Hockey Struggles in North Bay

North Bay Athletics coach Glenn Cundari looks on as his club is dominated by the Soo. Cundari remembers when North Bay was the dominant Bantam AAA team in the North. Photo by Chris Dawson.

The home ice advantage did little to help the North Bay Athletics on the weekend. They were hammered in three home games 7-1, 12-2 and 7-0 by the first place Sault Ste. Marie Junior Greyhounds in the Northern Ontario Bantam AAA Hockey League.

It was obvious if you watched the weekend games, that there’s a wide gap between the top bantam aged teens from North Bay and the elite that’s developed in the Soo. The North Bay squad is in 4th spot in the 5 team league with 5 wins, while the high powered Sault Ste. Marie team is one of the provinces elite, with only one loss in league play, along with two AAA tournament victories under their belt.

Glenn Cundari remembers a better time for Triple A hockey in North Bay. Back in 1997 and 1998, his Bantam AAA Athletics teams were the toast of the Northern Ontario League, hosting the Provincial Championship in 1997 and losing out in the Provincial Championship semi-final the following year in Thunder Bay.

Back then it was a struggle to figure out who to pick, now Cundari feels it’s a struggle just to find enough players interested in Triple “A” hockey.

“I think the difference was the depth, our good players now are still very good hockey players I know I think at the time when we had 70 kids to choose from in training camp and now basically we have to make calls to get enough kids to put a team together.”

Whether it’s the cost of playing Triple A hockey, or hockey’s popularity decreasing after the OHL left the city 3 years ago, or more sports to choose from, the bottom line seems to be that there’s a problem with hockey in North Bay.

Cundari believes the two key issues are participation and development.

“It’s been well published and well noted in the community that there are some development issues in town with respect to our skill level, and with respect to interest and participation and playing on travel teams and rep teams and all that kind of stuff,” Cundari said.

The Athletics coach believes the key is to focus on getting more kids back to the rink to play Canada’s game, and then look at ways to improve skill development.

“We can’t keep fielding competitive teams with the numbers going down so we have to address participation levels then I think we have to go at skill levels, that’s the biggest difference I think.

"Kudos to West Ferris they’ve at least tried to address that a little bit (skill development), I think the bulls-eye is not the issue I think we just want to get the dart back on the dartboard anywhere and I think that's where we are at right now.”