For all the vitriol and disdain these two markets have for each other you may be surprised to read that at the Major Junior level of Hockey, the North Bay and Sudbury teams have only played each other once in a playoff series.
The last time these two teams met, the Toronto Blue Jays hadn’t even won their first World Series championship and the Montreal Canadiens were still a year away from becoming Canada's last team to lift the Stanley Cup.
When the puck drops on Thursday, April 11 at Memorial Gardens, the game between the Battalion and the Wolves will be the first time since 1992 that the Highway 17 rivals face off with a chance to end each other's season.
These two cities have had hockey teams playing in the Ontario Hockey League together for over 30 years and it’s truly remarkable that out of all those potential matchups and scenarios, there have been just four games of playoff hockey to look back on — North Bay holding the bragging rights after a 4-0 series sweep in the second round of that year's playoffs.
“During the regular season, the matchup between Sudbury and North Bay was always rough and tumble hockey and the games were easy to get up for, for both teams and both sets of fans,” says former Centennial and North Bay-born Mike Burman.
“What I remember about that series is that Head Coach Bert Templeton had our tough guys playing really smart hockey and picking their opportunities in that series.”
Burman, who was a defenceman during his hockey career, says Sudbury had a good team that year led by Ken MacKenzie (who is also the current head coach of the Wolves) behind the bench and Jamie Matthews, Brandon Convery, Glen Murray and Jason Young on the ice. “I think we just had a better team in general with John Spoltore, Drake Berehowsky, Jack Williams, Chad Penney, Jason Firth, Jeff Shevalier and, of course, Dennis Bonvie. We also would’ve had Derian Hatcher all year if he didn’t make the Minnesota North Stars as an 18-year-old.”
Vince Caliciuri was the Memorial Gardens public address announcer and did the radio broadcasts alongside Pete Handley for the road games. He says he remembers Glenn Murray being enemy number one in that series.
“He was that type of player that instigated everything and then would skate away. It used to really tick Peter off!” he recalls. “We had a lot of laughs. The Gardens was packed all the time, I remember this being a great playoff run for North Bay who seemed to always play well when Bert was leading the charge.”
“The team had a bigger goal in mind and we knew we could go deep in the playoffs, and we pretty much flew through playoffs until the last series when we met Soo,” says Burman.
Yes, ironically, it was an all-northern Ontario battle in the OHL finals as well with the Sault. Ste. Marie Greyhounds defeating the Centennials in the OHL finals in a seven-game series.
Despite the loss against the Soo – two years later the Cents would go on to win it all, beating the Detroit Jr. Red Wings in seven games to claim their first and only OHL Championship. Burman says those series against Sudbury and the Soo paved the way for the Cents to lift the trophy down the road.
“It definitely stayed in our minds. The players that went through both series, Bill Lang, Shevalier, myself, Brad Brown, we couldn’t forget it. In ‘92 when we lost to the Soo, we were up 3-2 going into game six in North Bay. We hit a goalpost on a penalty shot in the third period and lost game six,” he says.
“That was the turning point in that series,” says Caliciuri. “Losing that sixth game at home was tough, but when we headed to the Soo for game seven, we all had our bags packed and ready to go, thinking we were going to be covering the Memorial Cup in Seattle. Unfortunately, the Cents just came up short.”
“Then in ‘94 the opposite happened,” says Burman. “We went into game six in Detroit down 3-2 in the series, I remember thinking ‘It happened to us in ‘92 and that we could turn the series around and bring it home for game seven in ‘94,’ which we did and ended up winning in overtime when Jason Campeau scored to win the OHL championship.”
And maybe there would’ve been more playoff memories against Sudbury if not for some underwhelming seasons by the Centennials, who would end up winning only four more playoff games following their OHL Championship win, being swept in the first round three times, missing the playoffs three times and losing 4-2 twice in their final eight years, before the franchises ultimate exit to Saginaw.
“It just never lined up, even before the Cents left for Saginaw. There were years where Sudbury wasn’t good and didn’t make the playoffs, then there were years after the championship run where the Cents weren’t good and they didn’t make the playoffs, so it always seemed like the two teams were just on opposite sides when it came time for the playoffs, and the matchups never happened,” says Caliciuri.
But in an ironic twist of fate 10 years after the Centennials ceased running in North Bay, their new team was building its own rivalry with the Wolves down in Brampton.
In March of 2012, I was an intern at the Rogers Peel TV station in Mississauga. I worked in their sports department covering the Brampton Battalion and Mississauga Steelheads (known then as the Mississauga St. Mike's Majors) and at that time the first rumours began to swirl about Brampton ownership potentially looking for a new home. I joked with my coworkers that I was hired to steal their team and bring them to North Bay with me.
Brampton had a good team, led by their captain, Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick Sam Carrick and future North Bay household names like Barclay Goodrow, Brenden Miller, Marcus McIvor and the player who would score the Eastern Conference Clinching goal in 2014, Jamie Lewis.
They finished that season in fourth place in the Eastern Conference, four points ahead of fifth-place Sudbury and in the first round of that year's post-season, the Battalion swept the Wolves in four before bowing out to Niagara in the second round.
Fast forward to November 2012, I’m covering North Bay city council as the city reporter and sports editor for CKAT radio, and the City of North Bay announces the Battalion is moving to North Bay. (they must have missed me)
The excitement was through the roof and OHL fever hit North Bay.
“Once the team announced they were coming here, I ordered the OHL TV package so I could watch Brampton and familiarize myself with the players and get reacquainted with the product again,” says Caliciuri.
Late in the season, bus trips were being organized to bring North Bay fans to see Brampton play in Sudbury.
“What made me most excited about North Bay getting an OHL team again was the opportunity to watch and support another OHL team. I was much younger when the Centennials were in the Bay, so I only got to watch them for a few years before they were sold to Saginaw. There's still plenty of memories and friendships from those days,” says super fan Jenna Bitis. “The atmosphere at the games that Brampton played in Sudbury was electric. There was a big buzz and a lot of excitement from everyone who went on those trips. Between the buses and the fans who drove, I think we filled two whole sections in Sudbury's arena,” says Bitis.
Current Battalion Head Coach Ryan Oulahen was an assistant coach with Brampton at the time and says he remembers the North Bay fan support from that final season in Brampton.
“The team knew we were moving to North Bay and it was an interesting experience, dealing with some new media, it was the first time I met Bob Coles. We had those buses come to the games in Sudbury and that’s when our players first got excited about the prospects of playing in North Bay,” says Oulahen.
Current Memorial Gardens PA announcer Bob Coles adds, “Our sales chief Holly Cangiano was the one pushing a lot of buttons behind the scenes. She was able to charter a couple of buses to Sudbury for a late-season game. We went as a staff and brought a lot of the listeners to the game who wanted to show the players, they were ready to support them.”
The Battalion and the Wolves were lining up for a playoff rematch as Brampton once again finished fourth in the conference and the Wolves were right behind them. With that knowledge, Coles and I were tabbed to broadcast the games of that playoff series on CKAT.
“We have to credit Dave Branch for making that happen because with media rights you have to be within a certain radius of the team you are broadcasting, but he allowed it to happen and we were able to get those games on the air so the fans back in North Bay could hear about their future team,” says Coles.
Coles says the series that went five games had some twists and turns, including the fact that Oulahen had to take over the reins as head coach after former bench boss Stan Butler was ejected during game two and suspended for the remainder of the series.
“It was my first taste in that role and there were a lot of defining moments for me in terms of growth, but they got the better of us in that series.”
The Wolves got their revenge from the 2012 playoff run, eliminating the Battalion in five games and ending their run in Brampton.
“It was an emotional series as well,” says Coles. “It ended 1-0 and I remember Jake Smith, after he let in that goal in overtime, he stayed on the ice in a prone position for about half a minute and you just realized that it was the end of an era of hockey for that community. A tough loss at the time for the Battalion who had hopes of going further.”
That brings us to 2024. It’s a matchup that has been 11 years in the making. North Bay and Sudbury. Battalion and Wolves. Set to battle for a chance at playing in the Eastern Conference Finals. Something the Battalion has done the last two years in a row – while the Wolves haven’t won a second-round series since they went all the way to the OHL finals in 2007.
“It’s about time these two teams played isn’t it?” says Coles. “The first couple of years after the Battalion moved, they had some good seasons, and Sudbury wasn’t great. Then it flip-flopped and it’s only been within the last three years where you’re seeing both teams at a point where they are both competing at the same level.”
Coles adds, “I think it will come down to discipline. Both teams have some dynamic players, although the health status of leading scorer Anthony Romani and number one goaltender Dom DiVincentiis are some keys to watch for – but I think the main things will be, which team can stay more disciplined.”
From the players to the media to the fans there’s no doubt that the word associated with this series is "rivalry."
“It was a natural rivalry being so close together in the north and it continues today. Fans are crazy for those games,” says Burman. “Both barns were always sold out, and the games were always very exciting no matter what place in the standings you were. I remember my first or second-year Bert saying something to the effect, 'I don’t care if we win a game all season but we’re going to win the season series against Sudbury,’ so I think that says it all! It is one of the best OHL or CHL rivalries, even to this date in my opinion.”
“I think the rivalry has always been there between the two communities, whether it was the Cents or the Battalion, when it comes to North Bay versus Sudbury, there’s always been something there. People in North Bay feel like Sudbury gets too much government attention. People in Sudbury say they are the bigger centre, look at us we have a Costco – so I think all of that gets wrapped up in the on-ice battle. But when your hockey team is better than the other community's hockey team, there’s something a little extra you get to boast about and I think both communities would like to be the ones boasting when this series is over,” says Coles.
Caliciuri says, “It’s just one of those things where, because they are so close to you, there’s a little more motivation to wanting to hammer them.”
Bitis adds, “The North Bay-Sudbury rivalry is second to none. It starts young. Those of us who have lived and grown up in North Bay have watched that rivalry through the Centennials, Skyhawks, Trappers, and Lakers. It's all about that northern Ontario pride. Even though it's a heated rivalry at every level, whether it's games here or games in Sudbury you still meet a lot of great fans and people through the game and those friendships last a lifetime. I think it's going to be a big and tough series but a very enjoyable one — hopefully more enjoyable for Battalion fans.”
