Fronts: Harvey Rosen's big lie — Mem Centre better for RBC Cup than the K-Rock Centre

When you're buying flowers for your mum this Easter weekend, remember that a Rosen should be red (faced).

The Kingston Frontenacs might still be playing if they could shut a team down the way they have stymied the Kingston Voyageurs' RBC Cup bid.

It's a laugh-and-a-half to see the great wool-pull Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen is engaged in as he tries to justify why the Vees must use the ancient Memorial Centre rather than the newish, costly-ish K-Rock Centre if they earn the right to host the 2012 RBC Cup. "The majority of teams in the Junior A leagues across the country are from smaller towns and they play in smaller arenas." ... "If you put three thousand fans in the K-Rock Centre, which is the most the RBC Cup could hope to draw, it's half full and you feel there's something not quite attractive about what's going on."

The Fronts' forwards should be as good at deflections. The downtown arena is losing money, in an election year, and rather than stand up to Fronts owner Doug Springer, Rosen tries to reverse course. This is a hilarious coming from someone who blamed fans when the Springer Frontenacs were drawing far less than 3,000 fans. He didn't call it "something not quite attractive going on" then. And if spectator support is such a big concern, why was the Clarkson Cup staged at the K-Rock Centre? There's no way a women's game not involving national teams drew anything close to 3,000 people.

It's understandable, admirable even that the Springer Frontenacs have put their foot down, since there is an off-off-off-off-off-off-chance they are still going in next season's OHL playoffs come May 2012. Granted, they are coming off their "best post-season showing" (the local broadsheet's phrasing) in 12 years, since it took them until Game 7 of Round 1 to bow out to Brampton.

Kingston fans and taxpayers deserve a lot better than puffery and half truths. They were told the city needed to splurge on a downtown arena to land big events and are now being told it is ill-suited for staging a big event, and that the RBC Cup is not a big event. Debate the glamour of the RBC Cup all you want, but the money out-of-town teams and their supporters spend is just as good as their major junior counterparts.

The onus isn't totally on Springer, but it's pretty clear who is calling the shots. It is not out of the realm of possibility he's seeing it as win-win if venue issues sink the Vees' bid. The Vees already had to defer it from 2011 to '12, so not to coincide with the Fronts' Hail Mary of a bid for the 2011 Memorial Cup. Some random guy hinted at this two weeks ago:

"Kingston Frontenacs owner Doug Springer will never let another team host a national championship at the K-Rock Centre, his petty fiefdom that he doesn't actually own or operate. You have to keep dates available for that huge playoff run (all the way to the second round!) that he's been promising Kingston since 1998, don't you know.

"In no way is this a suggestion Springer and his Frontenacs ... (are) actively trying to sandbag another Kingston team's bid to land a national tournament ... in no way whatsoever."

The Fronts actually have every right to do so; their 2011-12 season might be a going concern when the RBC Cup comes around in May. And Katrina Bowden might be waiting in my apartment when I come home from work tonight. Perhaps it is not politic, but Rosen should just be honest about the circumstances. It doesn't take King Solomon to see there is a compromise, where the Vees could be prepared to use the K-Rock if it's available. Common sense should prevail, even as it's getting harder to recall that exists, where Kingston and junior hockey is concerned.

Imagine having a state-of-the-art arena sit empty while a national championship takes place across town. No amount of nostalgia for old "hockey barns" will override that embarrassment.

It has been 892 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

Fronts: Season's lowest attendance for Game 3

No doubt people were waiting for the playoffs to get a true reflection of Kingston Frontenacs attendance, i.e., once the comps and freebies were no more.

Well, they had 2,285 on Tuesday for Game 3 of their series against Brampton on Tuesday. That was lower than any announced crowd the Fronts had during the regular season. It is also barely half of the original attendance target of 4,500 for playoff games at the K-Rock Centre.

You can rest assured the sycophants in Kingston will either ignore this, claim it's a fabrication or ignore the argument and attack the person making it. That's how they roll.

Frontenacs show true colours — deep shades of pathetic

Good friend Tyler King was a "bringer of reality" vis-à-vis the Kingston Frontenacs' "less than one per cent" chance of winning the host bid for the 2011 Memorial Cup.



The Fronts tend to have a strong reaction to someone having the audacity to point out straight facts, like that Kingston has not won a playoff series since 1998 and is ninth overall in the OHL and the other shortlisters for are first (Barrie), second (Windsor) and fourth (Mississauga) in the league. For instance, they could Twitter-block him, like they have done with others.

God forbid professional journalists who love Kingston should have any right to give an informed opinion.

Kinger and others didn't ask for this role, but they'll play the part of offering a honest critique of a franchise which believes the media is there to offer a free pass. Meantime, the Frontenacs would have to hand out a lot of free passes to fill the arena for the playoffs.

Frontenacs: All-star game fail falls on feckless Springer

The problem with Doug Springer is if you say the staging of the OHL all-star game was a spectacular flop, he'll only hear the word spectacular.

So, is it worth wasting a beautiful mind pointing out Wednesday night's gong show at the K-Rock Centre was a "no" vote in a referendum on whether Springer and his organization (loose usage) are fit to continue running the Frontenacs? The announced crowd of 3,206 — reversing the first two digits would put you a lot closer to the actual figure — sends the message loud and clear. Were ours a just world, Springer would be starting negotiations to sell the team to Gregg Rosen, who owns the Kingston Kimco Voyageurs.

Rosen, unlike Springer, has shown he knows something about icing a winning team. Fans can also lean in to embrace the Vees without peeking to look out for the next knife in the back.

There's no equivocation, no hair-split. It was a sad sight. The inflated attendance figure was only 60 per cent of the K-Rock Centre's capacity. Host teams for an OHL all-star game typically fill, at minimum, 85% of their seats. This is from a city which was a Hockeyville finalist not too long ago and has close to the highest attendance in CIS football, outdrawing larger cities.

It also fell short of the original attendance target (3,500 per game) set by Kingston city council when the Frontenacs moved into their taxpayer-provided puck palace two years ago. It's another level of fail when you factor in that it's Feb Fest week in Kingston, which brings people out of their homes and put thems in a civic-minded spirit than they would otherwise be in during the depths of winter. An anchor on Rogers Sportsnet wondered kiddingly if someone had pulled a fire alarm at one end, where the seats were completely empty. Wow, was it ever wise to emphasis this was a test run for hosting the Memorial Cup.

The only solace is knowing people who follow junior hockey closely are aware it is not the market, or the arena. They understand that withdrawal in disgust is not apathy (assist to Michael Stipe). There were sellouts in Kingston for world junior exhibition games in 2008. The town got on the bandwagon for the Queen's Golden Gaels during their Vanier Cup run and for the Junior A Kingston Voyageurs during their post-season run last spring.

This disaster falls squarely on Springer, who rightly got booed before a ceremonial faceoff.

You can't even say the gloves are off, and not because there is no fighting in an all-star game. They've been off for a while. This is an owner whose franchise looks like a serious threat to make it 12 seasons without winning a playoff series, the longest drought in the Ontario Hockey League. (Oh, every team is entitled to a bad decade.) The promised attendance bump from moving from an old hockey barn, the Memorial Centre, to the spiffy K-Rock Centre, has not materialized.

Any regular reader of Fronts Talk is well-aware there is a lot more wrong with the franchise than right. There is a laundry list of deep-seated concerns about the team's all-around lack of accountability with players' conditioning and discipline (on and off-ice), with giving support to billets who agree to be surrogate family to players, with keeping the arena fan-friendly and meeting media obligations.

(On the last count, two weeks ago after a shutout loss in Ottawa coach Doug Gilmour set a land-speed record to get out of the arena. Then again, a former Toronto Maple Leafs captain would not have much experience dealing with a media scrum.)

Through it all, one wonders what is Springer's deal with holding the Frontenacs hostage. Is it like Rogers Communications' deal with the Toronto Blue Jays, just owning it to own it and maybe eventually you buy the arena and make some real coin? One shudders at that possibility, especially since the price tag would be sure to be a lot less than $43 million.

If that's the long-term plan, then Springer should be big enough to write off any criticisms as sticks and stones. He should not be strong-arming the local media into removing commentators who have spoken critically of the team (trust me, it's happened). It is pretty glaring that the local media consistently punts on using its power to draw attention what is so blatantly obvious. Loose Pucks noted "the half-full building was a topic of discussion" during the OHL skills competition, but you could scarcely hear a critical word from any the media outlets in Kingston.

The Whig-Standard should be about 90-95% off the hook, since it has always dealt with the Doug Springer (and Larry Mavety) problem by high-roading it and providing a model sports section, one that has diverse coverage and doesn't overdose on hockey to the exclusion of amateur, high school and university sports. (Go on their website. Today they've managed to cover the all-star game and Ontario men's curling championship in Napanee and also find space for a feature on a St. Lawrence College basketball player. That's more good hyper-local sports content than some of the former Osprey dailies have in a week.)

Getting back to the point, though, it is well past time to point out Doug Springer has yet again embarrassed the city he purports to represent. This oracle (pretentious, much?) has said little since honestly, it's all in syndication at this point.

From this vantage point, one may only write, "The public perception of Springer seems to have cemented. He can't win in Kingston. The only way out of this mess is a change in ownership" (January 7, 2008) and, "At some point Springer has to figure out that he has stop trying to put a Mercedes-Benz façade on a broken-down beater of an OHL franchise" (June 5, 2009) so many times without seeing those who have a larger bullhorn use theirs.

The Frontenacs have become the kings of empty promises and pathetic spin-doctoring. The optics are loud and clear: Springer doesn't give a fat rat's ass about running a class organization, and neither should you. Good on fans for staying home.

That brings it back to the crux of the Doug Springer problem. His organization will not reason or look in the mirror, or wear its many mistakes with player personnel and promotion. They dropped the ball with the all-star game big time and they'll still act like they did the city a friggin' favour by embarrassing it on national television. If past behaviour is any indication, they and their legion of sycophants, the Springer Suckers, will try to shout down anyone who points this out, typing with two fingers and cap lock key on. (Bring it on, he said, typing from his one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa.)

Meantime, the death knell continues for an OHL market. Springer will never run out of excuses or scapegoats, but the fanbase has run out of patience. Cannot blame them.

It has been 835 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

Frontenacs: Bad policy as usual

Never look for logic with the human comedy which is the Kingston Frontenacs, unless you want your head to hurt.

The Frontenacs say they are bidding for next season's Memorial Cup, so what do they do? Trading for a player who will be too old for major junior hockey next season. According to Loose Pucks, GM-for-life Larry Mavety is working on a trade with the Saginaw Spirit that "would send an overager to Kingston, while Saginaw would get a young player and picks. No idea when this is happening now."

Please don't ask: How Frontenacs owner Doug Springer and his pet dinosaur can be earnest about hosting a Memorial Cup in the future, while mortgaging the team's prospects at being competitive in 2010-11; how they can expect to get the Memorial Cup when more stable, seriously run franchises such as Windsor, Mississauga-St. Michaels (which as per Tony Ambrogio, is bidding) are in the running; and how this is anything but bad-hockey-as-usual from the only team, in a league which is cyclical in nature, which is 0-for-the-2000s at winning a playoff series.

Honestly, this site, laugh if you must, is for trying to talk about positives, so that's why there is not much to say about the Frontenacs. Anyway, any time Loser Suit Larry is talking trade, this comes to mind.

Lisa: Do you really think you can get our dental plan back, dad?
Homer: Well, that depends on who's the better negotiator, Mr. Burns or me...
Bart: Dad, I'll trade you this delicious doorstop for your crummy old Danish.
Homer: Done and done.

Please don't ask why the people in Kingston who raise these questions, such as Mark Potter, get treated as pariahs.

Fronts: Trivia about a trivial franchise

Any savvy junior hockey fan believes he has a system for dealing with Sunday games where the visitors are winding up a 3-in-3 road trip.

Typically, the hometown team gets to pump in a few goals past a hung-out-to-dry goaltender. Or you steer clear, thinking it will be a dog of a game where the hometowners play down to the level.

Then there are the Kingston Frontenacs. Two of the past three Sundays, the Frontenacs have hosted a Western Conference team on the final leg of 3-in-3. They managed to score one goal in those two games. True story.

Oh, and when Nathan Moon got a misconduct during Sunday's 2-0 loss to Owen Sound, coach Doug Gilmour responded by:

A) Sending him back to the dressing room;
B) Benching him for the rest of the game;
C) Admonishing him in the media afterward;
D) Pretending nothing happened.

The correct answer is E) Asking Larry Mavety what to do?

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:

"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.

"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."

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.

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 mediocre 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!

Six degrees of gruesome Fanelli injury

There's a Kingston connection with the awful story about Ben Fanelli, the Kitchener Rangers rookie defenceman who is in intensive care with skull and facial fractures.

The firsts-thing-first hoping Fanelli has a full recovery (not the same as whether he'll return to competitive hockey). It was not a head shot although it did look like Michael Lianbas, the 20-year-old Erie Otters player, took a good three full strides before hitting Fanelli, who had turned his back to play the puck up the boards behind his own goal.

The odd part is Fanelli went in the fourth round of the OHL draft in May, one round after the Rangers selected forward Keli Grant, a Kingston boy who attends Ernestown Secondary School, where my mother teaches. Mike Koreen, the Kingston Whig-Standard's excellent sports editor, wrote a while back about how Grant's experience this fall "will hit home for those who feel it's tough to force 15-or 16-year-olds to make such an important decision about their athletic future at an early age."

Perhaps that's where the debate is, whether it's necessarily good to force 16-year-olds to skate alongside 20-year-olds. For every player who's ready for it emotionally and physically, there are a few who are not, speaking generally.

The Rangers kept Fanelli instead of Grant to fill out their maximum allotment of three 16-year-old players. Grant ended up being caught up in a numbers game in Kitchener and with his hometown Kingston Kimco Voyageurs Junior A, who are only allowed two 16-year-olds (one of whom is his twin, Kris Grant.) He also lost his NCAA eligibility in the process by playing in an exhibition game with the Rangers.

Needless to say, all of that is a trifle compared to what is ahead for Fanelli and his family. Strange how that works. (Bob McKenzie might have Twitter updates on Fanelli later.)

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

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

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

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

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

Fronts: 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

Fronts: Sixth is something sweet? Barrie that notion

One would at least think that Kingston Frontenacs and Barrie Colts could at least colour-coordinate, since they trade so often.

It only cost Larry Mavety a fourth-round pick to add 215-pound grinder Andrew Clouthier, whom the Colts "just didn't have room for" in their deepish forward corps, quoth a Barrie sportswriter. Of course, part of the reason Clouthier was the odd man out is that Barrie's "nine guys with 20 goal potential" and "three legitimate scoring lines" (OHL Prospects) include two former Kingston first-round draft choices, Josh Brittain and Luke Pither.

That coveted sixth-place finish in the OHL's Eastern Conference can almost be tasted, keeping in mind that it will have a fair bit to do with randomness as well as skill.

This, of course, is not so much about Clouthier, who might add some jam and make sure teams don't take liberties with the skill players such as Ethan Werek, Nathan Moon, first-round draft pick Alan Quine and offensive defenceman Brian Lashoff, who came over in the Brittain trade.

The point is the obvious: It's a shopworn stratagem for Mavety to trade a potential three- to four-year asset, a draft choice, for a player who might be out of junior hockey next season. It's already happened a couple times this summer. Cynics and apologists alike might point out that last season Mavety twice acquired players who were already out of major junior, so this would represent an improvement.

One also needs to be clear-eyed about the Frontenacs ending up about sixth in the conference. The team should be better and much easier on the eyes (and nerves). However, the Killer B's, the Brampton Battalion (league runners-up last season) and Belleville Bulls ('08 runners-up) are in bona fide rebuilding mode. The tide seems to be out in Niagara and Oshawa.

Those random circumstances are going to influence whether the short-term thinking Mavety subscribes to will appear to have worked. People in Kingston need to take that into account rather than plan a celebration in Springer Market Square if they just happen to make the playoffs.

No one is down on Kingston making the playoffs and maybe winning a post-season series for the first time since 1998, especially if you pay municipal taxes in that city or happens to be a city councillor planning to run for re-election in November 2010. (It seems to have been forgotten the revenue projections the K-Rock Centre include four home playoff dates.)

One should be able to look at a franchise's track record and know whether it has a capacity for rebuilding. Finishing sixth is nice, for a moment. Since 1998-99, when the OHL expanded to 20 teams, no team has won the league championship after finishing lower than fourth in its conference. Only two, the 1999 London Knights and 2007 Sudbury Wolves, have reached the league championship.

Brampton and Belleville appear to be aware they are the bottom of a cycle. With Kingston, it's hockey as usual. There will be a playoff appearance this season, which is going to seem kind of unusual. And if that's not a sad commentary on the Frontenacs organization ...

Related:
Frontenacs acquire forward from Barrie (Sun Media)
So long, Clouthier, hello draft pick (Barrie Examiner)

Fronts: Beskorowany literally a big piece of the puzzle

Doug Gilmour has his big goalie: The Kingston Frontenacs just announced they have added 6-foot-5 Dallas Stars second-round draft choice Tyler Beskorowany from the Owen Sound Attack.

(And hey, they managed to get radio coverage.)

Beskorowany got drafted on upside. Part of the reason he was available was that the Sound Attack has another NHL-drafted big 'tender, Scott Stajcer (a fifth-round pick of the New York Rangers), who is a year younger. That's a big piece of the story, although it doesn't mean the deal should get panned from a Kingston perspective.

The upshot is that Beskorowany was added for relatively little, with centre Bobby Mignardi and a 2010 fourth-round pick going to the Sound Attack. One would have to figure that Beskorowany, after splitting the games almost 50/50 last season is Owen Sound, is coming in assured that he will start the season as the No. 1 netminder with either John Cullen or Mavric Parks as the backup. The people who have time invested in Beskorowany would like him to play more than 37 games and if he's as good as his NHL draft status indicates, then he should.

Some scouting reports have noted Beskorowany, who had a 3.64 goals against average and .902 save percentage with Owen Sound, has some issues with controlling rebounds. This is where you keep your fingers crossed the Frontenacs are going to be much tighter with their, cue Harry Neale, defensive zone coverage.

Parks' play in the first half of last season might have been worth a couple wins for a foundering Frontenacs team. However, even his biggest supporter will admit he had a proclivity to follow up a string of great saves by letting in a soft goal. One would hope he would rise to the challenge of having to earn his playing time after being the only option for much of last season, whether that is in Kingston.

(Kinger notes in the comments that adding a 19-year-old goalie is only a one-year move. The Frontenacs are notorious for this, but picking up a NHL-drafted goalie could also be a focal point.)

Meantime, the gang at Fronts Talk directed attention to the news the Fronts have found a radio partnership with, wait for it, 88.7 myFM in Napanee. (I would ask my parents how it sounds, but they might not be able to get from their RR1 Napanee address; just kidding, but only a little).

Far be it to put a spin on owner Doug Springer's contention that putting broadcasts on a 6,000-watt adult contemporary station will "help the team win fans in outlying areas" by saying he might want to prioritize keeping fans in Kingston's core.

Today is not the day for that. Please save smart remarks about a Kingston team having its games on a Napanee station that might be hard to get in parts of Kingston, or that trading for Beskorowany is only proof Mavric Parks is indeed one of the OHL's top goaltenders, as an anonymous commenter contended earlier this week. It's all on the up and up. Most of the commentariat has been that Gilmour has upgraded his complement of forwards and defencemen and now he has a NHL-drafted goalie.

(Although, it is almost like they are taunting Kinger. They trade for a goalie who is the same height, has the same first name and put the games on a radio station in his technically adopted hometown and make sure it's station whose signal is not much more stronger than CFRC 101.9 FM. Well played.)

Sentenced to the Island ...

No doubt a lot of in-the-know people were aware what Ontario Hockey League player was convicted of manslaughter in the death of 15-year-old Manny Castillo in a high school rugby game two years ago.

Long story short, the player received a year's probation and 100 hours' community service. Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act is what is, so one cannot say explicitly who it was. Apparently it was decided that being drafted by a certain NHL team was punishment enough. Suffice to say, if you do not want to know who the player was, do not visit Chris Botta's blog.

(Update: Does it need to be explained that it was a joke to say being drafted by a certain NHL team is punishment enough?)

Related:
The Castillo verdict: Don't press the panic button (May 28, 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 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, 2009

And 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!)

Fronts: Geldart supplies the jam

It looks like our beloveds, the Kingston Frontenacs, have turned a weakness into a strength,

The talk on the NOOF and Fronts Talk is that grinder Kaine Geldart is coming home for his overage season. The Fronts have flipped the sixth overall choice in the CHL import draft to the Plymouth Whalers, and will get two draft choices in return. If it looks like a desperate attempt to squeak into the playoffs to convince people they're really trying (even though owner Doug Springer said last season the goal was "top four"), well, it is.

The Fronts typically make little use of the import draft since it requires Springer to do more than the bare minimum. Based on that alone, getting Geldart is a decent move. The Fronts sometimes don't value rounds 2-15 in the OHL Priority Selection, either, so it is just as well that GM-for-life Larry Mavety traded three draft choices for someone with only one year left in the league. Hey, a Frontenacs fan is nothing if not practical.

Geldart was a fan favourite with the Whalers and he should give the Fronts some badly needed jam up front. The trade might also answer questions about the status of the three potential overagers who were left at the end of the season.

(Update: Plymouth has put out a release.)

Geldart is 5-foot-9, 175 lbs, about the same size David Ling was in the early 1990s when he was perhaps the most popular player to ever lace 'em up forthe Fronts. He isn't a scorer like Linger was, but he's had glowing notices for intangibles:

"Silent off the ice, Geldart constantly chirps the opposition and receives the same treatment back. In spite of his size (he's listed at 5'9), Geldart will fight any opposing player. He forechecks as well as anyone in the league and adds his share of offense to the Whalers attack. Geldart is also a responsible defensive forward.

"Pound-for-pound, nobody is tougher in the OHL. Older Whalers fans might remember Mark Cadotte, who played in Plymouth from 1995-97 and is now working as a part-time assistant coach with the Windsor Spitfires. Geldart plays a similar style.

"The pot is always stirred up when Geldart is on the ice. Watch him away from the puck and you'll see." Pete Krupsky, Michigan Live, Oct. 30, 2008

The Frontenacs are lacking in scrappy grit quotient up front, save for one of the newest members of the New York Rangers organization, Ethan Werek. The Fronts generally have a smallish group of forwards, save for the Ethanator, whose wont is to outthink opposing d-men, although he is not averse to banging them up along the boards.

Ultimately, Geldart is probably Doug Gilmour's kind of player. Meantime, he's an overager (a player born in 1989). Forward George Lovatsis and d-men Corbin Crawford and Zack Fenwick are the other 89s who were still in the Fronts' employ at the end of the season, so if Geldart is coming, one of them is not. Fenwick previously played NCAA Division 1 and he finished last season in the ECHL, if anyone is looking for smoke.

Granted, the Fronts could have also traded for Geldart just so they can release him and let him earn a championship ring with the Kingston Kimco Voyageurs. (Just kidding, not really.)

David Branch out to show the 'O' does not stand for 'Omertà'

Sunaya Sapurji, of Loose Pucks fame, touched on a topic that is near and dear to junior hockey fans, noting the Ontario Hockey is "in the market for an enforcer to lay down the law for teams when it comes to the existing rules regarding hazing, draft manipulation and excess player benefits."

This is kind of amusing, with Sapurji's gum-shoeing coming out on the very day that Kingston's Scott Harrington signed with the London Knights, which he just happened to fall to at the 19th overall pick after saying he was going to college:

"A survey of 17 of the OHL's 20 general managers conducted by the Star shows 13 believe there are teams manipulating their annual priority selection. However, when asked — off the record — if their own team has participated in draft manipulation, all 17 answered 'no.' "

However, Darren Ferris, who is adviser for, wait for it, Scott Harrington, might have hit the nail on the head:

"They don't need an enforcement officer, they need a development officer to go after the teams that don't develop players."

The kneejerk reaction is to wonder how much success Branch can have making a league with such an omertà culture more transparent.

It is a noble goal, though, and it is possible that there are younger, more open-minded people coming into the league who realize it's bad for business if there's a perception of a lack of oversight. The reality of the digital age means it would be harder for the league to keep something under the rug (imagine if the Windsor Spitfires hazing scandal had occurred in 2008 instead of 2005).

Sapurji's story note this enforcer's duties would cover everything, including draft manipulation, hazing and good old-fashioned payola (far be it to say that if someone wants to buy a 16-year-old's parents a new house in order to try to win a Memorial Cup, that's their problem).

Like Ferris said, this could go one step farther. Teams should be subject to audits of their entire hockey operation, especially those who give contract extensions to general managers who are 0 for the last 11 seasons when it comes to building a team which can win a playoff series.

The teams are franchisees and if the way they're running things are not up to snuff, the league should be able to take action. It is the same principle Harlan Sanders used to work on when he was building Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Meantime, feel free to interpret this as if the situation with Harrington was a last straw. Draft manipulation is nothing new in junior hockey and it's not even clear if it's completely negative.

The players and their parents deserve some say in where their little Dylans and Conors end up playing. Some might say the teams who pay the price are those who won't pay the price to get top-end players. The onus is a two-way street.

However, this is business and the league is right to worry about fallout from another Windsor or a feeling that the games are not on the level. After Harrington just happened to fall to the London Knights, there was an enough's-enough feeling.

Related:
OHL plans crackdown on teams breaking rules (Sunaya Sapurji, Toronto Star)

Fronts: Werek to wreck it on draft day

Finding out where Ethan Werek goes in the NHL draft is to this site as scoring Aerosmith tickets was to Randall "Pink" Floyd Dazed and Confused ("major event of the summer"). Seriously, it is, in the sad-but-true department.

The excellent OHL Prospects is counting down the league's top 50 draft-eligible players and, by process of elimination, the Kingston Frontenacs centre and blog beejo is in the Top 10. Werek was the eighth OHLer and 32nd skater overall in the final NHL Central Scouting rankings. Astute readers will note that Werek chose the Frontenacs over college hockey at Boston University to help his draft status and he's only two spots ahead of a forward named Alex Chaisson who has chosen college hockey at Boston University.

(Update: Werek is ranked fifth among OHLers. He is 26th on the International Scouting Service list, so first round is a possibility.)

Here's what the site had to say, in part, about the Ethanator:

"Why the concerns about his offensive potential? In Stouffville Junior A last year, he outscored Corey Trivino, being a year younger, and all that was heard about Trivino last year was the offensive potential he had. This just in though, Werek can play, and play well. Scoring 32 goals on that Kingston team this year is quite impressive, considering how terrible they were. Even more impressive was his consistent effort throughout the entire season, continuing to improve as the season went along and he got more comfortable. Look at how he finished the season, 6 goals, 7 assists in the 8 games of March. Werek is just a solid player. He skates hard, forechecks and is developing into a very effective puck possession player. He has good hands and can from time to time, flash some serious stickhandling ability, especially in driving to the net, which he did with increasing authority as the season went along. He backchecks, he takes the body, and he's slowly developing into a power forward. He's also an incredibly intelligent player, who knows where to be on the ice."

For anyone wondering, the OHL has had at least 10 players taken in the first two rounds of every NHL draft held in the past 10 years, so that bodes well for Werek's chances. On average, the 10th OHL player selected goes about 46th overall, so keep that in mind for wagering purposes (actually, if you're betting on the NHL draft, you probably should seek help).

Anyway, the best to Werek, who became a beejo of this site early last season. It only seemed sporting to cheer for him after this site got great mileage out of his holdout in 2007-08 and the Frontenacs dumb-lucked into him. That went double when both Larry Mavety and Doug Gilmour would pull stunts like using a defenceman in a shootout instead of him, and such. It was clear early on that he'd be something once he adapted to the pace and physicality of the OHL. It also exacerbated the jock-sniffing once it was publicized that he was attending Queen's University.

Frontenacs defenceman Taylor Doherty is 15th on OHL Prospects' list, which confirms what observers such as Tim Cunningham of TVCogeco said all season:

"There is no denying that Doherty had a very disappointing season. He was talked about as a potential mid first rounder, and now could be lucky to see himself go in the mid 2nd round. However there are still things to like about him. For one, he's 6'8, 218lbs. For two, he has solid puck skills and shows great skating ability moving forward in carrying the puck up the ice. For three, he's not afraid to take the body and use his size to his advantage. Now for the downside. For one, while he's a solid straight away skater, his lateral and backwards mobility needs work, especially for him to develop into an effective two way defender. For two, he also needs to work on his defensive zone coverage. At times he becomes over aggressive and loses his man, leading to scoring opportunities. For three, his hockey sense at the offensive end has come into question and leads some to believe those offensive stats will never come. So that's three strikes for, three strikes against. He's a project, there is no denying it, but there is enough to like that suggests with solid coaching and an attitude directed towards improvement (where the draft interviews come in handy), he can develop into an NHL defender."

OHL fans outside the GTA hold these truths to be self-evident

Let the name-calling begin: The London Knights took a quote, unquote flier on college hockey-bound Scott Harrington from the Kingston Kimco Voyageurs in today's OHL priority selection (or as it's called in English, "draft").

Harrington and his advisers have to do what is best for Harrington, who will only be 16 years old once. The real beef is:

• People have fib to get what's best for a player's future;
  
  
• A boy who's still only Grade 10 is put in such a predicament;
  
  
• The OHL maintains the façade that the draft is a fair fight;
  
  
• A loaded London team just happened to take a top-5 talent with the 19th overall selection at no risk to them.

It is an eye-roller when Harrington and his agent tell the hometown paper, "Our plan right now is to go NCAA," and then boom, he gets drafted by London.

Who knows how this plays out. One scenario is that the Knights will say they had a different "vibe" when they spoke to Harrington. He'll say that after thinking it over, the OHL is really the best place to play. It's easy to predict since this has happened so many times before.

It doesn't take too long, about three minutes over MSN with a fellow junior hockey devotee, to come up with with five players in the past few years who have said they were going to play college hockey and then changed their mind after being drafted by London. The Knights got future No. 1 overall NHL draft pick Patrick Kane, now starring for the Chicago Blackhawks, that way. The same went for current Edmonton Oilers center Sam Gagner. John Carlson, London's best defenceman and Phil McRae, a superb forward, were each committed to the the U.S. national team development program before mysteriously breaking that to go to the Knights. (And you wonder why each was left off the U.S. world junior team last season.) London is hardly the only team. Others remember how Brampton Battalion standouts Cody Hodgson and Matt Duchene, who have the same agent, gamed the system in order to play together.

One should be happy for Scott Harrington. All he said was, "Our plan right now is to go NCAA, so we're going to focus on that route right now and we'll see what happens on draft day." That's not even a lie. His concept of right now just happened to very ephemeral.

The kicker is that Harrington has to make this choice. There is no political will in hockey to work for a reasonable solution, like letting someone play in any amateur league he wants until he finishes high school and has a better idea of whether he has a shot at the NHL, or should parlay his puck skills into getting an education.

Harrington deserves to write his own ticket, like anyone who's graduated at the top of the class, so to speak. The machinations are completely understandable on his end, but try telling that to the fans who support the league with their discretionary income, venturing out on cold winter nights to watch the hometown team. People who follow the OHL support it as a business because they want to see teams win more than they want to see individual players develop, although that is a big part of the sell.

Fans have had it up to here with the league insisting all teams are created equal when season after season, top-end talents just happen to fall to certain teams, often those located in Ontario's Golden Horseshoe such as Brampton, Kitchener and London.

The real kicker is that London is not out anything if Harrington actually pursues college hockey, which we all know he's not doing (although he would conceivably play two full seasons with his hometown Vees). Ontario Hockey League teams can get a compensatory second-round draft choice if the first-rounder doesn't report. That makes taking him less of a risk to London, which is usually drafting near the end of the first round. The trade-off is much, much greater for a team picking in the top 10. Talk about an unintended consequence.

It's not clear how much sympathy there should be for the small-city teams out in the hinterlands. Franchises such as the Kingston Frontenacs should look in the mirror first if agents and parents try to steer top-end players to other teams.

At the same time, they can't do anything about geography. Many of the league's faithful customers are upset, and nothing gets done. What a way to run a business.

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brampton and Bollywood goes together like aloo gobi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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