NOJHL through these eyes
East and West, 12 teams in two divisions, first pucks of the 2016-2017 regular season will drop this week on the ever-improving Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League.
The prevailing notion is that parity will be present and that it will be a stretch for the two-time defending champion Soo Thunderbirds to make it a three-peat.
Not that the Thunderbirds are being cast as cellar-dwelling also-rans. It’s just that the newly-owned, newly-managed Thunderbirds have lost multiple key components from the 2015-2016 title team, including nine players to graduation and others who have moved up a level, including twin-terror forwards Darian Pilon and Drake Pilon to the Ontario Hockey League’s Sudbury Wolves.
But as one of many sidebar stories of note, the Thunderbirds have added reputable former NOJHL head coach and OHL assistant coach Zoltan (Toots) Kovacs as an associate coach to Jordan Smith, who is also the new general manager.
Kovacs, recently retired from 33 years of employment with the Ontario youth justice system, brings teaching ability, hockey sense and life-lesson guidance to the Thunderbirds. While known as a players coach, Kovacs has a keen competitive edge to him that can raise the ire of opposing coaches, as his long-time junior hockey adversary Jim Capy — now with the Soo Eagles — can attest to.
Speaking of Capy and the Eagles, look for them to be much-improved this season after finishing fourth in the West Division in 2015-2016 following their return to the NOJHL after three years in the North American Hockey League.
Capy and co-coach/general manager Bruno Bragagnolo are fresh from a summer of high-end recruiting that, at first blush, has made the Eagles a bigger, faster, more-skilled team than they were last season.
The aforementioned Kovacs, Capy and Bragagnolo are three warhorses who through their experience and expertise will do their part in continuing to help make the NOJHL a junior A league of choice, opportunity and success.
Others in the 50-plus age range who who have returned to the NOJHL in key positions are Blind River Beavers senior advisor and director of scouting Charly Murray, Rayside-Balfour Canadians coach-general manager Dave Clancy and French River Rapids coach Moe Mantha.
This will mark the second tour of duty in Blind River for Murray, who was part of the only Beavers team to win a playoff series since they returned to the NOJHL 15 years ago.
New Rayside-Balfour hockey boss Clancy is an NOJHL champion from his days with the erstwhile Sudbury Jr. Wolves.
And Mantha returns to the NOJHL and French River after finishing the ’15-16 season as interim head coach of the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit.
Back to the prevailing parity that was first proposed in the second paragraph of this column, I am of the notion that the West Division is going to be very close this season.
With the Thunderbirds in a re-do, the Eagles are poised for a climb up the West Division ladder as are Blind River and the Espanola Express. And knowing what we do about Clancy in Rayside-Balfour and Elliot Lake Wildcats general manager Todd Stencill, those two entries can be counted on to be competitive, at the very least.
If there is a concern in Elliot Lake, it is the loss of rising-star coach Nathan Hewitt to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport hockey ranks.
On the East side, workaholic owner-general manger-coach Ryan Leonard has made the Cochrane Crunch an NOJHL force in just two years up in polar bear country.
And the same can be said for the superb job that general manager Chris Dawson has done in quickly making the small-town Powassan Voodoos an elite NOJHL franchise.
Elsewhere in the East, as seasoned coach Mantha returns to French River, there is a new owner and general manager in the energetic Jessy Landry.
Question marks surround the Iroquois Falls Eskis, Kirkland Lake Gold Miners and Timmins Rock.
As Iroquois Falls is annually among the NOJHL attendance leaders despite being a small-market team, the Eskis head into this season unproven in the coaching department.
Kirkland Lake has had a lot of on-ice success under the Gold Miners moniker but team operators cried financial hardship during the off-season and threatened to fold the franchise.
And in large-market Timmins, the Rock remains an enigma. Timmins is coached by the reputable, respectable Paul Gagne but for whatever reason, playoff success has been ho-hum under his watch for the past few years.
Here’s to a new season.
Go Eagles Go . . . and beat the ‘Dirty Birds’ !
Prediction West
1. Soo Eagles “very strong team”
2. Elliot Lake “same old”
3. Blind River “big improvement”
4. Espanola “could be 3rd separated by 1 or 2 points”
5. RBC “new young blood will be competitive but will need a year or two”
6. Soo Thunderbirds “Roster looks very thin”
Prediction East
1. Cochrane “loaded up again”
2. Powassan “lost some talent but will be good down the stretch”
3. Timmins “Much more depth”
4. Kirkland Lake “3rd to 4th will be a big jump where KL is in rebuild mode but coaching gets them 4th”
5. French River “Great coaching and a new owner brings competitive game nights in Noelville”
6. Eskis “traded a lot of talent away last season and replaced a good coach with an unproven one, things are not looking good in Eski land”
Anyway just my thoughts let the games begin its a long way to March…
Bring back 14 players, beat cochrane in one game, lead the next game against them for 2 periods but lose by one. Prediction: Cochrane in first, Eskis in last? Eskis beat kl, beat Espanola but yeah last place and things aren’t looking good in IF after drawing 400 fans to their only exhibition game.? looking awful for sure lol
14 kids, more returning players than any other team in the league came to IROQUOIS FALLS of all places to play for that unproven coach who was an assistant coach last year. Does that not tell you anything? I get its exhibition season and there are few indicators at this time, but somehow you missed the only things one can base a prediction on.
First year with this league, looking forward to it starting up tomorrow!
I was surprised there were no off-season team changes, like they’re usually are for the past 8 years. I was thinking the Thunderbirds were going to fold or move out of the Soo, probably to Batchewana. But playing in the Essar Centre, where you can’t fill the seats for the Thunderbirds game means moving to a smaller arena to cut down costs.
Eski Fan I know the people support the team I should have been clear in saying… “on the ice things don’t look good” off the ice has never been a problem up there… my apologies.