Bluelines Summer Edition: Rivalry with Barrie Colts promises to heat up

Read "Bluelines: Summer Edition" every Tuesday, written by Ranjan Rupal (right), the play-by-play voice, and Greg Theberge (left), a former Memorial Cup winner and Washington Capitals defenseman and hockey analyst for The OHL Tonight on TVCogeco. 

The best hockey rivalries are born from season after season of ferocious playoff battles.

The Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens have drawn swords since the dawn of time, and one hopes the Canadiens and the soon-to-be Quebec Nordiques will pick up where they left off in the 1990’s.  I’m not sure who the Toronto Maple Leafs would call rivals anymore: they’ve not had a meaningful playoff presence since the early 2000’s, a time when Chris Neil and the Ottawa Senators were sticking in the craw of Leafs Nation.

When the OHL returned to North Bay, an enticing question was always who would be our dreaded rivals.  Invariably we looked westward on Hwy 17 at the Sudbury Wolves and, for the first season, it seemed like we had something going, following a sold out New Year’s Eve classic, several boisterous  busloads of traveling fans, and a down-to-the-wire race for the Central Division crown.  But when the Wolves death-spiraled to the Eastern Conference basement this past season, they took the budding rivalry with it.

Filling that void are the Barrie Colts.

They were led by Aaron Ekblad, Andreas Athanasiou and Brendan Lemieux in the first campaign, and then by Lemieux and a trio of 100-point men: Joe Blandisi, Kevin Labanc and Andrew Mangiapane, in the second campaign.  Adding fuel to the fire: the unfathomable storming of the visitor’s radio broadcast booth in Barrie by a posse of indignant hometown Colts’ fans, catching an astonished Country 600 play-by-play man Matthew Sookram off guard, though he somehow managed to soldier on despite the onslaught and subsequent efforts by local Keystone Kops to eject him, and voila!  One epic, old-time hockey rivalry in the making.

The Colts have proven to be worthy adversaries, and they come with a rich hockey tradition.  Though the modern-era club entered the League in 1995, the name has been around for ages, dating back to 1907, and civic-minded hockey buffs will point out that North Bay’s Ab DeMarco Sr. started his illustrious career as a Colt.  Several accomplished players have followed in Demarco’s footsteps including Kyle Clifford, Michael Hutchinson, Aaron Ekblad, Alex Pietrangelo, Mark Scheifele and, going back a bit, former North Bay Centennial Brad Brown, brought to Barrie for his overage year by Bert Templeton, the Colts’ first ever head coach.

Aaron Ekblad led the Barrie Colts to the 2013 Bobby Orr Trophy as Eastern Conference champs

But after suffering consecutive playoff ousters at the hands of the North Bay Battalion, there has been some anxious hand-wringing by fans, perhaps sensing that a window of opportunity is closing.  Whether the sky is falling or not, the origin of such lofty expectations is plainly visible: the Colts treated their fans to an OHL Championship in just their fifth year of existence, defeating the Plymouth Whalers in seven games in 2000 and then followed that up with a trip to the Championship Series in 2002, a trip to the Conference finals in 2006, another trip to the Championship Series in 2010 and yet again in 2013.

To learn more about what the Barrie Colts have in store for 2015-16, I spoke with their general manager Jason Ford...

Ranjan: Hi Jason.  First some current events: now that your former Assistant General Manager Dave Drinkill has accepted the position of General Manager for the Saginaw Spirit, how does that change your day-to-day?

Jason Ford:  Hi Ranjan.  It won’t affect my day to day a lot because we’re going to replace him.  Right now it’s made my summer a little bit busier because we have to figure out what we want to do.  I saw it coming a few weeks ago, before it was announced that he got the job.  We helped him get a foot in the door in Saginaw because we know the ownership there, so we saw it coming and we have a plan in place on how we want to proceed, how to reorganize and restructure the scouting and hockey department.  We’re happy that he got the position there.  It’s good for Dave and it’s good for the organization. 

Ranjan: Since inception, back in 1995, the Barrie Colts have missed the playoffs just once, winning the OHL championship in 2000, and finalists in 2002, 2010 and 2013. How has this team evolved into such a bedrock franchise in the OHL?

Jason Ford:  I started with the club in 2001-02, and from observations I made myself, though I wasn’t involved in the hockey side as much back then, but one thing that I always noticed was that they hired good hockey people to run the team…hardworking people.  Right from the get-go, they hired Bert Templeton.  You guys know all about Bert in North Bay, but at the time, he was as connected as anybody could be in the junior hockey industry.  He got the Colts going right away.  They worked hard at it and they made the playoffs right away.  I has a couple of friends who were drafted to the Colts back in ’95, and the team had a year and a bit to scout and get ready for the expansion draft and the OHL draft.  

But when I started, Bert wasn’t there, Mike McCann was there, and I learned a lot from him.  He’s one of the big reasons that I’ve advanced within the Colts organization and from him I learned to treat the job in a professional manner.  I’ve seen the way other people run their operations, and it’s not as professional as was done by McCann and the Colts.  It’s always been treated like it’s an NHL team.  Always be professional, work hard, work ethically and be thorough, always do your homework and never assume anything!  One of the things I learned from Gregg Carrigan, who was the GM and head scout here for a year while I was assistant GM, was to hire good people and let them do their jobs. 

Ranjan:  How has Barrie has avoided the cycles of being a contender one year and cellar-dweller the next year?

Jason Ford:  We have a saying where we like to take a two or three-year run at it.  Sometimes it’s easier said than done, because in junior hockey, players improve and they get better, and sometimes you lose them earlier than expected.  I put a lot of stock into the drafts.  I always feel that if we draft well then we can afford to make a trade or two during the year to go for it, and we’re always going to have a drafted player waiting in the wings for us.  I’m sure you’ve noticed over the last 5 years that we’ve made a few trades during the year to improve our team, and other teams don’t always do that.  Maybe they’re thinking our year’s going to be next year, or the year after, and they wait.  But there are so many things that can happen in that time.  Like last year.  We didn’t expect to be trading our 2014 first round pick (Givani Smith) but we were in first place and, you know, you’ve got to go for it…

Ranjan: Describe the impact of having Dale Hawerchuk as your head coach...

Jason Ford:  Well it’s huge.  We learn a lot and he’s a great hockey mind, and is one of the best, if not the best, hockey guy I’ve ever been involved with.  He lets us do our jobs, and he’s not the type of coach who will question us when we acquire a player.  We work together, and since we’ve worked together for almost six years now, I know what kind of player Dale likes.  I know what kind of players are going to be successful with Dale, and we focus on getting those guys.  He has a big impact on everybody around the organization, and the players love playing for him.

Ranjan: Coming off back-to-back playoff encounters with the North Bay Battalion, what are your thoughts on the growing rivalry between these two teams?

The Barrie Colts were eliminated by the North Bay Battalion two years in a row

Jason Ford:  Well, I think it’s great.  When Brampton was there we had a bit of a rivalry.  But it’s no secret that we used to play Brampton in the playoffs and there were as many Colts fans in Brampton as there were Brampton fans.  But now it’s a different story, obviously.  North Bay’s a tough place to play.  They’re a tough team to play.  They have their own tough style.  I think it’s really good to have a nice little rivalry within the division.  It used to be Barrie and Sudbury, but these last five years it’s transformed over to Barrie and the Battalion.

Ranjan: The Colts assembled a strong team last year, with plenty of star power: Blandisi, Mangiapane, Labanc, Lemieux and Blackwood.  One wonders if it was a missed opportunity to challenge for a championship. What did your post-mortem reveal?

Jason Ford:  There was an opportunity there, and we went for it, but we came up a little short.  There’s nothing you can do about it now, but you just learn from it for next time, when you’re making deals and putting your team together.  We thought we had a really good team, but at the end of the day, North Bay’s top players were a little bit better than ours.  Their strong defensive system makes the Battalion a tough team to beat.  But I wouldn’t say it’s a huge lost opportunity.  We have a good amount of players coming back this year, so we just have to get our things together, get refocused over the summer, and we’ll be ready to go.

Ranjan: In 2014-15, the Colts nosed out North Bay using the tiebreaking formula, and claimed the Central Division banner. What positives can you take from that season?

Jason Ford:  I think the fact that we have a good group of ’96 players, the 19-year olds, coming back.  We look at our division and we think we can make some noise again, and we think we’ll have a good team again.  Some of the major positives from the playoffs last year were that we had a lot of young guys who gained experience from those playoff rounds, especially that series against North Bay.  Now, we didn’t win but now they’ve got some experience under their belts so that, next time around, they’ll be a little more used to it, and approach it a little better.  We think we have one of the best goaltenders in the League in Mackenzie Blackwood.  One of the things about junior hockey is that your young guys who didn’t play a big role this year, can step in and have more opportunities to showcase themselves and can be a bigger part of the team the next year.

Ranjan: Replacing last year’s overage players, the likes of Jonathan Laser, Garrett Hooey and Joseph Blandisi will be a tall task. Who steps to the fore in those key roles?

Jason Ford:  The OA’s this year will be Justin Scott who had 30 goals last year, Michael Webster who had a really good year on defense.  He led us in plus-minus with almost a plus-30.  Our third position is open: we might have Kevin Labanc if San Jose sends him back.  They don’t have to put him in the American League.  So if he comes back he would have the inside track on the job.  We have Chadd Bauman who we acquired from Guelph last year. He’s in the mix as well and can play in this League for sure.  Then we’ve got Stephen Nosad who can play in this League as well.  Although Scott and Webster are going to NHL camps, they’re going to be back.

Staten Island, NY native Kevin Labanc recorded 107 points for the Barrie Colts last year

But again, the big question mark is Labanc who got 100-plus points for us.  Kevin’s played two years in the League so a third year certainly wouldn’t hurt him.  I know that San Jose isn’t big into rushing kids but they’ve given him a qualifying offer, which is all they really have to do at this point.  They’re going to see how he does in training camp and see how he fits in with the pros, and then if he does really well and shows he can play in the American League then they’ll sign him and that’s where they’ll put him.  There’s lots of other things involved: his strength, since he’s not the biggest kid in the world.  They want him to get stronger, so there’s things he can work on, so as I say, another year of Junior wouldn’t hurt him.  For us it’s obviously nice to get him back, but if he advances and goes on to play pro, then that’s what it’s all about.  We’re supposed to be grooming these players and pushing them forward. 

Ranjan: Brendan Lemieux has always been a player that gets North Bay fans agitated. He’s highly talented, but how do you channel his exceptional energy?

Brendan Lemieux' talents are undeniable, but he starts the season with a 5-game suspension

Jason Ford:  He’s one of those players who play on the edge.  Dale’s got a pretty good relationship with him over the last couple of years.  When he first came in the League, we knew what we were getting into, and what kind of player he was.  We were warned about things and we were like, okay...  But he was only suspended once in his first three years in the League, and then he was suspended at the end of last year.  Like I said, he’s a player who plays on the edge, but you’ve just got to treat him with a little more care, maybe a little more work than other players, because he’s an emotional player.  Sometimes he can let his emotions get the best of him, but he’s a real player, one of those guys who you hate to play against, but you love to have him on your team.  He can score goals and he plays the game hard.  He doesn’t back down from anybody, and he’s an enthusiastic player who plays with a lot of passion.  At this point, it’s “to be determined” if he makes Winnipeg or not.  It’s obviously tough to make the NHL as a 19-year old.

Ranjan: I spoke with Andrew Mangiapane during the season, a nice young man who, at 5-foot-10, is undeterred by naysayers, and, against North Bay: 7 points in six regular season games, and 5 points in five playoff games…

The Calgary Flames selected Andrew Mangiapane following a 104-point campaign in Barrie

Jason Ford:  In his first two years in the League he put up 155 points.  There aren’t too many guys who can say that.  He came into the League as a 17-year old, and he was just coming to the Camp for the experience.  He was going to play Junior A in Toronto, but he was so good we couldn’t let him go and decided to sign him right away.  

Now, at that time he wasn’t big into working out, not because he didn’t want to, but just because he was new to it.  He didn’t really know what to do.  It just goes to show you how much untapped potential there is there.  Over the last couple of years he’s really learned how to train properly and do everything.  Although he’s not taller now, he’s much stronger, and he’s got a great work ethic on the ice and off.  He loves to play the game, and never backs down from anybody, and his size has never been an issue in this League.  Time will tell, but at the NHL level, he’s the type of kid who, even though he’s undersized, will push thorough and impress some coach somewhere and he’ll make a career for himself in the NHL, I think.

Barrie Colts Historical Record: 2012 - 2015

Ranjan: Last year you decided to go with one import player, and Rasmus Andersson turned out to be a gem. How did your organization approach this year’s CHL Import Draft, and what’s involved in getting selected centreman Julius Nattinen, taken in the 1st round - 51st overall in the Import draft - to agree to come over?

Jason Ford:  The import draft is a real tough animal sometimes - both to prepare for, and on Draft day itself.  We were picking 51st, and I had a list of 20 guys that we’re crossing off, and crossing off, and by the time I got down to our last 4 picks, Julius Nattinen was there.  He was a guy we had focused on.  There wasn’t going to be a better player that I could take at #51, and when the pick came up, and he was still there, it was a no brainer.  There’s a risk involved: he’s a Finnish kid who’s established, he’s already played second level pro over there, and had already done well.  But the fact that he was drafted into the NHL by Anaheim made it a good gamble, because we knew the agent well.  We’ll see if it works out, but we have a good chance of getting him because, if you noticed, Anaheim has signed him so they control what he does now.  

Most of those Finnish kids who are drafted like that just go back and play in Finland in the top league.  But in this case there are a couple of things working in our favour: we’ve got a good relationship with Anaheim and the GM there, and the agent has put players with us before, and he feels good about our program.  

In fact, there’s all kinds of things involved here…like his older brother was drafted by Montreal in the third round.  He played in Hamilton but it never really worked out for him over here…I think he played 1 game in Montreal.  I think his family thought about it and realize everybody is saying Barrie is a good place to go and the OHL is a good place for him to develop if he needs a year or two.  He’s waiting on the IIHF transfer card, but everything is in place and looking good.  So for us, if Nattinen could come in at #51, and basically be a first line centre and replace a guy like Joe Blandisi, then that is a step in the right direction.

Defenceman Rasmus Andersson and North Bay's Riley Bruce were selected by the Calgary Flames

Ranjan: Let’s talk about the back end, with Jonathan Laser moving on, and Ben Harpur joining the Senators’ organization, it leaves overager Michael Webster and import Rasmus Andersson, but then some unproven defensemen after that…

Jason Ford:  That’s the one thing... and we’re going to see how things shake out in the first part of the season.  We’ve got Brandon Prophet who’s played lots of games and who’s proven himself, but has to re-prove himself a little bit.  Beyond that we’ve got some 17-year olds and 18-year olds.  They’ll get a lot of experience under their belts, but we’ve got to give them some time.  They’re some players who will get more opportunity and more ice-time in front of them...so it’s their time to step up.

Ranjan: To get something good, you have to give something good up. The Colts’ parted with Givani Smith and C. J. Garcia, plus 2 second round picks, in 2017 and 2018, a fifth rounder in 2019 and a tenth in 2020. In return: Ben Harpur and Chadd Baumann from Guelph. I won’t ask you to critique your own trade, but describe the challenge of nudging your team over the hump at the trade deadline…

Jason Ford:  It’s a tricky thing because you have to determine, in the first couple of months, your team’s status, and you have to be working the phones and be in on the trades.  If you think you’re going to be team that’s going to be upgrading, then you have to identify what players are available and which ones you like the most and go after them.  Some of them you’ll miss out on and you have to move on to other things.  

First and foremost, a team’s got to figure out what they want to do and what they want to accomplish at the trade deadline. Then it’s just a question of working and putting together deals.  Some of the deals take a couple of months to put together, and some of the deals you talked about five months ago suddenly spring up in the final week before the deadline and you’ve got to make a quick decision.  Of course, you like upgrading your team, and trades are part of business and it’s exciting but, when January 10th comes, part of me is glad it’s over with because you can move on to other things.  Your team is set and you can focus on the draft and other things more. But the whole process is pretty interesting: some teams don’t like to show their cards, and others don’t mind.

Ranjan: The Oshawa Generals’ winning formula was size up front, size on the blueline, and plenty of speed to go around. As far as that template goes, how are the Colts’ positioned?

Jason Ford:  In relation to that template, we don’t have the Hunter Smiths, the 6-foot-7 guys, the Michael McCarrons.  There aren’t many teams in the League who can say they have an abundance of those kind of players.  But I think there are other ways to win.  If you look at the teams that have won, they’ve done it in different ways.  Right now people look at Oshawa and they say oh, the size, but maybe in five years it might be something different.  About 15 or 20 years ago the OHL was built around size, and there were guys who really couldn’t play the game all that well, but they were getting drafted because they were big.  But it’s done a 180° since they changed the rules, and now smaller players are able to play and do really well…but now size is coming back in because the team that had big players won it.   

We like to take players that have speed, and that compete.  I think the biggest thing in Oshawa was that they had speed and they had good team defense, and they competed hard.  And that’s one thing that we like to model our team around: guys who play hard and compete with the puck.  One thing I learned: we don’t scout with a measuring stick.  Now, having said that, you still need size but, if you look at our lineup, we’ve never had guys who have been really huge, so we’re built a little different than Oshawa.  But at the end of the day you need guys with good hockey sense, guys who love to play the game, and guys who play hard.  

In junior hockey, if a team can have two good drafts in a row, and be patient, then those players are going to grow up together, and build together and when that core becomes 18 and 19, then that’s when you’re going to have two good years to make a run at it.  Oshawa has had good teams the last couple of years, but they haven’t had great playoffs before this past year.  One player who doesn’t get much credit is Ken Appleby, the goaltender.  To win the League there’s no question about it: you need good goaltending.  People forget with Oshawa, a guy like Appleby wasn’t even drafted after the fact, and I think he was a big part of that team.

Ranjan: Most would agree that your team’s strength begins between the pipes, what made Mackenzie Blackwood such a sought after commodity in the NHL Draft this year?

The New Jersey Devils used their 2nd round pick in 2015 to nab Mackenzie Blackwood

Jason Ford:  One of the best goaltenders I’ve seen in Barrie was David Chant, who was with the Brampton organization before, and that’s going back to 2001-02 when Barrie made it to the finals as a major underdog.  Probably the best guy I saw was Mathias Neiderberger, who had two really good years and in his overage year he was just outstanding.  Mackenzie Blackwood is just as good as those guys, but he has that pro potential because he’s big, he’s strong.  He’s a physical specimen, which he obviously showed at the NHL Combines testing.  He’s a big, strong kid with an outstanding work ethic. The thing about Mackenzie is that he’s still pretty raw.  He started playing the position a little bit late.  He’s been in the League now for three years, so this will be his big year.  Mackenzie, as far as ability, upside and total package? I’ve never seen better in Barrie myself.  The question now is one of execution: he’s going into his big year and is going to have lots of big games.  He’s got the World Juniors on his plate now, and is trying to make that team, so there’s another challenge for him.  You’re under a microscope when you in that tournament, but that’s good.  Players need to experience lots of pressure, because that’s what their careers are going to be when they’re at the next level.

Ranjan: This could be your last season with Blackwood. However you want to say it, timing is everything. What pieces need to fall into place for the Colts to make a serious run with him in net?

Jason Ford:  Blackwood is just one player, but our core of ’96 players is pretty strong.  We’ll see how our division is.  On paper I think we can contend for it again.  We’ll see how the start of the season goes, and how everything falls into place.  But like I said before, if there’s an opportunity to win, we’re not the type to be hesitant and back off.  But to answer your question, the fact that Blackwood is a ‘96 and is not likely to be back for an overage year, this year we have to see how things shape up out of the gate.  But yes, there could be a little more urgency to win...

Ranjan: Jacob Tortora, your first round pick in the 2015 OHL Priority Selection, has already committed to Boston College. From an outside perspective, taking a flier on this prospect seems risky. What can the Colts do to change his mind?

Jason Ford:  He committed to Boston College a long time ago.  It’s a bit of a risk, obviously, but we did our homework and we knew that if he was selected by a couple of other teams, there’s a good chance that he’d be in their uniform this year, if not the following year.  Furthermore, there wasn’t a better player to take at that point in the draft for us.  With the OHL, if a player selected in the first round doesn’t come on board, the rules give you a good backup plan to work with.  So we decided let’s go for it.  We’ve worked hard at it and we’ve had good meetings with the player and his father.  Basically they’ve told us he’ll be coming to the OHL at some point, that he won’t be going to Boston College.  He’s going to start out at the US National Team Development Program, and spend a year or two there.  Jacob wants to play in the NHL, and one thing they’ve said is that the OHL is the way to go, and that Boston College was a safety net, you could say.  From a personnel perspective, they haven’t de-committed so there’s a good chance he’ll be in the League, but right now if he’s going to be a defective pick on September 1st, our decision will be: do we sit on this and hope we get him down the road, or do we trade him and try to get a big return back.

Ranjan: Making a splash at the one-day development camp in Innisfil doesn’t mean cracking the lineup in August. Who out of the 98’s looks ready to join the conversation?

Jason Ford:  We’re really happy with that Selection - minus the fact that we traded our 2014 first rounder, Givani Smith - we felt we had to upgrade the defense last year.  The rest of the Selection we’ve got a lot of good prospects, especially on defense.  Justin Murray is going to be with us.  We’ve got two or three other defensemen that I feel can make the team.  

There’s a summer league in Brampton called the Frank Carnevale League.  A lot of those ‘98’s play together and they’ve only lost a couple of games in that league, just by the shootout.  They’re not the most high-ended talent, but they’ve got a lot of hockey sense, a lot of passion and there’s lot of competitiveness there, so I’m pretty confident that there’s going to be handful of guys from our ‘98 Selection that are going to make the team.  In fact, our 14th round pick from last year just had a great camp, and is as determined as anybody to make the team.  There’s a real mixture of players who are going to have a real impact with us.