Has a season of parity come to senior hockey?

If you believe parity is good for sports, the past few seasons haven’t exactly been ideal for Ontario’s senior hockey league.

Last year, the gap between first and last place in the standings was 39 points. The year before it was 44.

Over the past five years it’s never been closer than 28. Only once in the past decade has the difference been as little as 20 points. This in a 24-game season.

“The only time I like to see our league set up with a powerhouse is if it’s us,” quips Dundas Real McCoys president Don Robertson. He’s only half-joking. There is some good news. A few games in to the new season there are signs things may be evening out a bit in the five-team league. Already Stoney Creek has beaten Brantford, Brantford has beaten Dundas, Dundas has beaten Hamilton — and to complete the loop, Hamilton has beaten Stoney Creek.

“It would appear the balance is starting out better than it has in years,” Robertson says.

Maybe. Stoney Creek Generals general manager Tony Falasca says his team hasn’t had its full roster out yet, as is the case with a couple other teams. That could change things a bit since his side has been the class of the league and eventual champion for the past couple seasons. A few more top players could tilt things again.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want things to even out a bit. He wants to win, but if his side is pushed and challenged and loses a few more games along the way because other teams are better.

According to Hamilton Steelhawks owner Jason Daleo, Falasca pushed everyone in the off-season to improve for the betterment of the league. Better teams mean better games. Better games should translate into more fans. More f ans strengthens the league’s bottom line and solidifies everything.

It appears everyone took the challenge to heart.

“If I didn’t talk to 300 hockey players this off-season …,” Daleo says.

He decided to go after higher-end players this year. Guys with bigger resumes who’d played OHL and NCAA hockey and maybe minor pro. It meant much more work for him. Especially when he expanded his recruiting efforts to include a few former NHLers.

Theo Peckham played 160 games for the Edmonton Oilers as well as hundreds more in the AHL, ECHL and Europe. Daleo heard he was in Owen Sound and open to playing. So the owner made the three-hour drive just to have coffee and see if he could get the 29-year-old to sign.

“It ended up being lunch,” he laughs. “It was a long drive.”

But he got him. Just as he got former NHLer David Ling.

Robertson’s also sounded like the star of a Johnny Cash song. Because he, too, has been everywhere. On Thursday he went to Toronto to court a player to continue adding pieces. It’s just what you have to do now to keep up with the Generals.

Early on, it seems the efforts are having the desired effect. Though this weekend will offer a further test of whether the parity is real or a short-lived blip. The Steelhawks play in Brantford on Friday, where they’ve won just one of five games in their two-plus years in the league.

That same night, Dundas opens its home schedule at Harry Howell Arena, hosting the Whitby Dunlops at 8 p.m. The Real McCoys will be calling the rink (at the corner of Highways 5 and 6 in Flamborough) home all season while upgrades are made to the JL Grightmire Arena.

The bigger surface may be a help to the McCoys — and to the cause of parity — since the Dundas side has lost its past five home games to Whitby on the undersized ice at Grightmire.