Parity rules as CCHL season nears finish line

Top six already established as two more teams added to playoff mix

Last summer, when the Central Canada Hockey League decided to tweak the playoff format for this season, the hope was more games would have more meaning later into the regular season.

With Friday being the final day of the regular season and since three of the four games on the schedule are meaningful, it would appear as if that hope has been fulfilled.

The difference is that this year, two more teams have been added to the playoffs. A best-of-three preliminary round will take place first, followed by three best-ofseven rounds.

The top six have already been established.

The preliminary round will feature the Kemptville 73’s, Gloucester Rangers, Smiths Falls Bears, all of whom have 63 points with one game remaining, and the Nepean Raiders, who are well back in the standings with 50 points and completed their regular season Wednesday with a 2-1 loss.

For league commissioner Kevin Abrams, the tight race to the finish is good news.

“Really, a week and a half ago, all we knew was first (Carleton Place Canadians) and 10th (Raiders).

“We had a great race for second, which Ottawa eventually won, we had a race for home ice in the four/ five slot and until a couple of days ago we had a race for sixth, the spot that avoided the preliminary round.”

The Ottawa Junior Senators and the Canadians will face the two winners of the preliminary round, which begins Sunday and will finish no later than Tuesday.

The Pembroke Lumber Kings have the third best regular season record and will host the sixthplace Brockville Braves to open the quarter-finals, while the Cornwall Colts and Hawkesbury Hawks will meet in the four versus five series, with the Colts holding the extra home date.

Before any of that, though, there is the business of which team will face the Raiders, who trail the other three teams by 13 points.

Those point totals could be deceiving.

“There’s two ways of looking at that. The other teams certainly have more points than Nepean, but Nepean has been in kind of a preparation mode,” Abrams said.

“They’ve known for a while that they made the playoffs and that they can’t move up, they been able focus on getting healthy and getting their team prepared for the playoffs and that’s been a bit of an advantage.”

Of the three teams with something at stake Friday, only the 73’s will be at home, taking on the top-ranked and defending leaguechampion Canadians.

The Rangers visit the Hawks in Hawkesbury, while the Bears will be in Brockville to tangle with the Braves.

“The level of parity really hasn’t been this high and even though some teams are well ahead of some others, on a nightly basis the games are very competitive and right down to the final night something is at stake,” Abrams said.

The only teams not involved in the post season are the Cumberland Grads and the Kanata Lasers.