Junior B season gets underway Friday
Brantford will be front and centre when the 2017-18 Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League season gets underway this weekend.
All 26 teams from the junior B league three conference — Golden Horseshoe, Midwestern, Western — will be at Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre from Friday to Sunday as the hometown Brantford 99ers host the league’s weekend showcase event.
“I think it’s really big for Brantford,” said 99ers owner and gener- al manager Darren DeDobbelaer. “This is the biggest junior B event of the year.
“It’s a huge event for NCAA, OHL, CHL teams to come watch our kids early in the season.”
This will be the first time the showcase has been in Brantford. For the past two seasons, London has played host.
DeDobbelaer said the teams will play 26 games — each team plays twice — as three of the four Gretzky Centre rinks will be in use. There will be three games on Friday, 11 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday.
DeDobbelaer said teams that haven’t had a chance to play in Brantford will be impressed by the Gretzky centre.
“From Day 1, I’ve been proud of our facility and I’ve been proud of the way I’ve been treated in our facility,” he said.
The GOJHL, open to players aged 16 to 20, recently was named among the top-10 developmental hockey leagues in North America.
“The hockey is real good,” DeDobbelaer said. “There are players who get drafted to the NHL out of our league.
“The OHL, if a player isn’t quite ready, they’ll put them in our league for a year. Players, after a couple of years or even one year in our league, they go to the OHL, the CHL or NCAA.
“It’s a major stepping stone to the next level.”
Opening night action will feature the coaching debuts of the three of the Golden Horseshoe Conference’s four new bench bosses. Ken Peroff, Ryan Kuwabara’s successor in Ancaster, will lead the Avalanche against the Leamington Flyers, starting at 7 p.m.; with Mark Barrick’s Pelham Panthers opening league play versus the Brampton Bombers at the same time elsewhere in the four-pad.
The 8 p.m. game, between the St. Catharines Falcons and London Na- tionals, will see Dan Fitzgerald behind the Falcons bench for the first time after succeeding Chris Johnstone during the off-season. Fitzgerald, 30, was the 2016-17 Midwestern Conference coach of the year with the Cambridge Winter Hawks, but found himself without a team after the Winter Hawks opted to leave the loop.
The Thorold Blackhawks, scheduled to take the ice Saturday in a 11 a.m. faceoff with the Guelph Hurricanes, not only have a new coach, they have a new owner as well. Scott Barnes, who coached Pelham last season, purchased the team earlier this summer and installed himself as head coach.
Barrick said from the stand point of showcasing shooting, skating, stickhandling and puck-stopping skills, the timing of the leaguewide tournament couldn’t be better.
“This is what the showcase is all about, to give players a chance to be seen,” said Barrick, who previously coached junior B in St. Catharines and Port Colborne.
“This brings all the scouts and recruiters together in one place, so they can see the most hockey possible.”
He suggested while a tournament held before or during the holiday break, essentially right before the trade deadline, would let teams know what’s available, the number of scouts at a mid-season showcase might not be as high.
“For what we are trying to accomplish — to showcase the players — the timing of this is perfect,” Barrick said. “It couldn’t be better.”
Caledonia is the only team in the league to go undefeated during the pre-season compiling a 7-0 record. Pelham, 5-4; was the only other Golden Horseshoe team to finish the exhibition schedule above .500.
Fort Erie, 3-4-1; St. Catharines, 2-1-0-1; Niagara Falls, 2-3; Welland, 2-3; Ancaster, 1-3; Thorold, 1-3; and Buffalo, 0-3-1; have also wrapped up their pre-season schedules.