Geography, History and Economics. No, we are not talking about courses offered at Nipissing University, but instead, three reasons as to what makes recruiting so challenging for Head Coach Mike McParland and the Nipissing Lakers men’s hockey program.
Heading into their eleventh season of play in Ontario University Athletics, the Nipissing Lakers have gone up and down the rankings over the last decade, and McParland says they are hopeful of returning to that upper echelon tier of a top-five team. But the challenges that met them before their inaugural season are still the same barriers they face today when it comes to recruiting players to the northern Ontario post-secondary school.
“You see me before almost every single North Bay Battalion game at Memorial Gardens trying to meet with all the overage players (in the Ontario Hockey League) from the visiting teams that come to North Bay,” says McParland.
“But the challenges we face, even when talking to these players face to face, is that the majority of Major Junior players are looking at three reasons for why they choose a specific school.”
This is where the geography aspect comes in, as McParland continues, “one reason is that their girlfriend goes there, a second is they want to be closer to home, and a third is that they want to be part of a national championship. So to try and invite someone to come up north, when they are not from here, one of the biggest roadblocks is that they’ve been away from home for three or four years and they just want to be closer to home now.”
This summer McParland has recruited eight new players to help compliment the graduating class. They are coming to North Bay from various areas around the province and beyond; two are from southern Ontario, one from Barrie, another from Renfrew, two from the Ottawa area and the two out of province players are from Quebec and Nova Scotia.
Getting some of the East Coast players to commit to Nipissing is a tall task as McParland notes the differences in the way University Sports differentiate between the provinces, and this is where the economics come in.
He says, “they are loaded out there and they have different provisions and parameters that they play under and in terms of finances. I had a player last year shake my hand and look me in the eye and say ‘Mike you have nothing to worry about, I’m coming to play for Nipissing’ and then somebody from the east coast came along and guess where he’s playing.”
McParland says the best way to sell players on Nipissing University and the city of North Bay is to bring them to the city.
“If we can get them here and convince them to come and check it out, they all realize very quickly how much they love it. It’s just convincing them to come here,” he said.
So naturally, the thought process turns to, “what about the players that are already here?” Recruiting guys that are either from the area and want to come back home to North Bay, or the ones who have played for one of the Major Junior or Tier II teams within the region.
In the last few years, there have been several notable local additions to the team including Brett Hargrave and Danny Desrochers as well as Callander native Dylan Staples. Goaltender Brent Moran played for just one season with the OHL’s North Bay Battalion but stuck around the Gateway City after his overage season so he could man the crease for the Lakers in the confines that were familiar to him at Memorial Gardens.
McParland says, “we would love to have more kids from the north stay here and play. We miss out on a couple of kids such as the Pilon brothers from Sudbury (Drake and Darion) who, again were offered big-time money and off they go (to the University of Prince Edward Island) and same thing last year with Troy Lajeunesse (also playing at U of PEI). So there are some local kids that we would like to come here, or come back home and go to school.”
He points out that North Bay native Ben Garagan is an example of a local player that has one more year of OHL eligibility left, but one whom McParland has already had preliminary talks with about continuing his hockey-playing career with the Nipissing Lakers.
Now for the historic aspects that factor into the difficulties of recruiting for the Lakers. As previously mentioned, McParland says the players want to be part of programs that have national championship aspirations. And in the first couple of years of existence, the Nipissing Lakers stock rose rapidly, as McParland built teams capable of competing with likes of the big universities such as McGill and UQTR. But changes made to the leagues make up in the last couple of years have slowed that progress down, says McParland.
“It’s a little obstacle, but we’re having a little trouble with it in the three years since the change, and that’s the way the schedule is with more of a divisional setup,” says McParland, noting that previously they would play everybody at least once in every season.
“You know, our division is the division from hell,” said McParland.
The Lakers play in the very competitive East Conference and have to match up against Ottawa, Carleton McGill, Queens, UOIT, Concordia, UQTR, Laurentian and RMC.
“Teams from our division have won the (Queen’s Cup) championship in eight of the ten years we have been in the league. A couple of those teams have become real monsters, six of the teams in our division were ranked in the top 12 in Canada.”
And while the Lakers missed out on the playoffs by just a two-point gap, the separation between 7th and 8th place was 11 points with UQTR ahead of Laurentian. The Voyageurs then had to take on the Ottawa Gee-Gee’s who finished in first a full 26 points ahead of the eighth-seeded Voyageurs. To say there is some discrepancy there is putting it lightly.
“Our foes are more than formidable,” says McParland.
“And what makes it difficult is that if I’m trying to recruit someone from Guelph or Barrie or Toronto and I tell you that we are only going to play down in that area twice a year, and that’s the only time your parents are going to get to see you, it’s not a strong proposal.”
The difficulties that were there before year one for the Lakers are still existent today. However, there is a little more pedigree for McParland to boast about. They are an established team that has a reputation around the league for being a great institution for student-athletes and their academic careers. They also have had success on the ice and are striving to reclaim that success with every game they play and giving younger and newer players plenty of opportunities to find a role that fits their game.
McParland says he likes the makeup already of the team going into this season as he believes strongly in the eight new players that have committed for the 2019-20 season and those returning who are looking for redemption in a season that ended without a playoff appearance.
Hockey School
The Lakers still have spots available for the Lakers kids camp from August 12 to 16 at Memorial Gardens. For more information click HERE
