Sell The Fronts, Springer

Did everyone see that the Whig-Standard had an article today talking about how the Vees are such a “First-class” organization.

There’s no reason to think that Provincial Junior A team,  but it seemed a little excessive, since the reason there was a story being done was because one of the players had been named MVP in the conference. (What league names a MVP when the regular season isn’t even over yet?)

It’s almost like an indirect way of pointing out to people, “Hey, the Vees have a great owner in Gregg Rosen; by comparison, the Frontenacs must have terrible ownership.”

There’s been accusations on the messsage boards that the local paper hasn’t been tough enough on the Fronts this season, but this is one way of embarrassing Doug Springer a bit. That assumes Springer actually has the ability to feel embarrassed; judging by his hockey team, he might not.

The good people at Hockey Now aren’t buying the spin-doctoring about how the Frontenacs have a stockpile of draft choices:

18. Kingston Frontenacs
The franchise is bottoming out. Made a trade at the deadline to get promising G Mavric Parks from the Rangers. They have acquired lots of draft picks, but have a poor record of using them to draft successfully. A tough year to be a Fronts fan.

Belleville, meantime, is rated, get this, second out of 20 teams. The Frontenacs, who play in a bigger city, are third-worst. Essentially, being a Frontenacs fan is like being the tubby, mouthy kid in Superbad when he’s in home ec class, isolated and alone, cooking his terrible-tasting food, and has to look over at his buddy Evan, who looks like he’s having the time of his life.

That’s pretty much what it’s like, save for the terrible-tasting food. Everyone knows Brown’s makes the best French fries in the league.

Well, here’s possible proof of what many people think of Doug Springer as a pillar of the community: The City of Kingston is admitting it’s tapped out when it comes to raising money locally for the renovation of the historic Market Square downtown.

You’ll remember that the City tried to rename it Springer Market Square. They actually did, didn’t they, but has any self-respecting Kingstonian ever called it that? That was a sure way not to get people to donate, name it after the family whose spoiled son has not only ruined the local junior hockey team, but rendered it uncompetitive for years to come.

What isn’t tapped out is our indignation and outrage over what’s become of the Frontenacs. It’s all about how to hang in there (hence the kitty picture) for the remaining 25 games without looking like we’re supporting Springer, Larry Mavety, Tony Cimellaro and the bad hockey for which they stand.

That’s tough to do without the message being the lost. An OHL player’s career is so short, and these guys are 18, 19 years old, so booing them is a little unfair. Plus there are have been games recently where it really looked the Frontenacs were giving the old 110 percent (although anyone can do that when there’s really no pressure because you’re 20 points out of the playoffs).

Of course, cheer for any of those guys, and you’re cheering for the management that thought they could help Josh Brittain become a better prospect for the NHL draft than Zack Bogosian, or that they could help Daryl Borden blossom into a No. 1 goalie in the league.

(Apparently, the big youth youth movement now also involves having an overage defenceman play 30 minutes a game.)

So what do we do? You can’t not say anything about Doug Springer, the worst owner in the OHL by a country mile or his comically clueless coach-GM. The Fronts are at least capable of producing a decent effort every other game and taking advantage of it when another team treats Kingston like an automatic win. That’s not enough, though. Believing that is just allows Springer to continue to thrive miserably.

Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008: Windsor 3, Kingston 1

Another pleasant valley Sunday in the life of the Springer Frontenacs. The crowd was less than 2,000 again and the Fronts, not unlike last Sunday’s game vs. Belleville, were pretty much sleepwalking for most of the afternoon.

It didn’t sound like it was the most entertaining game, not that we’ve come to expect any differently. Saturday’s game in Ottawa was a good one, so you really couldn’t expect the Fronts to put on an interesting game two days in a row. By the way, there are no excuses about the 3-in-3 weekend or how young this team is, since Windsor was in the same boat on both counts.

Taylor Hall, meantime, is an exciting player. Who thinks the Frontenacs can draft someone like him this spring and actually get him to report? 

Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008: Kingston 5, Ottawa 3

This was probably 70/30 Kingston digging in and short-staffed Ottawa pulling back after they failed to stretch a 3-1 lead in the second period … the cliche I’m groping for here is that a “two-goal lead is the most dangerous lead in hockey.”

Kyle Paige scored a gift shortie when a 67’s d-man who was the last man back fell down and lost the puck, then Andris Dzerins had a hand in a couple nice goals and the Fronts had a fairly well-earned win.

Mavric Parks looked like the real deal, especially in the middle of the third period when Ottawa was making a mediocre effort at trying to get tying goal. He had a nice pad save on a point shot, then stopped a 67 in close on the ensuing power play. After that, the final eight minutes and change were played in an arena that was as quiet as a library on Saturday night.

Bottom line: Wins today are a nice respite from the reality of the Springer Frontenacs. At least they get Windsor at the end of the Spitfires’ 3-in-3 weekend.

Tommy Kratky, a midget call-up, ended up being the backup goalie today.

For a Frontenacs follower, reading this article in the Ottawa Citizen about how ex-NHLers Warren Rychel and Bob Boughner have turned around the Windsor Spitfires is like being a kid, looking over at the backyard fence at a birthday party to which you weren’t invited.

What’s going on in Windsor is evidence of what committed, hands-on hockey-savvy ownership can do for an OHL team and its fanbase (Windsor is averaging 3,800 fans per game, nearly twice the Frontenacs’ avg. attendance). It’s exactly what Doug Springer would never let in happen in Kingston, because he’s too afraid to step out of his comfort zone (mediocrity) and try to learn how to become a good OHL owner.

Hey, George Steinbrenner went from being the worst owner in sports to the best owner. So did Mark Cuban. It can be done, Dougie boy.

The Whig has a great story on the local boy, Taylor Hall. Just twist the knife a little more, why don’t you, but make sure to wipe it clean before you use it to cut the birthday cake we don’t get to have.

Friday, January 25, 2008: Niagara 6, Kingston 3

At some point it might be a good idea to start counting up the Frontenacs’ goals-for and goals-against record by period. 

This was the third game in the past five that the Frontenacs lost when leading after two. Some teams might the whole regular season without doing that; the Fronts have done it all within the past two weeks.

Whether that’s a physical conditioning issue or a confidence issue is open for discussion. You definitely see a lot of half-hearted on the backcheck and in the races for the puck as the game goes on. The players aren’t dumb. They know if they’re tiring, and then they lose their ability to play smart.

Again, someone should be asking questions about how up to speed the Frontenacs are with their conditioning program. There’s been remarkable advances in nutrition and sport-specific training (the irony being that I’m typing this while drinking a Coke). It might be time for Doug Springer to open his wallet and put some money into the budget for health and fitness professionals to work closely with the players.

By the way, the YouTube has the goalie fight. Gotta love the thinking here: Niagara’s goalie gets thrown out in his first start of the year, in a win waiting to happen, and the Fronts goalie, John Murray, must have figured, “I’m playing out my OA year with this team, what the hell.”

Not this blog is about the echo the whining from those “concerned citizens groups,” since the downtown arena will be ready in a few weeks and in time we’ll wonder why we ever had a debate over in it Kingston … but does it not seem weird that the city cut a deal with ticket distributorship based in the U.S.? Shouldn’t it have gone with a Canadian company?

Well, no more strange than Larry Mavety still being employed by the Frontenacs, I guess. By the way, according to the press release, in a couple years you’ll be able to have tickets delivered to your cell phone. Here’s betting we’ll be able to do that before Mavety learns about e-mail.

And did everyone see that Peder Skinner played in the ECHL all-star game for the Phoenix Roadrunners? One downside to the Coyotes not being so bad — you can’t say that Skinner’s playing for the best pro hockey team in that city.

Have to laugh like hell: Players taken 50-some picks later after his Royal Mavness drafted a player who’s now in Junior C are now scoring goals in the NHL.

You probably saw on The Score or on Sportscentre that Shawn Matthias got two goals for the Florida Panthers last night in his second game since being called up from the Belleville Bulls.   

Now, does anyone realize it’s almost perfect that this came in between Larry Mavety “achieving” his official 700th career coaching loss on Friday and the Springer Frontenacs having a game against none other than Belleville this afternoon?

It just goes to show how clueless Mavety, Springer and cohorts have been about projecting players’ potential. In 2004, the Bulls got Matthias with the 101st pick, in Round 6.  

That was after the Frontenacs (who in fairness, got two good players with Ben Shutron and Cory Emmerton, the latter in Round 5) had drafted the following:

• Jordan Doig (42nd overall), now playing Junior C for the Wingham Ironmen (cool name, by the way)
• Shawn Connors (69th), now playing Junior B for the Niagara Falls Canucks. Kingston native Josh Godfrey, who like Matthias won a gold medal at the world junior, went 10 picks later
• Ryan Watson (72nd), never reported, now playing in the NCAA

Point being, you can’t trust anything you hear from this franchise as long as Doug Springer and Larry Mavety have any level of serious involvement. They just don’t draft well enough. Obviously, to a certain degree it’s a crapshoot with taking 16-year-olds, but there’s more to it than bad luck.

Patrick Kane, last season’s No. 1 overall choice in the NHL, was a fifth-rounder in that draft. If Kingston was a real OHL team, maybe they could have taken a flier on him and talking him out of going to the NCAA, like London did.

There’s some nice pieces on this team (Mavric Parks, Zack Fenwick, Nathan Moon, Andris Dzerins, Josh Brittain, Bobby Mignardi, etc.), but let’s not kid ourselves. It takes 22 guys to win a championship and for too long the Fronts have tried do with 11 or 12, and typically, almost all of their top-end talent has consisted of forwards.

Anyway, today is Belleville’s last visit to the Memorial Centre, hope it’s a good one.

Friday, Jan. 17, 2008: Ottawa 6, Kingston 5

Blowing a three-goal lead on home ice against a short-staffed team — and it would have to be against the 67’s — is fitting for Larry Mavety’s 700th loss.

Fair is fair. The Fronts probably would have won if not for the chain of events in the final two minutes of the second period — two weak, weak 67’s goals sandwiched around hitting the goalpost at the other end. The first one, came off a cough-up behind the net to cut the lead to 5-3. After the hit post, a a shot that couldn’t have put a dent in the grapefruit somehow eluded Mavric Parks. Instead of possibly being up three with 20 minutes left it was 5-4, which is no-man’s land for a team that’s so fragile.

The Fronts definitely looked like they ran out of gas (there’s that famous Mavety reluctance to make sure the players are well-conditioned again, and god knows what Doug Springer has provided for strength and fitness training — he probably figures the guys who are still in high school can just take phys-ed). They were playing a 67’s team that didn’t have its two best players, Logan Couture and Jamie McGinn, who are out with injuries. This was as comical as any game I can remember during the 10 years of the Springer Frontenacs, and yet there’s no anger over it.

They were really were trying. There were some good things out there, like the 2-on-1 that Nathan Moon and Bobby Mignardi hooked up on for the goal that should have put the game away late in the second period. Parks is also a young goalie, he’s gonna give up a bad one, and hopefully he’ll bounce back quickly after being pulled in a game that his team was winning. (John Murray came in for the third and gave up the tying goal and game winner.) 

However, you saw the full gamut of why the Frontenacs never win. Trying hard between the boards ain’t enough. And how do you score 19 goals in three games and lose two of them?

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008: John Murray/Matthew Kang 4, Brampton 2

Hey, the Fronts are not so bad that they can’t win when they have one line firing, good goaltending and the other team doesn’t show up and compete.

Kang had a hat trick, Murray stopped 43 shots and it figured the Fronts would play well, since so many of their guys used to play for the Battalion. It was an enjoyable win for the kids, no doubt, good for them.

Now Mavety can get his 700th loss at home.

Normally, when you hear the words “700 Club” and “Brampton,” your first guess is that’s a reference to the typical attendance at the Powerade Centre. (Seriously. No one goes.)

Tonight’s game against the Battalion stands to be Larry Mavety’s official 700th  career coaching loss in OHL. Mav has been losing games since Pierre Elliott Trudeau was still PM and people still smoked at their desk at work while tapping away at their typewriters.

As best as anyone can figure, he probably passed it some time ago when you count games when he filled during the absence or suspension of another coach.

What’s to say? The case has been made, many times, many ways, that something has to give with the Frontenacs with both how the franchise is run and the ownership. Look, no one expects the Frontenacs to be a Memorial Cup contender each year. It’s not happening, not with the damage Doug Springer has done to the team’s reputation and the fact that the best young players out of the Toronto-Kitchener-London area are exercising more control of their hockey future (as they should).

However, if Oshawa wins the East and Kitchener wins the West, that will make the Frontenacs the one and only team in the OHL’s East Division that has not been to the Mem Cup in the past 10 years. Belleville, Peterborough and Ottawa (multiple times) have all been, and the Frontenacs haven’t even been past the first round.

Meantime, what have we seen that shows any of the powers-that-be in Kingston even care? That’s the downside to having ownership that cares more about owning something than running it. 

Jan. 13, 2008: Oshawa 10, Kingston 8

It’s unclear at the moment if Larry Mavety has surpassed 700 career losses, which would make him the losingest coach in Canadian major junior hockey history. This might have been an appropriate game to do it in, since the score was right out of that 1980s hockey that he so thrived in.

Josh Brittain had a hat trick, Andris Dzerins had six points and the Fronts still somehow lost. Hey, it was a fun little diversion and the players competed, so let’s not get too mad, the season is lost anyways. They have now allowed 27 goals in three games against Oshawa, who they still have to play three more times.

The belief here is that Mavety probably has topped 700 losses… he had 689 through ‘02-03, coached a few games last season when Bruce Cassidy was suspended and now has 18 more since Cassidy was fired this season. Yes, that’s the mark of an “OHL legend,” as he was generously described on the Rogers broadcast.

(By the way, the Fronts won on Saturday night and got one star. They lose on Sunday and get two stars. Bless you, Oshawa.)

Jan. 12, 2008: Kingston 4, Peterborough 3

Should Frontenacs fans be jealous that a game in Peterborough between an eighth-place team and ninth-place team draws 3,043 people, or is it just an excuse to mock Peterborough some more?

Hey, what else is there to do on Saturday night in Peterborough? The folks up there must have been mad, since they only gave the Frontenacs one of the three stars even though, you know, won the game.

Zack Fenwick scored the game-winner in the third period and he wasn’t on the ice for a goal against; Justin Wallingford had a couple assists. The Frontenacs have so little, Peterborough, would it have killed you to recognize their effort?