Falcons look to take wing
Team will have five returnees on roster including top goalie Owen Savory
It will be a new look squad that takes the ice for the St. Catharines Falcons this season.
Only five players return from last season’s squad that reached the Golden Horseshoe Conference finals.
One of them, however, is goaltender Owen Savory, and Frank Girhiny, the Falcons general manager, is counting on him to backstop the team to the top of the league.
“In my opinion, he’s the best goalie in the league,” Girhiny said. “We will have a change on the blueline. We will still have a rock-solid core, but we were really high-end last year.
“On the offensive side, we have some outstanding players that can put up some big numbers.”
The holes lost on the blueline will be the toughest to fill. Defenceman Greg DiTomaso will suit up for the Ryerson Rams in the CIS this season. Justin Felker is at Brock, but not playing hockey. He is likely headed towards a career in medicine. Johnny Dilorenzo is also at Brock pursuing his studies.
“We have 18 new players on the roster, but the new players we have brought in are good,” Girhiny said. “It will take some time to find out about them. We aren’t looking at the win-loss column in these exhibition games. We lost the Webb twins (Mitchell and Jack) who will be playing for the London Nationals, but they are going to Western.”
Dan Fitzgerald is taking over behind the bench from Chris Johnstone, who led the Falcons to a 40-7-0-3. The team reached the Golden Horseshoe playoff championship, where they lost to their nemesis, the Caledonia Corvairs in six games.
“We aren’t worrying about Caledonia,” Fitzgerald said. “We are focused on ourselves. We want everybody chasing us. It’s not easy taking the title from somebody, but we are putting a team together that can rival them and surpass them.
“The first weeks have given us a chance to see who’s who in the zoo. Last week we started to implement some systems, some entries, and transitions. I’ve started to harp on D-zone. Piece by piece we are building the blocks to see who can get it. It’s big for us. We need to learn who we can trust early on. We are confident we will eventually get everyone on the same page.”
Fitzgerald began his junior coaching career with the Dundas Blues of the Niagara & District Junior C League. Two years ago he took the reins of the Cambridge Winter Hawks of the Midwestern Conference.
“The Golden Horseshoe is a little different from the Mid-West,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s a little more skilled down here, a little more wide open.
“In the Mid-West there are a lot of small barns like the Jack Gatecliff Arena. Just about everybody has one. It’s rough-and-tumble hockey. That’s good and bad.
“With the Falcons we are focused on what we can control. We want intelligent hockey players and skilled hockey players who aren’t afraid to get dirty. That leads to success at any level, in any league.”
Fitzgerald said they spent the first weeks thinning the roster from a rookie camp with about 60 players to 40, and then down to 25 heading into Thursday’s second leg of an exhibition home-and-home series with the Stratford Raiders.
“It’s been a pretty competitive camp,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s been the young guys that have pushed the pace. They have made the older guys see that they are going to be challenged for ice time all year. That’s what you want. You want everybody competing for jobs up and down the lineup or just to get the jersey on.”
Head-to-head play for Golden Horseshoe teams gets underway Thursday, Sept. 14, when Welland visits Thorold. St. Catharines is home to Niagara Falls the following night.
Buffalo is at Fort Erie, Pelham at Caledonia and Thorold at Ancaster on Saturday, Sept. 16.
There is a showcase event for the entire Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League in Brantford Sept. 8 to Sept. 10.