"London took a gamble that defenceman Scott Harrington can be swayed from attending a U.S. college, which long ago scared off his hometown Kingston Frontenacs from taking him second overall.
"Harrington, who plays a strong two-way game, was eventually scooped 19th by the Knights.
" 'Sometimes, you roll the dice," general manager Mark Hunter told the London Free Press. 'He's one of the top couple of players in the draft. We'll try to talk to him and see what happens.'
"... Kingston went with Plan B, 5-foot-10 centre Alan Quine." — Toronto Sun
Who knows who will turn out to be the better player. (This is a sleazy way to keeping the door open to screaming bloody murder if Harrington becomes the best defenceman in the OHL in 2-3 years' time.)
For the time being, itseems best to hedge. There was no drop-dead No. 1 pick in the draft beyond Daniel Catenacci, whom the Frontenacs lost their shot at when they put together a few window-dressing wins in low-leverage situations late in the season. Kingston said very early in the process that it was leaning toward taking a forward. Harrington, by most accounts, was not a no-doubter as the best defenceman available. He and Ryan Murphy (the No. 3 overall pick to Kitchener) and Justin Sefton (who went No. 5 to Sudbury) were played up as kind of 1, 1A and 1B among the crop of 1993-born d-men. The Frontenacs also have Erik Gudbranson just a year ahead of them.
This franchise is not always wrong. Time will tell, eh.
Incidentally, on the subject of Kingston and hockey, it did not go so well for the Voyageurs in their opener at the RBC Cup, a 5-0 loss to the Victoria Grizzlies. They face Summerside in their second game.
(Congratulations are also in order for Whig-Standard city editor Claude Scilley. Claude, who was previously the sports ed., won an Ontario Newspaper Award for editorial writing last weekend.
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Just an aside the 5-0 loss was to the host and the only team that didn't win their regional championship to qualify.
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