Larry MavetyThis is Larry Mavety. This dinosaur is running the Kingston Frontenacs into the ground, ruining them in a way that’s probably not only going to mean a last-place finish this season, but several more years in the basement. Larry Mavety shouldn’t be in charge of a 2-car funeral, let alone be general manager of an Ontario Hockey League team.

Excuse me — that should be general manager and coach. On Tuesday, Mavety fired Bruce Cassidy, who was supposed to be the coach who would take the Fronts to the promised land (which to most people from Kingston under the age of 35, is the second round of the playoffs). Talk about being a complete ball-less wonder: He and team owner Doug Springer fired Cassidy while the team was on a road trip up north, so Mavety wouldn’t have to face fans or the media face-to-face. It was also done the morning of a game against Sudbury, who suck almost as bad as the Frontenacs, presumably so Mavety could go behind the bench and be the big hero.

That show of sack inspired the Fronts to go out and get flattened 4-0 by Sudbury, who get this, had two short-handed goals. The Frontenacs have just two wins this year. Both were at home, one was in overtime and the other in a shootout. They have no D, no heart, no power play, no goaltending, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to improve.

That’s not Cassidy’s fault. That’s all on Mavety and Doug Springer, who lets him get away with it. The Frontenacs have become the absolute joke of junior hockey now. 

Here’s a primer on Mavety:

  1. This will be the 10th year in a row that the Frontenacs fail to get past the first round of the playoffs. Ten years! They haven’t been to the second round since 1998, the first year that Mavety came back to Kingston (and that year, he basically inherited a good team from Gary Agnew).
  2. Kingston has never, ever won anything in 35 years in the OHL. There’s exactly one championship banner up at the Memorial Centre, and oddly enough, that came in 1995 — between Mavety’s stints in Kingston. 
  3. Last year, six OHL teams bid for the Memorial Cup. The OHL basically eliminated the Fronts’ bid right off the hop. That’s how bad the Kingston organization is.
  4. The team is, get this, dead last in the OHL in goals for, goals against, power-play and penalty-killing percentages.
  5. First-round draft pick Ethan Werek refused to report to the team. For a while Mavety kept telling anyone who would listen that he was coming… at first he tried not to let on that Werek’s dad OWNS A TIER II JUNIOR A TEAM that his boy can play on until he can get a scholarship to a big U.S. college team!
  6. During the playoffs last year, former Frontenac Bobby Hughes got so mad he quit the team between periods after they (predictably) blew a big lead in Game 3 versus Oshawa. Coach Cassidy apparently wanted to say “arrivederci,” but Mavety let him back on the team. He cut the legs out from under his own coach. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it when Cassidy just didn’t quit on general principle. What kind of message did that send to the players? No wonder they play like they don’t care about the name on the front of the jersey, although with that goofy Count Frontenac crest, sometimes I can’t blame them.

Mavety seems to be bulletproof… myself and my friends who grew up in Kingston and try to stay up-to-date on Frontenacs, some from very far away, can’t understand why the hell he is kicking around. Does Doug Springer not care about anything other than his family’s property holdings? For the love of hockey, Doug, the city is basically building you a brand spanking new arena and you’re letting Old Man Mavety put out this sorry excuse for a team. Either admit you don’t know jack about hockey, or sell it to someone who does, since its value is probably going to increase.

It doesn’t matter who the next coach is, since this organization is not professionally run and no amount of coaching or having high draft picks (assuming they even show up) is going to overcome that. Larry Mavety has to go and hopefully this blog will make the case for that, since it seems like no one in Kingston cares enough to do so…. not the paper, not the radio station that airs the games nor any blogs that I could find. I know there are a million things that are more important in life, but it’s just sickening to see how bad this team is. I grew up in Kingston when the Memorial Centre was rocking on Friday nights, when they would have sellout crowds. It breaks my heart to see attendance hover around 2,000. I don’t blame people for staying away.

Who wants to spend good money to watch a team that’s basically turned into a bunch of zombies by Mavety’s gross incompetence?

The Frontenacs will never win a damn thing until they get rid of Larry Mavety and maybe get an owner who wants to win.