BayToday Jr. Trappers Insider - Respecting your competition

New Jr. Trappers forward Stephen Langford gets the "Mile High" feeling writing his first Jr. Trappers Insider on a rock cut. The Colorado native will be sharing his blog with you every Wednesday. Enjoy!

Hey North Bay, hope you’re having a great day!

This is my first year playing hockey up in Canada, so when
I was told at the start of the season that the CJHL rankings listed in the top 20 teams in Canada I was excited, but also wanted to know more.

The CJHL stands for Canadian Junior Hockey Leagues, which includes all the Tier 2 leagues - more than 120 teams - across the nation.

The CJHL has NHL scouts all around Canada watching junior hockey games and ranking the leagues and teams.

It is very good to be in the top 20 teams in the country, but a number is just a number if you don’t back it up with wins.

That is why Coach McCarthy stresses that we stay humble and that we come to the rink ready to play no matter who the opponent, whether it is the Soo Thunderbirds or the Abitibi Eskimos.

Unfortunately for us, we learned the hard way that any team in the NOJHL can win – it all depends on who shows up.

When we played Abitibi at the Igloo, we came out expecting a win, instead of playing hard the whole game and battling for every inch of the ice.

Once they got a lucky goal and we got into penalty trouble; the game was up for grabs.

Losing that game in overtime was very disappointing, but at the same time I think it helped me, along with some of the guys, realize that we need to show up every single day, ready to go to work, not just for one period, but all 60 minutes.

The final CJHL rankings have us in 15th, which is exciting! But at the end of the year, it doesn’t matter what number you were ranked before the playoffs, it matters who plays the longest, gets the last win at the end of the season, and lifts that Robertson Cup overhead.

That’s our goal as a team, but we will have to take it one game at a time. First we need to clinch first place for the regular season.

You can come help us this Friday night at 7 pm when we take on the Blind River Beavers. We also host Elliot Lake on Sunday at 2pm. Come help us finish the regular season the right way!

Go Trapps Go!!