"Bluelines" is written by Ranjan Rupal the play-by-play voice, and Greg Theberge, a former Memorial Cup winner and Washington Capitals defenseman and hockey analyst for The OHL Tonight on CogecoTV.
With the end of each OHL season comes the hard reality that certain beloved players won’t be returning.
The end of the 2015-16 season was no different. We knew that everyone’s favorite puckstopper, Jake Smith, and rugged winger Mathew Santos wouldn’t be back. We knew that 50-goal scorer Mike Amadio and reliable defenseman Kyle Wood would be joining Santos in the American Hockey League next year.
And so the departure of players we’ve come to know becomes part of the game.
Fortunately, at about the same time, there comes a sense of renewal, one that begins with the Orientation Camp this weekend. With the influx of new faces, comfort can be found in the familiar, in seeing the old guard steadfastly in place: Coach Stan Butler flanked by his lieutenants Ryan Oulahen, John Dean, Steve Chabbert and Rob Beatty.
But this year’s OC will be notable not for who’s there, but for who isn’t. Oulahen will be conspicuously absent now that he’s the head coach of the Flint Firebirds.
His stoical presence behind the North Bay Battalion bench will be missed. He had become Butler’s trusted right-hand man over the years and the bond between them runs deep, and it will be an emotional night when the two coaches face each other for the first time as opponents, with Oulahen cast in the role of Luke Skywalker, leading his Firebirds into Memorial Gardens.
On Friday, Oulahen, surrounded by a summertime assemblage of the local hockey press, appeared relaxed in an OHL polo tee and answered questions amiably, refraining from the customary cropped hockey-isms we will often hear from visiting coaches, instead speaking freely, as if with friends.
“I think the thanks goes out to Stan Butler and Mr. Abbott for supporting me through this whole process,” he said, on the subject of separation. “They provided me an environment to grow and learn as a coach, and then getting this opportunity – I owe a lot to those guys.”
Typically the nature of an assistant coach’s relationship with the head coach is a topic not broached. But on this occasion Oulahen, who over the years has mastered the competency of choosing his words wisely, spoke from the heart.
“Stan Butler has been a special person in my life, to say the least. And for him to back me 100% and give me the go ahead is big.
“It’s hard to not almost get emotional standing here right now. Stan and I go back to when I was 13, 14 years old. For Stan to be the one that drafted me and believe in me as a player, I was his captain, and to get drafted by the Detroit Red Wings and then move on, and when something happened in my career, a career-ending injury, he opened the doors up for me to come and join him on the bench.”
That the feeling is mutual goes without saying.
Butler, having just emerged from the team’s gym following a workout, was his usual cagey self, dispensing hockey truisms while intermittently joking with the press. But on the topic of Oulahen he was sincere.
“I’m really happy for him,” said Butler. “He was always a leader. He was a captain for our hockey team. He went to the American Hockey League and, from a very young age, they put a ‘C’ on his jersey.”
“He’s like a son to me.”
