The North Bay Battalion shake hands after Sunday's 2-1 loss in game 6 to give Oshawa the Bobby Orr Trophy as OHL Eastern Conference Champs in 2015. PHOTO BY JAMES BERTI.
The North Bay Battalion season ended on Sunday night. From an optimists perspective, it's the second straight year the Battalion made it to the Conference final.
Still, it’s a tough pill to swallow for the Battalion as the hockey operations, led by Stan Butler, held exit meetings with all the players on Monday.
“For the guys that are leaving we wish them the best and for the guys coming back they carry on the tradition that the guys have created in the first two years here in North Bay,” said Butler during a Monday afternoon media conference at Memorial Gardens.
The Battalion bench boss was obviously still disappointed with the result as he felt the team had what it took to get to the finals again - perhaps even further than that.
Either way finishing in the top 2 in 2014 and the top 3 in 2015 was a great result for the Battalion franchise since moving to North Bay.
“I think its a tribute to the 55,000 people here, the seventh man, they came out to the rink, they supported us,” Butler said about the dedicated Troops fans.
“You drive around town all the stores have ‘Go Troops Go’. I think the players see that and it motivates them to play well because they realize how much the city cares about the team and I’ve said in the 15 years I’ve been in Brampton, some of the teams we had there, I don’t know where they would have been if we had a fan base like this.”
While a season just ended, Butler was already talking about the future.
Gone will be NHL signee’s Nick Moutrey, Nick Paul and likely Ryan Kujawinski, who Butler believes will be offered a contract by New Jersey very soon.
Two pillars on the blue line in Brenden Miller and Marcus McIvor are aging out alongside solid playoff performer Ray Huether.
The Swedish pair of Olsson and Henriksson will also likely be playing elsewhere in ’15-16.
“Next year it will be Mike Amadio’s team, Zach Bratina’s team, Zach Poirier’s team, that’s junior hockey,” stated Butler.
“When guys leave, other guys have to step up. A lot of people in the league didn’t think we could get to the final four again, a lot of teams picked us a lot lower than that. At the end of the day, I think we still have a good base of guys coming back - guys that have won before.
“I think because of the players we have had this year and last year they have established that it’s a winning program. Like some of the other programs in our league, once you establish a winning program, I think when you pass the torch and that’s what happens with these guys, they want to carry it on in a positive way.”
Butler is also expecting a positive impact from a handful of rookies who will be sophomores next year.
“I think they all did really well, I think it was a real tough year for them,” said Butler about the rookies on the Battalion.
“Everyone else in our conference loaded up, I mean Zach Poirier was the only 16-year-old that played in the last two series’, I mean Barrie didn’t have a 16-year-old either so I saw all signs of him being a really good player.
“I think Shankar and Shoemaker, if they were on other teams, would have been real good players at 17. I’m confident both of those guys can come in and play at 18. Obviously we need Mike Baird to step his game up, he’s a year older and needs to get better and that’s what you hope for you hope they have seen what the guys have done ahead of them and bring it to that next level.”
The Battalion will take some time off but on May 23rd Memorial Gardens will be full of Battalion prospects hoping to make an impact at the spring camp as they look to build more towards another successful campaign in 2015-16.
