Season series: Bulls 6-0

The Bulls have had the Petes’ number all year and that won’t change. Four of Belleville’s wins were by three goals or more. They set franchise records for wins and points and have the most drafted players of any OHL team – eight. Captain Matt Beleskey (Anaheim) is the kind of leader you want for a long playoff run, with equal parts skill, character and toughness. And most of these Bulls have been around before, complete with the bitter taste of that Eastern Conference finals exit last year in a black-and-blue series that saw the Sudbury limp into the finals after six games.

The OHL playoffs is a time for veteran players and stars to align. In the end the difference in average age (19.2 years to 18.5) may be the most telling factor in this series.

The Petes' best player is draft-eligible 17-year-old defenceman, Zach Bogosian, which in this case, is not a good thing. Goalie Trevor Cann should have been their best player this year, but he has struggled while playing behind the second-youngest of the league's 16 playoff teams.

The Bulls' depth among their three overagers says a lot. Defenceman Geoff Killing was dynamite in last year’s playoffs. Forwards Andy Self and Adam Perry each have big-time playoff experience from their stints with Sudbury and London, respectively.

There’s no reason to expect anything but a sweep in this series and a perfect 10 for the Bulls against the Petes this year. Trevor's Take: Belleville in four.

Brampton (2) vs. Barrie (7)
Season series: 3-3

Brampton has won three of four meetings vs. the Colts since the trade deadline when these clubs retooled in opposite directions.

Barrie, which finished 26 points behind the Battalion, traded away its biggest offensive weapon in Vladi Nikiforov. The Battalion added Cory Emmerton, who is rounding into form finally, post-mono. Brampton’s biggest aces in the hole are its top two blueliners Bobby Sanguinetti and John deGray. The pair have a lot to do with the fact Brampton has the best combined special teams in the OHL – first in penalty killing, fourth in power play – areas that become amplified in the post-season. Sanguinetti is a first-round NHL pick and wizard quarterbacking the power play, while deGray, a third-rounder, is as steady a defender as they come. Trevor's Take: Brampton in five.

Oshawa (3) vs. Ottawa (6)
Season series: Gens 4-2

Both teams are skidding into the post-season. After nipping at the Bulls' heels most of the season, the Generals won just two of their final 12 games and needed a shootout victory Sunday just to end the regular season on a high note. And 'tender Michal Neuvirth has been nowhere near the level he played at in leading Plymouth to the championship last year since moving to Oshawa at the trade deadline. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think the European goalie, living far from home, has been unsettled by two trades in the same season, would it?

The 67's (or as Sager calls them, the Soixante-Septs) are just 4-10 in their past 14. But Ottawa has a few things going for it. Coach Brian Kilrea is famous for making teams competitive when they shouldn't be. Jamie McGinn and Logan Couture are both healthy, at the same time. And goalie Adam Courchaine was just named OHL player of the week after allowing just four goals in three games last week. Those games, however, were against Kingston, Peterborough and Sudbury. The John Tavares- and Brett MacLean-led Generals don't even live in the same neighbourhood.

This is the sexy upset pick in the East. The 67's can out-defence Oshawa all the want, but are in tough to find enough goals. Trevor's Take: The Gens should be able to out-offence the low-scoring 67's in seven.

Niagara (4) vs. Mississauga (5)
Season series: 7-1 Niagara

The IceDogs – that's Niagara this year – should feel at home in every game of this series, considering they spent last season playing out of the Mississauga Hershey Centre.

After relocating out of the OHL deadzone that is the GTA this season, the Dogs have a much more supportive home crowd in St. Catharines where their barn is old but has character. That should benefit them. The IceDogs also shrewdly traded for the goalie that beat them in last year’s playoffs, Sebastian Dahm.

The Dane was the backbone behind Sudbury's unlikely run through the East last year. The return of perpetually injured New Jersey first-rounder Matt Corrente to the Niagara blueline will be a major boost.

Niagara also boasts some big-time offensive weapons in Luca Caputi, Michael Swift and world junior star Stefan Legein. Beyond Latvian offensive talent Kaspars Daugavins, the Majors don’t have much to counter. So it boils down to Denmark vs. Latvia. I’ll take Denmark. Trevor's Take: Dogs in five.

Tomorrow: The Western Conference.

Trevor Stewart is a sportswriter for the Sudbury Star.