Youthful enthusiasm drives 67’s
Team has youngest roster in the OHL
The signs of the massive youth movement for the Ottawa 67’s are everywhere.
There’s Roseann Abou-Assaly pulling up to Ashbury College every afternoon at precisely 2:30 to drive her son Andrew to practice in Leitrim, or way across the city to Kanata on game nights because Andrew only has his G1 licence.
There’s chatter among an unusually high number of 67’s about high school exams.
Players’ social lives are more likely to involve going to the movies or attending a high school party instead of heading out for a night on the town.
You notice it at the end of pre-game skates when, unlike years past where two or three rookies might be responsible for picking up all the pucks, there are five and sometimes six sharing the duties.
The signs are there at the start or the end of road trips, when rookies do all the loading and unloading of the equipment bags. Veteran Ryan Van Stralen, a rookie last year at 18, wonders where all the help was when he was making three and four trips with bags flung over his shoulders.
They’re at the back of the bus, where veterans stake ownership of the prime seats. Now, the 67’s barely have enough vets for a game of euchre.
Yes, it’s official: The Ottawa 67’s have the youngest roster in the entire Ontario Hockey League.
By gutting the roster at the trade deadline, the 67’s have dropped into last place overall in average age at 18 years, zero months and 23 days, compared to a league average eight months older.
“Sometimes it feels like we’re a major midget team” said Assaly, last May’s No. 3 pick, who doesn’t turn 17 until May. “And it’s going to be a young team again next year too. We might be the youngest again.
“The older guys knew it was going to be a rebuild and it’s nice than we’ve stuck together.
“What it means is that when we get back to the Civic Centre (in 2014-15), we’re going to have a really good team.”
With just 18 games to play down the stretch, knowing their season will end sooner than any minor hockey season ever ended, the 67’s begin a stretch of seven consecutive games at Scotiabank Place Friday night against the Sarnia Sting.
The off-season begins St. Patrick’s Day and will be almost as long as the regular season.
That’s what happens when 13 rookies populate an active roster of 25, with only overage Michael Cajkovsky ineligible to see the rebuilding through.
That explains the woeful record, the league-worst 227 goals again, forwards out of position in the defensive end, defencemen picking up the wrong attacker and the stupid penalties.
The Erie Otters are next youngest at 18 years, two months and 18 days.
The two oldest teams in the league (Kitchener and Plymouth) are more than a year older on average than the 67’s.
That leaves the 67’s heading to training camp next year in Leitrim with 65 years of OHL eligibility (including the overage year) among the players currently on the roster.
The 67’s list six players born in 1996. Rookie sensation Dante Salituro is the youngest, having turned 16 Nov. 15.
The others are defenceman Jacob Middleton and Jonathan Duchesne, and forwards Trevor Dulong, Kevin Groulx and Abou-Assaly.
“There’s not much difference between rookies and veterans here,” said Middleton, who arrived in a deadline deal for Cody Ceci and Steven Janes. “In Owen Sound, we had seven (1993’s) and three (1992’s), and here there’s two ’93’s and that’s it. The rest are all young guys.
“In Owen Sound, we had like three guys loading the bus, and here the work is so spread out you can almost fly under the radar. Here it’s almost everybody loading.
“Last year, I played in the OHL Cup and it went until late March, This is going to be different.
“But there’s opportunity in a re-build mode. Who is going to be stronger next August when we come back?”