The Good , The Bad and The Ugly

It was the good, the bad and the ugly for the Niagara Ice Dogs this week-end. With an unusual three games in a row, the Niagara team had a loss, a win, and a come back win.

The Thursday night home opener was deemed as “ugly” in the head line of the local paper. With expectations high for the home time crowd, the home opener was a brutal 6-4 loss against the Mississauga Majors. With nine players attending NHL camps, the Ice Dogs have had limited time during training camp and the exhibition season to play together as a team. With Strome and Friesen still away, and their return iffy, and other players trying a little too hard to be the hero, the team lacked cohesion necessary if they are to meet the high predications of the pre-season. One bright light was the two goal performance of forward Joel Wigle.

Friday’s 4-2 win against the Barrie Colts was “good” as the crowd was able to see glimpses of what the Dogs might be able to do as the season progresses. Johnson Andrew was named first star of the game. On Thursday night Andrews hit the score sheet early with a penalty following a fight with Jamie Wise of the Majors. (http://www.hockeyfights.com/fights/105265) Andrews admits there has been a history with Wise and deemed this fight “as the rubber match” which was over too quickly and might need to be decided at another time. Friday evening against the Colts Andrews kept his gloves on and got on the score sheet with two goals to help his team to their first win of the season.

Andrews is the centre of the one of the many sub-plots of what is often a soap opera within the OHL. Currently Andrews is one of three over-agers on the Ice Dog roster. OHL rules make it necessary to have only three OAs come January. However, Andrew’s life long friend Alex Frieson is currently playing for the Chicago Wolves, AHL affiliate for Vancouver Canucks. The thinking is there is a 50-50 chance for Friesen’s return. While his return would be celebrated as a great addition to the Ice Dogs, it just might put Andrew’s spot as an over-ager on the team in jeopardy.

Growing up doors apart from each other in near-by Niagara-on-the-Lake, Friesen and Andrews played together their entire hockey careers. Still in close contact, Andrews says Friesen is enjoying his stay in Chicago and various reports state Friesen is doing well on the team. Time will tell how this drama unfolds. Will Friesen stay in the AHL honing his skills for a future NHL career but potentially losing out on an expected Memorial Cup run? Will Friesen’s return result in ousting his life long friend from the Ice Dog roster? Will Andrews unexpectedly bump David Pacan or Andrew Agozinno out of the line up to make room for Friesen? Only time will tell, but it is an interesting story to keep watching.

On Saturday night the Ice Dogs travelled to Belleville to face the Bulls. It began as a “bad” game with a quick 3-0 deficit early in the first. As first star of the game Freddie Hamilton stated in an after game interview, the team needed to “wake up” and they made a come back defeating the Bulls 5-3.

Dog Bytes:

• Ice Dogs opened their home season on Thursday night with an emotional tribute to James Dean, a local AAA player who passed away from cancer in the summer. The Niagara Ice Dogs have dedicated their season to James.
• Mark Visentin left Friday night’s game part way through the first suffering a groin injury. According to Coach Williamson he may be on the side lines a few weeks, Williamson rates it “a one out of three” injury.
• Back up goalie Jaroslav Pavelka, drafted from Czechoslovakia, may not speak any English but understands the body language of hockey. He received a standing O from the home crowd on Friday after a spectacular save from a Barrie Colt break-away. He was also named third star of the game against Barrie. Unfortunately the next night Pavelka was pulled early into the first period of the Belleville game, replaced by Niagara local Mike Gallardi after two quick goals by the Bulls.
• Recent Ice Dog acquisition from Sudbury, Brock Beukeboom, has been scratched for several weeks due to a back injury.
• Ryan Strome is still with the New York Islanders.
• Team Canada goalie scout Ron Tugnutt was in attendance Thursday night watching Visentin and Mississauga Major’s J.P Anderson. Unfortunately both goalies were not on the top of their game.
• Ice Dog mascot “Bones” celebrated his birthday on Friday night with cupcakes for all and a between period hockey game with several mascots from through out the region.
• Ice Dog coach Marty Williamson admits the team is “out of sync”. With NHL camp attendees as late arrivals to the team, expected players leaving for the OHL Subway Series as well as the Team Canada World Juniors tournament, it will be a difficult season for the Ice Dogs to get it together. I’m sure many OHL teams wish they had these problems.

The Jack

When the Mississauga Ice Dogs relocated to St. Catharines in 2007, the number one question on every one’s mind was how were Bill and Denise Burke going to make the old barn of an arena work for a financially successfully OHL team?

Now in the fifth season, the answer is just fine, thank you very much.

When the first Niagara Ice Dog team stepped on the ice for their very first home opener, all doubts were erased. With an opening sell out game against their new rival, Mississauga Majors, the relocated Dogs of that first season (think Cuputi, Legein, Swift, DeSousa) realized it was a great place to play after years of yawning fans in the cavernous Hershey Centre. The first season averaged 2,722 cheering, loud raucous fans (yes, I’m thinking of you Section M) and they led the league in 15 sell out games.

The old barn of an arena was not a detriment after all and in fact those early Dogs affectionately dubbed the arena as “the Jack.”

The Jack is short for the Jack Gatecliff Arena otherwise known as The Gatorade Garden City Centre. (or Double G, Double C as boss man Brandon Sudeyko refers to it) Built in 1938, it is by far the oldest venue in the OHL and is in dire need of repair or as most agrees - replacement. With mice literally eating away at concession profits, the need for additional space for box seats and the limited parking, no one can disagree the arena is in need of replacement.

But as the Ice Dogs enter their fifth year of exciting OHL play in the old barn, city council is finally seriously planning a new spectator center for St. Catharines. At last week’s council meeting it was unanimously voted to hire a consultant to help design and cost-out a new spectator facility for downtown St. Catharines. This will provide the Ice Dogs a new and improved facility, but at a huge cost. Currently the Burkes are paying a nominal $2.00 a year rent but if a new arena is built, Bill Burke has agreed in principle to a 20-year lease paying market value rent of $10,000 a game or $400,000 a year.

I am sure this will be a long process but well worth the wait for the citizens of St. Catharines and the players and fans of the Niagara Ice Dogs. But no matter what wondrous facility is built, will it ever be as loud and crazy as the Jack during a play-off run?

Dog Bytes:

• Bruins have sent back Dougie Hamilton to Niagara
• Blues have sent back Brock Beukeboom to the Soo (I’m sure they meant to say Niagara)
• Vancouver sent unsigned Friesen to AHL Chicago but he could still come back to Ice Dogs as over-ager.
• Former Ice Dog and Team Canada member Stefan Legein was released by Philadelphia Flyers

Great Expectations in Niagara

Even as the Niagara Ice Dogs were eliminated from the OHL Eastern Conference finals last spring, the buzz began. As the summer went on the buzz became louder. The 2011-12 OHL season might just be “the one” for the Ice Dogs. When the CHL announced last Wednesday the Niagara Ice Dogs were ranked number two in Canada the buzz became an explosion. Ice Dog fans have even begun to speak the words “Memorial Cup” - in September.

The pressure is on.

While expectations for this season’s team are high, Coach Marty Williamson is trying to keep the team contained. He states the ranking is “a compliment to the players, but rankings don’t mean a lot when you haven’t won a league game yet. Our guys know that when you are ranked number two you are going to have to prove yourself every night. We’re not talking about Memorial Cup we’re talking about winning the first game of the season.”

Team Captain Andrew Agozzino also acknowledges it is “neat to see” the number two ranking, but later in the year “no one looks back at the rankings in September -there’s a lot more to be done.”

And there is much work to do for the Ice Dogs following a 3-3 tie Thursday night in exhibition play against the Oshawa Generals. Coach Williamson acknowledges there was lackluster play at times with not a “lot going on” with the specialty teams. Agozzino was impressed with the work ethic of new comer Carter Verhaeghe while Williamson noted McGrath did a good job in net for the second half of the game. The rookies will need to be more comfortable with the systems and focus on where to be on the ice. With eleven regulars out of the line up it was an opportunity for younger players to show off their stuff and try to make a spot on a team with limited openings.

Williamson wishes those at NHL training camps well but obviously he hopes they all return to Niagara. “Dougie Hamilton at Boston and Ryan Strome with the Islanders and Friesen with Vancouver and Pacan in Florida, those are the guys that will determine if this is a good team or a great team or a team that might have to do some different things - acquire a player or two. If we get them all back we sure like this team an awful lot. It’s got good chemistry, we can score, we play hard defense it’s a good carry over team from last year.”

With 2113 in attendance at an exhibition game with the marquis players missing, you can feel in the air the high hope fans have for the Ice Dog this season. With the season opener on September 22^nd we will soon find out if the pressure is going to be the team’s number one nemesis.

New rink for IceDogs a must for City of St. Catharines - For their own good...

It is disheartening to see that the city of St. Catharines is doing the bare minimum in regards to a new arena for the OHL IceDogs. The Jack Gatecliff Arena is currently the oldest rink in the Ontario Hockey League and offers IceDog fans run down concessions, washrooms, seating, corridors and more. The fan experience upon visiting the outdated IceDog arena is unfortunately, for lack of a better term, subpar.

The IceDogs have heightened the city with a tremendous amount of community involvement and charitable work. Not to mention, the team sheds light on an otherwise struggling St.Catharines downtown. It is highly disappointing to see that St. Catharines city officials are not doing more to accommodate them. If the city has intentions of seeing the IceDogs remain in St. Catharines they have no other choice but to step up to the plate and support the team with a new facility. It is to point of embarrassment that a region this size is struggling to support an OHL franchise.

The construction of a new facility is critical to St. Catharines as it would market the city and region and provide intangible benefits to the surrounding community. Using tax dollars to subsidize a sport complex will always bring rise to discrepancy; however the economic trade-off of a new facility will provide tax revenue to the city and surrounding areas. So, even the taxpayers who do not enjoy hockey will in some way or form reap the benefits. It is also important to keep in mind the increase of quality-of-life benefits surrounding the community. These benefits are often not included in debate over subsidizing sport facilities due to the fact they are difficult to measure.

A major quality-of-life benefit that a new rink would provide the city with is the knowledge that local government is putting forth effort to develop unity throughout the community. Ever since the IceDog’s inaugural season (2007) a growing sense of pride has grown amongst citizens of St. Catharines.
Seeing former IceDog players such as Alex Pietrangelo represent Team Canada at the World Junior Championships and expand his footprint in the NHL allows Niagara fans to relate back to the team with satisfaction of their efforts in developing high-caliber players. Not long ago, Windsor built a brand new facility which indicates the city appreciates the significance of sport and recreation to the success of its municipality. This being said, it would be appropriate to point out that Windsor is marked as having the highest unemployment rate amongst all major Canadian cities.

The IceDogs five-year lease of the Jack Gatecliff Arena is set to expire in 2012, a rather short time frame in terms of constructing a new rink. The ultimate decision of whether or not the IceDogs remain in St. Catharines is in hands of local politicians who hopefully realize that not only do the IceDogs deserve a new facility, but so does the community.

Vicky Grygar
In the O Radio blogging team