The minor hockey season is getting down to the brass tacks.
Four Barrie Jr. Colts 'AAA' teams finished atop the Eastern Ontario regular-season standings and are currently taking part in playdowns to earn a spot in the final Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) tournaments that start in Oakville later this month.
Barrie’s U18, U14, U13, and U11 teams topped the league and a few more Colts squads could earn OMHA berths with good post-season runs.
After losing just twice in the regular season, the U11s are off to a 5-0-0 start in the playoffs; the U13s, 24-4-8 in the regular season, won their playoff opener and are about to embark on a busy slate of remaining post-season contests to qualify for Oakville.
The U18s, 27-4-4 in the regular season, are 2-0-0 in the playoffs and also on track to qualify for the OMHAs.
Of special note are the U14s and their bronze medal in the Ontario Winter Games. The Jr. Colts were awarded a spot in that tournament by having the best points percentage in their league; they torched the opposition in the regular season, losing just twice in 36 games. The 2009-born group started playoffs in similar fashion, posting easy wins over Clarington and Whitby, but lost 4-0 at home to the York-Simcoe Express on Friday.
The team travels to Clarington today.
Barrie and York-Simcoe finished one-two in the regular season, but the Colts have now lost twice consecutively to the Express, who play out of St. Andrew’s College in Aurora. Both teams will play once more on March 22.
“They are just as good as us, but York-Simcoe is a different type of team,” said Martin.
The top two teams out of the five-team group that also includes the Kingston Jr. Gaels will advance to the OMHAs. Assuming both Barrie and York-Simcoe do as expected and advance, they will be placed on opposite sides of the draw as the top two seeds from the regular season.
Another tournament, an unofficial provincial championship, looms in April, when teams from the Greater Toronto Hockey League and other provincial loops also participate.
Martin says his hockey team isn’t looking ahead, but its goal is to do as well as possible in its remaining playdown games, qualify and compete hard at the OMHAs with the goal of earning a spot in the provincial finals.
The podium finish at the Ontario Winter Games and another tournament experience on the campus of the University of Notre Dame over the holiday season gave Martin and his charges a taste for wider competition.
“The red caps are nice,” Martin said of the traditional hats awarded to OMHA participants, “but (the Ontario event) is the ultimate goal.
"By then, we’ll be up to 80 games this season.”
Kids playing just as many games as NHL teams?
If it sounds overwhelming, Martin acknowledges the grind of 'AAA' minor hockey can be taxing. The Sudbury-area native moved to Barrie upon retiring after about a decade playing professionally in the minor leagues of North America and then in Europe. Before that, Martin played for both his hometown Wolves and the Soo Greyhounds, who won the Memorial Cup in his rookie year.
Now working in medical sales, Martin probably puts in just as much time as a coach/hockey dad; his son, Hayden, plays for the U14s, and his elder son, Hudson, is on the U16s.
Make no mistake, Martin loves it, even if he and his wife, Kristi, put almost as many miles on the family vehicles as he did air miles when he played in destinations as far-flung as Waco, Texas, and Denmark, plus many more in between.
“It’s still fun. Hockey is always fun,” he said. “It’s the business of it that has changed.”
Business?
Yes, there is a whole industry around elite kids hockey and there has been for a while. Some of that change is perhaps understandable and a reflection of society — off-season training, for example — but agents? For kids, some who haven’t turned 14 yet?
Even Martin, who has pretty much seen it all in hockey, shakes his head over the phone at how things have changed since he was growing up.
“They almost apologize to me when they come to games,” he said of the agents and their subordinates who turn up to recruit players.
Now, that is not to suggest some of his current players may someday not need an agent, or at least sound advice to navigate the path forward to the Ontario Hockey League and/or college hockey. The U14s are two years away from entering the OHL draft, the traditional demarcation point for players to be identified and then to decide whether they want to pursue that league or go to college.
The trip to Notre Dame alerted at least a few of Martin’s players to the school alternative.
“I would expect six or seven of these kids to be (draft-worthy),” he said.
