Scott Abbott had his eye on owning an Ontario Hockey League
team long before he was granted the franchise that became the Brampton Battalion
on Dec. 3, 1996.
Abbott, a former Canadian Press sportswriter and a
co-inventor of Trivial Pursuit, originally inquired about buying the Toronto
Marlboros.
“I had interest in the OHL dating back to the 1980s,” said
Abbott, who moved from his hometown of Montreal in 1982 and eventually settled
in Caledon. “I had a meeting in 1988 or 1989 about buying the Marlboros and
decided not to proceed.”
Abbott had great success with the Jr. A Caledon Canadiens,
which he owned from 1992-98. The club played in five Metro Jr. A League finals,
winning two championships.
“After several seasons with a Jr. A team I felt it was time
to resurrect the OHL interest. I went to the league and I don’t think they were
in an expansion mode. They had brought the Barrie Colts in in 1995 and the
Toronto St. Michael’s Majors were coming in in 1997. I approached them in 1996
expressing interest in a team and they were receptive.”
A little more than a month after Abbott was granted his OHL
franchise for Brampton, the league awarded a franchise to a group from
Mississauga led by Don Cherry.
“Mississauga came in at the same time, presumably to keep
the league with an equal number of teams,” said Abbott. “I chose Brampton
because it was a large market close to home and I was familiar with it from the
days when the Brampton Capitals were arch rivals of the Caledon Canadiens. I
thought it would be a good fit.”
Abbott began looking for personnel to run the hockey side of
the club and after interviewing a number of candidates settled on Stan Butler,
a Toronto native who had spent two seasons in the OHL as head coach of the
Oshawa Generals before moving out to the Western Hockey League where he spent
one season coaching the Prince George Cougars.
“I knew Scott from having coached Wexford against his
Caledon teams and we developed a relationship,” said Butler, who heard that a
new Toronto-area franchise was coming to the OHL before a Cougars road game
against the Kamloops Blazers.
“I contacted Scott to congratulate him on getting a team. We
talked after that and kept in contact the rest of the season and when it was
done I came home, met with him and the president of the team at the time and
went from there.”
Said Abbott: “We needed personnel , beginning with a general
manager and a coach, whether that was one person or two. I knew Stan from his
days coaching the Wexford Raiders against the Caledon Canadiens. I had a lot of
respect and admiration for him as a coach and developer of talent. He wasn’t
the only candidate. I believe six people interviewed and Stan got the job and
started in 1997 to lead the scouting operation heading into the OHL Expansion
Draft and Priority Selection.”
Butler told Abbott he felt the quickest way for the
Battalion to become competitive would be go with a youth movement in its first
season.
“The Majors had come in the league just before we did and
Barrie had come before that, so I thought with two teams coming in in the same
season, and the way the Expansion Draft was being set up, the best way to do
this was short-term pain for long-term gain.”
Abbott said he knew operating an OHL franchise would be
different than what he experienced in Jr. A.
“Jr. A was pretty much a wild west scenario in those days
with warring leagues. I was supportive of Stan’s plan to go young and give kids
quality icetime to make them better. Mississauga went a different way with
overage goalies and a very different view of things.
“The rules were different for us than they were for Barrie,
which came into the league and made the playoffs in its first season. The
league changed the process to make it a little more difficult for new teams to
get good quickly.”
Now ensconced in the job, Butler hit the road,
criss-crossing Ontario and heading into Quebec and the United States in search
of players to fill the roster for the Battalion’s first season.
“That was a very unique year when I look back on it. I
traveled all over, looking under rocks and everywhere else for players and we
found some.”
The Battalion made eight picks in the OHL Expansion Draft.
Five of the choices would play for the club with two, defenceman Jason Maleyko,
who was the first player taken from the Generals, and right winger Scott
Thompson, plucked from the London Knights, spending three seasons with the
Battalion. Maleyko would be the captain of the Battalion in each of his
seasons.
“We split the 16 Expansion Draft picks with Mississauga,”
said Abbott. “We had identified which player we would take off each existing
OHL roster and in no case did the IceDogs take the player we had identified.”
The Battalion chose four players in the league’s Overage
Expansion Draft. Left winger Brian Barker, taken from the Colts, would lead the
team with 10 power-play goals and finished fifth in team scoring with 21 goals
and 25 assists for 46 points. Right winger Jason Doyle, tabbed from the Owen
Sound Platers, played four games before being traded to the London Knights.
The Battalion had the first overall pick in its inaugural
Priority Selection and used it to take defenceman Jay Harrison. Butler,
director of scouting Bob Wetick and his staff, would make 32 picks over 28
rounds and see, in addition to Harrison, 11 players see action with the club.
That number included several long-term contributors such as centre Jeff
Bateman, goaltender David Chant, defenceman Tyler Hanchuck, left wingers Kurt
MacSweyn and Raffi Torres and right winger Aaron Van Leusen.
“Our scouts did a very good job before that first season,”
said Abbott. “We made very good use of all our picks.”
The Battalion iced what many believe to be the youngest team
in Canadian Hockey League history and lost its first game, dropping a 5-1 road
decision to the Peterborough Petes on Sept. 24. Maleyko scored the first goal
in club history on a second-period power play as the Troops were outshot 55-29.
The Battalion lost 6-5 to the host Platers six days later
when Kyle Flaxey scored the winning goal at 19:51 of the third period. The
Troops played their first home on Oct. 9 against the Kitchener Rangers before a
crowd of 4,474 that was a club record for many years. The Battalion lost 5-1
with the club’s first goal on home ice coming from centre Jason Spezza, a
15-year-old playing his lone season for the Battalion under an OHL rule at the
time that allowed underage players to play one season for their hometown team
before being made eligible in the Priority Selection.
The Troops lost three more games, including dropping a 5-4
decision in overtime to the visiting Majors, before picking up their first win
on Oct. 18 as they beat the Sudbury Wolves 5-4 with MacSweyn’s first OHL goal,
at 6:25 of the third period, proving the winner.
“You always want that first win and sometimes you wonder if
it will ever come,” said Butler. “It was satisfying for the organization and it
was history in the making.”
Said Harrison: “I remember thinking I was glad I didn’t play
for Sudbury. I remember somebody had taken a picture of us coming off the ice
celebrating with the scoreboard in the background. It was a big weight off our
shoulders. We’d been hoping to get that first one, it was a nice thing to be a
part of.”
Abbott said the inaugural win was cause for celebration.
“It was a while coming. There was a great celebration at the
end of the game, the players came pouring off the bench, you would have thought
they’d won the Memorial Cup. I recall being up late that night after that one.”
The Battalion lost its seven games heading into its
first–ever meeting with the IceDogs, who they would face six times in each of
the first four seasons, on Nov. 6. The IceDogs had lost their first 11 games
and were outscored 86-19 before they posted their first win, beating the Majors
4-3 in their first home game.
The Troops won that first game, played before an announced
crowd of 4,008 at the Hershey Centre, 6-2 as Bateman and Spezza each scored two
goals. Four of the Battalion’s eight wins that season would come against its Peel
rival, including an 8-1 thrashing in the first meeting at Brampton on Nov. 14
and an 8-3 romp at home on New Year’s Eve.
“There was a lot of anticipation before our first game with
the IceDogs,” said Abbott. “We liked to say we didn’t measure ourselves against
Mississauga, but it would be silly to suggest that how we did against them
wasn’t important to us.
“I don’t know if this is true, but I have been told that in
his box during the first game against us that Cherry said ‘Holy cow, where did
they get all these guys?’ We could always count on Mississauga being a
disaster, they were for four years.”
The Battalion’s fourth win, on Dec. 4, would remain one of
the most significant in the club’s early history as they beat the visiting
Guelph Storm, reigning OHL champions, 6-4. Butler recalled Storm head coach
Geoff Ward, now an assistant coach with the National Hockey League’s Boston
Bruins, being very unhappy in the wake of the defeat.
“After the game he went into the dressing room and kicked a
container of orange Gatorade all over the room. Our trainer, Hamlin Smith, was
concerned about who would have to clean it up while I was just happy we had won
a game.”
The Battalion would win three more games and post two ties
after that and finish with a win-lost-tied record of 8-57-3 for 19 points. The
IceDogs managed four wins and three ties.
“There were no easy nights for us,” said Abbott. “We knew it
would be tough. It was difficult, I wasn’t used to losing. We had what we liked
to call the best midget team in Ontario, unfortunately we were playing an OHL
schedule. If games had been 40 or 45 minutes long, which most of those players
were used to, we would have been fine. We did very well for two periods and
invariably we’d give up a lead in the third period or let a close game get
away.
“We could have done it like Mississauga did and thrown some
second or third-rate older guys out there to take minutes away from the younger
guys. Would it have made our record substantially better? Doubtful. Would it have
got us in the playoffs? No.”
Despite the long nights Butler said he was confident in his
plan.
“We started the season with Doyle, an overage player, and
early on I traded him to the Knights. Every move we made that first season was
to make us better going forward.”
Butler began planning for the second season without Spezza,
who led the team in scoring with 71 points, including 22 goals, and was named
to the OHL’s first All-Rookie team. The IceDogs would claim Spezza with the
first overall pick in the 1999 OHL Priority Selection and he would also play
for the Windsor Spitfires and Belleville Bulls over the next four seasons
before heading off to a long professional career.
“I don’t know if Jason’s season here was his best,” said
Butler, “but I bet if you talk to him it was probably the season in which he
had the most fun. He had such a good season here, it was probably tough for him
to leave the friends he had made here to go to the IceDogs.”
The Battalion chose centre Jay McClement with the second
pick in the Priority Selection and added Czech Republic defenceman Rostislav
Klesla with its first pick in the CHL Import Draft and he joined fellow Czech
native, right winger Lukas Havel, who contributed 19 goals and 50 points in
1998-99 to make up the Battalion’s two-man import complement. Two other Priority
Selection picks, left winger Chris Rowan, a fourth rounder, and blueliner Paul
Flache, taken in the fifth, would prove to be important long-term contributors.
“I thought we’d be better, especially after we picked up
Klesla,” said Butler. “Our guys had played a lot that first season, but we were
still a young team that didn’t have a lot of older guys.”
The Battalion, playing without an overage player in its
lineup, burst from the gate in its second season, winning 11 of its first 14
games.
“We got off to that great start and Chant was very good for
us in net and we had a really good line with Bateman, Torres and Havel,” said
Butler. “Our back end was pretty good too with Hanchuck, Klesla, Harrison,
Maleyko and Flache.
“Was I surprised we got off to that start? Of course I was,
but we needed that start to help us get to the playoffs. We came back to earth
a bit and teams were able to figure out that we were probably just a one-line
team with a bunch of other hard-working kids.”
Said Abbott: “We were a legitimate, competitive team by the
second season.”
The Troops finished with a record of 25-32-11 for 61 points
and finished seventh in the conference to qualify for the playoffs. The Battalion
squared off with the Erie Otters, a Midwest Division rival who had won the
division.
The Battalion won its first playoff game, 5-2 at Erie, and
the Otters tied the series in the first postseason game at Brampton three days
later. The teams traded wins before the Otters took a 3-2 edge with a 6-2 win
at home in Game 5. The Troops owned a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes in that game,
even after having a goal by Rowan disallowed and one nullified by a goaltender interference
call to McClement.
The Otters rallied with four third-period goals to win the
game 5-2 and Butler earned a two-game suspension after a verbal tirade at
referee Dave Wright who whistled Flache for interference in the final minute
prompting a barrage of garbage from Battalion fans.
“We had a 2-1 lead going into the third period, but we had
two goals disallowed that I thought should have been legitimate goals,” said
Butler. “If we’d had a 4-1 lead at that time we probably take the series to
Game 7, instead we ended up losing. I felt bad for the kids because they played
pretty hard.”
The Battalion entered its third season with two first-round
NHL picks on its roster after Klesla and Torres were chosen fourth and fifth
overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Islanders respectively.
“Klesla is as good as any player who ever played for us,”
said Abbott. “He was an outstanding talent, a warrior who played hurt.”
The Troops had compiled a record of 15-19-6 when Butler
pulled the trigger on one of the biggest deals in club history at the Jan. 10
trade deadline, acquiring veteran goaltender Brian Finley from the Colts for
Chant, Hanchuck and second-year centre Matt Grennier.
“We felt that for us to have a chance to win our conference
we had to have a world-class goalie and everyone would have told you he was the
best goalie in the OHL,” said Butler. “Chant was a good goalie, but Brian was a
little bit better. We had some depth on defence and much as we didn’t want to
part with Hanchuck we had to give away something to get something.”
With Finley sidelined due to a groin issue, 16-year-old Brad
Topping, a second-round pick in the Priority Selection, made 16 consecutive
starts, compiling a record of 11-3-2. Finley debuted for the Battalion in
mid-February and started all but one of the final 12 games.
The Battalion finished fifth in the conference and met the
Guelph Storm in the first round. The Troops swept the series, outscoring the
Storm 19-5 with Finley contributing one shutout and a save percentage of .964.
The Otters were the next opponent and the Battalion once
again won the series opener, posting a 4-3 win in front of a raucous throng at
Erie’s Tullio Arena, but lost Torres, who had scored two goals, after he was
banished by referee Pat Smola for clipping Otters defenceman Carlo Colaiacovo
in the final minute. The major penalty also earned Torres a one-game
suspension, which he served in Game 2, a 7-2 romp for the
Otters on the
strength of three shorthanded goals from Cory Pecker.
The Otters would win the series in five games, finishing it
off at home when Brad Boyes jumped on a Finley miscue and scored the
series-winning goal at 19:57 of the third period.
“We beat a pretty good Guelph team,” said Butler. “We won
the first game against Erie, but lost Torres to a controversial clipping
penalty. Finley got hurt in the first game and was never the same.”
The Battalion’s rivalry with the Otters was an intense as
any in its history.
“You wouldn’t think looking at a map that Brampton and Erie
would be rivals,” said Abbott. “But we played them in the playoffs in 2000 and
that carried over a bit into the next season and then we played them in the
playoffs again. The rivalry is largely defunct now since we only play them
twice a season since 2002, but it was something special.
“Our success that season validated our approach and showed
that we could put a good team together in three seasons. That was a very good
team, without some controversial calls in the playoffs we might have beaten
Erie.”
The Battalion entered the 2001-02 season with a different
look to its lineup. Maleyko and Thompson were lost to graduation and Klesla,
Torres and Finley moved on to the pro ranks while the departed Havel’s spot was
filled by another talented Czech centre, 17-year-old Kamil Kreps.
Topping, a second team All-Rookie choice as a 16-year-old, assumed
the starting job and was backed up by 17-year-old rookie Joey Biasucci. The duo
struggled and injuries to MacSweyn, who was the captain, Van Leusen, rookie
defenceman Mike Looby and first-year left winger Tyler Harrison, Jay’s brother,
caused the Battalion to miss the playoffs for what would prove to be the last
time during its stay in Brampton.
“It was a learning experience for us,” said Butler. “We
thought we could go with two 17-year-old goalies in Topping and Biasucci. Brad
was really good at 16, he didn’t have a good year at 17. That team was
eliminated late in the season and if we hadn’t had all those injuries we would
have made the playoffs, which, to me, has always been the minimum standard.”
Said Abbott: “We have done a very good job through 15 years
of producing competitive teams. Some teams go up and down, we haven’t had any
really serious down seasons. We missed the playoffs as an expansion team and
that was pretty much pre-ordained. We have missed the playoffs once since when
we were crippled by injuries. We have done a very good job of managing the
structure and maintaining our competitiveness.”
Missing the playoffs gave the Battalion the third overall
pick in the Priority Selection as it prepared to move to the Central Division
of the Eastern Conference, replacing the North Bay Centennials who relocated to
Saginaw, Mich. to be renamed the Spirit.
The Troops chose left winger Wojtek Wolski, a Mississauga
resident, and he was part of an outstanding crop of rookies to join the
Battalion from the 2001 Priority Selection including right winger Brent Burns,
a third rounder, centre Ryan Oulahen, taken in the fourth, goaltender Kevin
Couture, an eighth rounder, and Jamie Fraser, an 11th-round pick as
a defenceman who was converted to forward.
“That set us up to have a pretty good run for three or four
years,” said Butler. “We haven’t picked early too often, but when we have we’ve
been pretty fortunate getting Harrison, Wolski and Matt Duchene at five.”
Butler augmented these additions with the acquisition of two
overagers, right winger Scott Rozendal, picked up in an offseason trade from the Storm, and defenceman Kevin
Young , who was claimed after clearing Western Hockey League waivers.
That edition of the Battalion set a club record with 34 wins
and scored 239 goals, also a club record at the time, and won the Central
Division title. Topping rebounded to have a fine season and was outstanding as
the Troops beat the Colts in six games in a conference quarterfinal. The
Battalion won the opener of its second-round series against the Majors 7-0, but
lost the next four games, scoring a total of eight goals.
“We were coming off a big series win and we had all the
confidence in the world after the first game, maybe we thought it would be
easy,” said Young, now a member of the Wichita Thunder of the Central Hockey
League. “I don’t know if we had the mentality that we had to grind it out and
when we figured that out it was probably too late.”
The Battalion suffered a number of personnel losses early in
the 2003-04 season, none more important that the departure of Burns to the
Minnesota Wild, which had chosen him in the first round of that June’s NHL
Draft. Defenceman Dan Marziani, a second-round pick in 2002 left the team after
playing two games and fellow second-year rearguard Drew Petkoff was waived. To
help stabilize the blue line Butler once again headed out west and picked up
overager Rob Smith who had cleared waivers after playing with the Calgary
Hitmen of the WHL.
Butler also made two significant trades. With the team sporting
a record of 10-13-2 on Dec. 1, he dealt captain Ryan Bowness to the Oshawa
Generals for another overage right winger, Aaron Lobb, and on Jan. 8 he shipped
Topping, who would leave as the club’s all-time leader in goaltender wins, to
Kitchener for netminder Tyson Kellerman. The Battalion, under captain Chris
Clayton, finished seventh in the conference with a record of 25-34-9.
“We ran into some challenges that season,” said Butler. “It
wasn’t good when we didn’t get Burns back. Topping was good at 18, but
struggled at 19 and we traded him to give Couture a chance to run with it as
the starter. I was proud of the boys for how they scrapped to get things turned
around for the playoffs.”
The Troops matched up well against their first-round
opponent, the high-powered Ottawa 67’s. The Battalion had won three games and
tied another in the regular season against the East Division champions, but
lost the series opener, falling 7-5 at Ottawa. The Troops rebounded with a 5-4
win in Game 2 when Smith scored at 18:59 of overtime in a game that marked the
last time in the series that the home team won.
The Battalion won Game 3 2-1 at Ottawa and the 67’s tied the
series with a 4-3 overtime win at Brampton. The Battalion produced a 4-2 win at
the Corel Centre, home of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, but the 67’s forced a
seventh game at home with a 6-3 win in Game 6. In the first Game 7 in Battalion
history Wolski scored two goals and Kreps added a third into an empty net as
the Troops won 3-1.
“That was a weird series, you usually don’t win a seven-game
series by winning three games on the road,” said Butler, whose charges lost in
five games in a second-round series with Toronto. “You might steal one, but not
three. In any season or playoff series there are always defining moments and
Smith’s goal to win Game 2 was a defining moment in that series.”
Said Smith: “That series took a lot out of us. I was pretty
banged up and I played a lot of minutes. I was having an issue with my
shoulder. We were worn out and Toronto had an easier time in their first-round
series. We just didn’t have the horses to play another series like we played
with Ottawa. I actually thought Ottawa would be lot tougher for us to deal with
than Toronto.”
The 2004-05 season brought more promising newcomers. Butler
had picked up the rights to dynamic left winger Luch Aquino in the Bowness
trade and persuaded the 19-year-old Aquino to leave the University of Maine for
the OHL. Two players who were chosen in 2002 and saw spot duty in 2003-04,
defenceman Michael Vernace, a ninth-round pick, and goaltender Daren Machesney,
tabbed in the 13th, became important members of the team. Three players chosen in 2004, defenceman John
de Gray, taken sixth overall, left winger Aaron Snow, a second-round choice,
and 17-year-old left winger Luke Lynes, a third rounder, were among the rookies
who stepped into the lineup.
Aquino finished second in scoring behind Wolski, recording
71 points, including 25 goals, and Vernace, who would leave as the
highest-scoring defenceman in Battalion history, produced 12 goals and 38
assists for 50 points and joined Machesney on the first All-Rookie team.
“Luch is a character, that’s the best way to describe him,”
said Butler. “But once he puts his skates on he gives you everything he has.
“When Jim Cassidy was scouting for us he found Vernace and
believed he could play here. Michael had some scholarship offers at some
smaller U.S. schools, but we told him we would give him a chance to play here.
He ended up turning into a pretty good defenceman.”
Another player who enjoyed a fine season was overage centre
Tyler Harrison who contributed 57 points and led the team with 31 goals.
“I took a lot of heat about Tyler,” said Butler. “People
thought the only reason he was on the team was because his brother was here. I
always believed in him and he worked hard and turned into a very good overage
player. He had a good OHL career and was a very good player at York
University.”
The Troops won 33 games and engaged in a first-round playoff
series with Sudbury. The Wolves won the opener, 3-2 in overtime at Brampton and
skated to a 4-1 win at home in Game 2. The Troops won game 3, but the Wolves
took the fourth game 2-1. The Battalion won Game 5 at home, but the Wolves
closed out the series in Game 6 at home when Benoit Pouliot scored on the power
play at 1:35 of the second overtime after Snow was errantly sent off for high
sticking.
“The key to that series was the first game, which we lost
here in overtime,” said Butler. “After that they held serve and beat us in
six.”
The Battalion began 2005-06 without Wolski and Aquino, but
both would eventually return and make massive contributions. Wolski, a first-round
pick of the Colorado Avalanche in 2004, began the season in the NHL and
produced six points, including two goals, with the Avalanche before being returned
to the Battalion on Oct. 26. Aquino, who was drafted by the Islanders in the
seventh round in 2005, returned to the Troops on Dec. 6 after playing with the
Trenton Titans of the ECHL.
Butler moved Wolski, who had been named captain, between
left winger Snow and Aquino on right wing and the trio exploded. Wolski produced 35 goals and 62 assists for
97 points in his final 34 games, winning OHL player of the month honours for
each of the final four months of the season and eventually winning the Red Tilson
Trophy as the league’s most outstanding player.
He finished the season with 47 goals and 81 assists for 128 points, club
records in each category and he set a club record with seven points, including
four goals, in a 9-4 win over the visiting Otters on Jan. 22.
“It took Wojtek a little while to figure out what he wanted
to do that season,” said Butler. “But once he realized he had to be here he
figured the best thing was for him to show people what he could do and not
complain about other stuff. He had a season that was as good as any I had
seen.”
Aquino only played 32 games, but finished second in scoring
with 28 goals and 44 assists for 72 points and he set a club record with six
assists in a 9-3 win over visiting Oshawa on March 3. Snow contributed 68
points, including 30 goals, and was eventually drafted in the third round by
the Dallas Stars. Vernace set a club record for points by a defenceman with 72,
including 62 assists, most ever by a Battalion blueliner, and earned a spot on
the OHL’s third All-Star team.
The Battalion won its final 14 games, a club record at the
time, to finish one point ahead of Barrie in the Central. The Troops dispatched
the Belleville Bulls in six games in a hard-fought first-round series, but fell
to the Colts in five games in a conference semifinal.
“That was a very talented team,” said Butler. “We needed
that magical run at the end of the season to finish first in the division.
Looking back on it I wonder how our guys were affected by having to win so many
games in a row just to win our division. We seemed to run out of gas after the
first round of the playoffs.”
The 2006-07 season brought significant personnel changes.
Wolski, Aquino, Vernace and Machesney were gone, replaced by a new crop of
rookies led by centre Cody Hodgson, a first-round pick in the 2006 Priority
Selection, Brad Albert and Ken Peroff, two blueliners taken in 2005, 16-year-old
right winger Kyle DeCoste and right winger Jason Dale, an 18-year-old walk on.
Second-year netminder Bryan Pitton shared the crease duties
with Aaron Rock, a 19-year-old acquired in an offseason trade with Saginaw.
Rock would be sent packing after playing six games and replaced by 16-year-old
Patrick Killeen, a fifth-round pick in 2006, who would contract mononucleosis
during the second half of the season. Pitton would play 61 games, which
remained a club record until Killeen bettered it by two three seasons later,
and start the final 19 games of the season.
The young group struggled and went though one of the more
bizarre moments in Battalion history during an Oct. 19 game at Saginaw when
Snow left the team in the first period. Butler would eventually trade Snow to
Belleville for right winger John Hughes, the first overall pick in the 2004
Priority Selection. Hughes would be a major contributor during his time with
the Troops while Snow would also play for the Windsor Spitfires, Niagara
IceDogs and Sarnia Sting.
“I don’t think a lot about what Snow did,” said Butler. “He
made a choice and only he knows why he did it. His career after he left here
pretty much speaks for itself.
“That was one of the trades I was happiest with. Hughes had
some tough times in Belleville and Aaron had some tough times here. I think it
worked out for both teams.”
Butler made a significant move at the Jan. 10 trade deadline,
moving veteran defenceman Phil Oreskovic, a Brampton resident and fan
favourite, and productive forward Howie Martin to the Owen Sound Attack for
overage defenceman Dalyn Flatt and 17-year-old rookie centre Thomas Stajan.
“Phil was a very good player here and since we weren’t going
anywhere in his last season we wanted him to get an opportunity to play on a
very good team in Owen Sound,” said Butler.
The Battalion occupied the eighth and final conference
playoff spot and bowed out in four games against a talented Colts team. Two of
the games went to overtime while a third was decided by one goal.
“We played pretty hard in the playoffs,” said Butler. “That
team was the foundation for the best team we ever had here.”
The offseason brought two outstanding acquisitions, centre
Duchene from the Priority Selection and Bobby Sanguinetti, a first-round pick
of the NHL’s New York Rangers , who was one of the premier offensive defencemen
in the league came via trade from Owen Sound.
Butler made another addition, trading for veteran centre
Cory Emmerton from the Kingston Frontenacs in December. Emmerton contributed
one goal and two assists in his debut, a 5-4 road win at Kitchener, but a week
later would be diagnosed with mononucleosis. Emmerton would go on to record 30
points in 30 games.
“Cory came in and had a great start and then he got mono and
I don’t know if he ever recovered,” said Butler. “That trade cost us a lot.”
With Pitton injured, Killeen carried the ball in goal for
the first eight games and the duo split the netminding chores for the remainder
of the season. The Troops would win 42 games and score 259 goals, the
second-highest total in club history.
Hughes led the team in scoring with 91 points, including 28
goals, and Hodgson had a breakout season with 85 points including a team-high
40 goals. Duchene recorded 30 goals and 20 assists for 50 points.
Among Sanguinetti’s 70 points were 29 goals, a club record
for defencemen.
“Stan really let me use my strengths, like skating and
creating offence,” said Sanguinetti, now a member of the NHL’s Carolina
Hurricanes. “He also helped me develop the defensive side of my game. He gave
me the leeway to do what I could offensively, but at the same time he made sure
I was doing the right things defensively. That really helped me get to the next
level.”
The Battalion won the Central and met the seventh-seeded
Colts in the first round of the playoffs. Barrie, behind the stellar
goaltending of Michael Hutchinson, upset the Troops in five games. Hutchinson
made 62 saves in a 2-1 Colts win in overtime on home ice in Game 4.
“That could have been our second-best team if it had reached
the level it was capable of,” said Butler. “We just didn’t get it done in the
playoffs. Game 4 killed us when we could have turned the series around. We had
a lot of shots. Pitton was pretty good in that series, but Hutchinson outplayed
him and sometimes in the playoffs it comes down to goaltending. That would be among the most disappointing
playoff series in my time here.”
Addressing the Barrie jinx, Abbott said, “There are some
times when you have a team’s number and some times when a team has your number.
Historically, Barrie has had our number more than we have had theirs. We’ve had
a lot of success against teams like Peterborough, Guelph and Ottawa and it
doesn’t matter if you are good and they are bad or vice versa. It holds true.”
There as much optimism heading into the 2008-09 season
despite the losses of Pitton, Sanguinetti, Emmerton, productive left winger
Lynes and Hughes, who would eventually head to Austria after attending
Columbus’s training camp. Hulking rearguard Matt Clark, an 11th-round
Priority Selection pick in 2006, quickly became a mainstay in the lineup and
the team was bolstered by two 2007 picks, goaltender Brandon Foote and left
winger Josh Shalla.
But the key component brought in during the offseason was
first-round Import Draft pick Evgeny Grachev, a huge, talented Russian left
winger who had been a third-round choice of the Rangers in the NHL draft that
year.
“The Rangers had drafted him and really wanted him to play
in the CHL and I took a chance and took him,” said Butler. “Once the Rangers
signed him we were able to get him, but it wasn’t easy we had to go through
some appeals with the IIHF and Hockey Canada.”
For all the promise the results weren’t there early as the
Battalion stumbled out of the gate with only two wins in their first eight
games. After a 4-3 loss at Sudbury on Oct. 11 that saw captain Hodgson earn a
two-game suspension for engaging in a second fight during the same stoppage,
the Troops took stock of their situation.
“We knew we had a good team, we weren’t always playing as
well as we should,” said Hodgson. “We just needed to figure out what the
problem was. We sat down after that loss to Sudbury and looked at things we
could do to improve. That showed a lot of character and integrity as a group
because we didn’t sit there and blame each other, we didn’t make excuses we
just figured out ways to be better and we just took off from there.”
A 4-0 home-ice win over the visiting Wolves two days later
was the start of a club-record 16-game winning streak that came to an end in a
6-5 overtime loss at Niagara on Nov. 27.
“You could see a different tone or attitude with the team
and we just took off,” said Hodgson, who would go on to star for the Canadian
team that won gold at the World Junior Championship at Ottawa. “We emphasized
having more fun, we didn’t want it to be tough to come to the rink. We wanted a
better atmosphere and I think it worked.”
With the Troops owning a record of 23-13-2, Butler decided
to get aggressive in advance of the OHL’s Jan. 9 trade deadline.
“We were young, but I knew Duchene wouldn’t be back as an
18-year-old and Hodgson and Grachev would be gone,” Butler aid. “I thought at
that time that if we were ever going to make noise that was the team that would
do it.”
Butler acquired overage defenceman Josh Day and veteran
right winger Andrew Merrett in two separate trades with the IceDogs on Jan. 7
and picked up overage left winger Matt Kang a day later. Hours before the
deadline Butler parted with Foote and Shalla to acquire veteran goaltender
Thomas McCollum from the Storm and sent DeCoste to the Sault Ste. Marie
Greyhounds for veteran right winger Anthony Peluso.
“Killeen was a good goaltender,” said Butler. “I didn’t
think he was a great goalie and I knew we would need very good goaltending to
be successful. I targeted who I thought was the best goalie in the league and
went after him. I was told ‘no’ a few times, but was finally told ‘yes’. We
paid a pretty good price, Shalla turned into a 50-goal scorer and Foote was a
good starting goalie.
“Peluso was a good trade for DeCoste and a fifth-round pick
and getting Kang for a fourth was a great trade. Merrett and Day gave us some
depth, Peluso came in and played on our first line and Kang was probably our
best player in the playoffs. He scored a lot of big goals.”
Said Abbott: “We realized we had a very good group and with
a tweak here or an addition there we could have been as good as anybody. When
we landed McCollum I knew we were serious about making a run for it.”
The Battalion began a 12-game winning streak on Jan. 11 at
Barrie that lasted until it lost 3-1 at Belleville on Feb. 11. The Troops won
eight of their last nine games to finish with a club-record 47 wins and their
third Central title.
Hodgson led the Battalion in scoring with 43 goals and 49
assists for 92 points on his way to winning the Red Tilson Trophy and CHL
player of the year honours. Grachev won the Emms Family Award as the OHL’s
rookie of the year after contributing 80 points, including 40 goals. Duchene
emerged as one of the most talked-about prospects in hockey and recorded 31
goals and 48 assists for 79 points. McCollum posted 17 wins and four shutouts
in 23 games.
The second-seeded Battalion dispatched the Peterborough
Petes in four games in a conference quarterfinal and advanced to meet the
Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors in the only postseason meeting to date between
the Troops and a Peel rival operating out of the Hershey Centre.
The Battalion won 3-0 in the series opener and posted a 2-1
win in Game 2. The Majors won 5-1 in the third game and prevailed 4-3 in
overtime in Game 4 to tie the series. Hodgson had three points in 4-2 Battalion
win in game 5 and the series shifted to Mississauga where the Troops won 3-2
before a raucous Good Friday crowd of 3,815 as Kang scored the winning goal at
14:57 of the second period.
“That was a hard series, we won the first two games, but
they stormed back to tie the series,” said Butler. “We won decisively in Game
5, there was no way the team was going to denied. Game 6 was touch and go, J.P.
Anderson was great in goal for them as a 16-year-old.”
The Battalion advanced past the second round for the first
time and squared off with the top-seeded Bulls, who were in a third straight
conference final.
The Troops won the opener at Belleville, 4-2, and scored two
goals in the first minute of Game 2 on the way to a 7-2 win before 4,072 at
Brampton. The Bulls prevailed 6-2 in the third game at home, but the Battalion
produced a 4-3 win in Game 4. The fifth game, at Belleville, was the longest in
club history and ended at 18:49 of the second overtime as Nick Palmieri scored
on the power play with Duchene in the penalty box.
The series returned to the Bunker and the Troops trailed 3-2
after two periods before a jacked-up crowd of 3,636. Duchene’s second goal of
the game tied it on the power play at 2:03 of the third, Hodgson made it 4-3 at
6:49 and 37 seconds later Duchene completed his hat trick with the eventual
winner on a brilliant play. Grachev and Hodgson scored empty-net goals to make
the final 7-4 and send the Battalion to the OHL Championship Series for the
first time.
“That was a big night, I’d never seen this place as electric
as it was that night,” said Butler. “We came back and played hard to win the
game. Belleville was a very good team, with guys like Mike Murphy, P.K. Subban
and Eric Tangradi.”
The high-powered Spitfires were the Battalion’s opponent in
the final and the series got off to an ominous start when the Spitfires rolled
to a 10-1 win at home in the opener. The Spitfires opened a 3-0 first-period
lead in Game 2 at Brampton and held on for a 5-3 win. Dale has three points in
the third game as the Troops, who were without an injured Grachev and had a
starting goalie in McCollum who was banged up, skated to a 4-2 win at Windsor.
The Spitfires prevailed 4-1 at Brampton in Game 4 and returned home with a
chance to clinch the series. The Spitfires took a 1-0 lead into the third
period, but Kang tied the game at 16:14. Duchene was whistled for checking from
behind on Windsor defenceman Harry Young at 1:32 of overtime and Taylor Hall
converted on the power play 37 seconds later.
The Spitfires went on to win the first of two consecutive
Memorial Cup championships.
“I always wondered how that series would have turned out if
Grachev hadn’t been hurt and Duchene doesn’t get called for a brutal penalty in
overtime of Game 5,” said Butler. “We thought our goaltending would be better
than Windsor’s and it wasn’t because Thomas was hurt. The only thing that
lessens the pain of losing the final is that the team we lost to won the
Memorial Cup. I feel if we had got to the Memorial Cup we would have won it. It
was a great, special run and it taught us all how good you have to be to get to
the final. You learn how hard it is to win.”
Said Abbott: “That was a good team and we played a very good
Windsor team. Winning that Belleville series was very gratifying. After the
final game in Windsor I went into our dressing room and told the players that
we were all proud of them and they had accomplished more than any Battalion
team ever had. We were proud of our history, but all Battalion teams in the
future would be measured against them.”
The Battalion moved on the next season without Duchene, who
was picked third overall by the Colorado Avalanche in the NHL Entry Draft,
Grachev, who was headed to the American Hockey League, and Hodgson, who was
expected to join the Vancouver Canucks who made him the 10th overall
pick in 2008.
Veteran left winger Sean Jones was acquired in late-August
from the Otters and would go on to lead a lowest-scoring Battalion team in
history in goals and points. Second-year centre Sam Carrick, a first-round Priority
Selection pick in 2008, emerged as an offensive contributor and energetic right
winger Scott Tanski, a 12th-rounder in 2006, and rookie right winger
Philip Lane, a fourth-round pick in 2008, were key offensive and defensive
components.
“We might have been an even better team if Grachev, Hodgson
and Duchene had all come back,” said Butler. “We had all our defence back and
some great role guys. Jones came in and was a good player for us. He was our
offensive leader and scored some big goals for us.”
The strength of the Battalion that season was defence,
anchored by 19-year-old Killeen, who played 63 games, posting five shutouts and
a goals-against average of 2.42. He would go on to earn an entry-level contract
from the Pittsburgh Penguins, who made him a sixth-round pick in 2008.
“That was the best group of defencemen I have ever played
behind,” said Killeen. “Guys like Peroff, Albert, Clark, Zach Bell, Cameron
Wind and Kyle Pereira were all great.
“I was hoping that would be my last season in junior. I
wanted to make the jump to the pros and that was the last season I could get
signed by Pittsburgh. There was a motivation for me to go in and put up a good
season. I really dedicated myself in the summer and during the season and
everything worked out well. That was the season when I think I made the most
improvement in my technical skills as a goalie and I think I have carried that
into my pro career.”
Said Butler: “I knew Patrick could be good. He was
disappointed at the time we made the McCollum trade, but I am sure it helped
having Thomas here because he learned how hard you have to work and how much
you have to focus.”
The Troops got a surprise in December when Hodgson was
returned by the Canucks. Hodgson, who had injured his back during offseason
training, would not play until Feb. 4, but he would produce eight goals and 12
assists for 20 points in 13 games.
“He came back with a pretty severe injury and his rehab time
was significant,” said Butler. “We all thought he should be in the NHL and we
didn’t expect him back.”
The Battalion finished with 25 wins and 64 points and
squared off against the Frontenacs in the first round of the playoffs. The
Troops won the first two games before the Frontenacs prevailed 4-2 in Game 3
and 7-4 in Game 4. Jones scored at 5:38 of overtime to give the Battalion a 4-3
win in Game 5, but the Frontenacs forced a seventh and deciding game with a 2-1
win at Brampton. The series shifted to Kingston where Lane and Jones each
contributed two goals in a 5-2 win.
The Battalion, led by a hobbled Hodgson and without Clark,
who was suspended for the first three games, met a deep and talented Colts team
that prevailed in four games and would eventually advance to the final where they
were swept by the Spitfires.
“That group battled and there were a lot of winners back
there,” said Butler.”The Frontenacs had a pretty good team with guys like
Nathan Moon, Erik Gudbranson, Ethan Werek and Taylor Doherty. If Cody had been
healthy we might have made it tougher for Barrie. We were without Clark and it
was tough to be without one of the best shut down defencemen in the OHL.”
With Killeen off to the pro ranks goaltending quickly became
an issue in 2010-11. Jacob Riley, a seventh-round pick in 2009 who had played
10 games the previous season, was paired with rookie Swiss import Dennis
Saikkonen.
Faced with a low-scoring team that was 8-11-4, Butler
overhauled his goaltending in the span of two days. He traded overager Jones to
the Frontenacs on Nov. 22 to open a spot he used eight days later to sign
overage free agent Cody St. Jacques, a veteran who had played for the Storm and
the Sault Greyhounds, and traded Riley to Sudbury. The following day Butler
traded Pereira to Guelph for import netminder Matej Machovsky, who replaced
Saikkonen who was waived.
“It just came to a point where I had to do something,” said
Butler. “St. Jacques was great, if he had been a player he would have been the
captain. He was great at handling the puck and he was a very good mentor to Machovsky,
who has been as good a goalie as anyone who has played here.”
The Battalion managed only 190 goals, third-fewest in team
history, with Tanski leading the team with 47 points, the lowest total of any
leading scorer in Battalion history. Right winger Barclay Goodrow, a
first-round pick in 2009, produced a team-leading 24 goals, while Carrick, who
had been chosen by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the fifth round of the 2010 Entry
Draft, added 39 points, including 16 goals, in an injury-plagued season.
The Troops managed only three goals, including two from
captain Stephon Thorne, as they were swept in a first-round playoff series by
the high-powered IceDogs.
The Battalion’s offence returned in 2011-12 with captain
Carrick enjoying his finest offensive season as he led the team in scoring with
37 goals and 30 assists for 67 points. Goodrow produced 52 points, including 26
goals, and Lane, import centre Patrik Machac and overage left winger Ian Watters
combined for 103 points, including 45 goals. Second-year blueliner Dylan Blujus
chipped in with 34 points, the most for a Battalion defencemen since
Sanguinetti produced 70 in 2007-08.
The strength of the team continued to be defence, led by
Machovsky, who posted 24 wins and a goals-against average of 2.36 in 42 games.
The Battalion won 36 games, finished fourth in the conference and swept the
Wolves in a first-round series before being eliminated in four games by the
IceDogs.
“I thought that group really got to the level we expected
them to,” said Butler. “They gave everything they had every night for the most
part and there were few nights when the coaching staff felt cheated. We had a
very good series against Sudbury, and I thought both teams were pretty even
going into that series. We ran into a very good Niagara team, lost the first
game in overtime and we never recovered from it.”
The current edition of the Battalion finds itself in the
thick of the playoff battle with Sudbury and continues to benefit from strong
defensive play, anchored by Machovsky and veteran defencemen Wind, who set the
club record for games played, Bell, McIvor and Blujus. Veterans Goodrow,
Machac, Matt MacLeod, Brandon Robinson and Jamie Lewis are supplemented by the
addition of talented newcomers Blake Clarke, a Missouri native who was a
first-round pick in the 2012 Priority Selection, emerging 17-year-old power
forward Nick Paul, and right winger Mike Amadio, a second-round choice in 2012.
