Season to forget
Eagles majority owner promises change after dismal campaign
SYDNEY — Cape Breton Eagles majority owner Irwin Simon didn't hold back his frustration for the lack of success for his Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team in 2021-22.
“I'm not happy at all with our performance and I'm not happy with our record,” said Simon in a phone interview with the Cape Breton Post on Monday. The team wrapped up the regular season on Sunday in Sydney.
“I'm in this to win and not to lose — I don't like to lose and I don't like that we couldn't provide our fan base with a winning team this year.”
When Simon, originally of Glace Bay, took over as the majority owner in November 2018, he expressed his desire to bring a championship team to Cape Breton Island, a promise he intends to keep.
“I committed to bring a winner and on that commitment this year I didn't deliver,” he said. “I'm committed to the team and I'm committed to being there a long time and I'm still committed to putting a real contender and a real winner on the ice — I'm committed to it, I'm not very happy at all with where we are.”
Rebuilding phases in major junior hockey are a common occurrence. Teams across the Canadian Hockey League tend to have a four-year cycle, building towards what they hope to be a championshipcontending team by the end of the term.
Cape Breton was at the end of its four-year cycle during the 2019-20 season. The club made several trades during the Christmas trade period, bringing in players to add to an already strong lineup for a deep postseason run. Unfortunately, the Eagles never had the opportunity to chase a President Cup or Memorial Cup that season as the playoffs and Memorial Cup were ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
To make matters worse, along with not having a chance to win a championship, the majority of the team moved on from the program, putting the Eagles back into the rebuilding process.
After a COVID-19-shortened 38-game season in 202021, which saw the club post 12 victories, many anticipated the team progressing in the rebuild in 2021-22, however that wasn't the case.
In fact, the Eagles finished the 68-game regular season in last place in the 18-team league and were tied for the worst record in the team's 25year history with a 14-47-4-3 record, 22 points behind the 17th-place Victoriaville Tigres, who won the league title in 2021.
The team will miss the
playoffs for only the second time in the club's history, not including last year when the team chose not to play in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, fellow 2019-20 contending teams in Moncton, Chicoutimi and Sherbrooke are farther ahead in their rebuilding process than Cape Breton and will all play in the playoffs this season.
Simon acknowledged that fact.
“What I'm disappointed in is that all of these teams at one time have had difficult records and came back,” said Simon. “We now realize and have accepted what happened (this season) and have to make change.”
Simon admitted there was nobody else to blame for the disappointing season other than ownership and management.
“Management and ownership are accepting 100 per cent responsibility, 100 per cent,” said Simon. “I want to reassure you that we don't accept this and the buck stops at the top. Management were the ones that have to make the decision and we're the ones that have to fix it.”
THE CHALLENGES
The Eagles organization had no shortage of challenges both on and off the ice during the season.
After starting the season with a 6-14-0-4 record, head coach Jake Grimes stepped down from his position with the team in late November, leading to a month-long search for a new bench boss.
Assistant coach Matt Anthony was named the interim head coach and served in the position for the entire month of December and assistant general manager John Hanna went on the bench to serve as an assistant coach during the span.
Meanwhile, as the league's winter trade period was set to conclude on Jan. 6, the Eagles shipped 19-year-old Dawson Stairs to Charlottetown and 18-year-old Connor Trenholm to the Memorial Cuphost Saint John Sea Dogs.
In those trades, the Eagles acquired 16-year-old Matis Ouellet and a draft pick from Charlottetown, as well as 18-year-old forwards Charles Savoie and Carter McCluskey as well as five draft picks from Saint John.
The following day, on Jan. 7, Cape Breton officially hired New York product Chadd Cassidy as the club's new head coach. The 48-year-old brought plenty of experience to the bench, having coached in the American Hockey League and worked with the U.S. national under-17 and under-18 programs.
While the team kept some older, veteran players for the second half of the year, including 20-year-olds Nicholas Girouard, Sean Larochelle, and Emile Hegarty-Aubin, the team remained quite young and in-experienced, leading to several lopsided scores.
The team finished the second half of the year with a 7-27-1-1 record and during that span had an eight-game losing streak from March 12-27 as well as a 10-game losing streak, tied for the second-longest in team history, from April 1-19.
Eagles president Gerard Shaw recognized the difficulties over the last three months.
“It was a tough run for our guys and certainly we have some challenges with some of the positional play on the ice and the way our team is built, there's no question about that,” said Shaw. “We know that there has to be some significant changes on that side.”
Along with having a young team, the club was also part of a tough Maritime Division with contending teams like Charlottetown, Saint John and Acadie-Bathurst as well as good clubs in Halifax and Moncton.
“If we were playing on the other side (Western Conference) we're in the playoffs,” said Shaw. “We had most of our wins from the other conference, so playing against two of the top teams in the country in Charlottetown and Saint John so many times, especially in April, it was challenging and tough.”
Shaw said the organization has plenty of work to do prior to the start of the 2022-23 season.
“We have some homework to do in both the business office and the hockey operations office to build the team and get people believing and coming back to the rink,” he said. “In the offseason, it will be dedicated to doing that.
“There will be a postmortem done on this entire season. The owners will demand that we find out what happened and why we were where we were from two years ago to now – that postmortem has already started.”
Finally, last month, the team hired Lindsey MacIntosh as the club's new general manager of business operations, replacing Courtney Schriver-Richard, who accepted a job in the business office with the NHL's Edmonton Oilers.
TOUGH SPOT, COACH
Taking over a struggling team midway through a season isn't an ideal situation for a coach, but that was the position Cassidy was forced to handle.
For more than a month, prior to the restart of the season, Cassidy spent countless hours learning about his players. He started from scratch teaching the players his systems and what he expected from them.
However, once the season returned, there wasn't a lot of practice time for the team, which went through a schedule of 30 games in 63 days to finish the regular season.
“It was a crazy schedule and there's no doubt it was tough,” said Cassidy. “We were playing pretty much the top teams, not just in the QMJHL but in Canada, on what seemed like an everynight basis, so it certainly contributed to the lack of success.”
Among the changes Cassidy made with his players was establishing a culture of being competitive and working towards getting better on a daily basis.
“When you're playing pretty much every other day, you don't have a lot of time to establish them,” said Cassidy, noting the past three months have been a whirlwind for him.
“Habits are made by repetitive progress and we just weren't able to do that with the schedule.”
Cassidy admitted the coaching staff attempted to make changes but noted it was difficult to make those given the circumstances the team was given.
“I really did think that our guys really were committed to playing better and playing a different way and playing with a little more structure,” said Cassidy.
While Cassidy believes the players are on the right path with establishing the culture he'd like to see in the dressing room, he admits there needs to be change.
“We can't be happy with where we're at,” said Cassidy. “We have to bring guys into this organization that are competitive and want to be hockey players and want to be better, so that's on myself and our management team and we're going to do that.
“We're going to do everything we can to create a winner here and we certainly know that things need to change, what that's going to be who knows, but we're going to do everything we can to bring that here.”
The Eagles finished the year with the fewest points in team history (35) as well as tied for the fewest wins (14) and the most losses in one season (54) in club history. The team also set an organization-record 28 losses on home ice.
The team also allowed the most goals (335) in team history and had the worst goals-against average (4.82). They had a third-worst goalsfor average in one season (2.60) and the fourth-fewest goals scored in one season (183). All records are based on a full 68-game regular season and not counting the COVID-19-shortened 38-game season in 2020-21.
Shaw commented on Cassidy's second half of the season saying he believes the bench boss implemented accountability for the players, noting he could only work with what was given to him.
UNDERSTANDING THE FANS
From the time he purchased the team, Simon has stressed the importance of fan support as well as sponsorship.
Like many teams across the CHL, the Eagles' attendance numbers haven't returned to pre-COVID-19 numbers as of yet. In fact, the team averaged between 1,200 and 1,500 fans per game in the second half.
Simon didn't put any blame on the fans for the low numbers.
“Nobody wants to go watch a bad movie, nobody wants to go to a bad restaurant, and nobody wants to watch a hockey team be down 5-0 in the first period,” said Simon. “It's the product that's on the ice that's the first priority.”
Simon also noted the importance of the in-house production of music and intermission entertainment.
“It's an experience and people want to watch what's happening between periods and all the activation,” said Simon, who also mentioned confusion with changes with the Ticketmaster system for older fans.
“I don't think we've done a great job with that.”
Shaw said the club intends on engaging the corporate sponsors and seasonticket holders as part of its strategic planning sessions this month.
“We will be reaching out to as many people to be part of our strategic planning session to find out what worked the best in the past, what are the things people would like to see change, and things that we need to do in every aspect of the business to make the team better,” he said.
“It's what we need to start doing in the offseason and that begins tomorrow.”
The Post contacted Eagles general manager Jacques Carrière Monday evening for comment on the season, however, he couldn't be immediately reached at publication time.