Toe to Toe – Interlocking begins and Spezza

Two combatants from Cogeco’s Sports Firing line Frank “The Toe” Caruso (left), and Chris Dawson (right) now take their arguments to the web with a new BayToday.ca weekly sports opinion feature called, “Toe to Toe.” Photo by Lee Anne Dawson.

The Skyhawks begin their interlocking schedule against teams from the CJHL on Friday night as they take on the Kanata Stallions. With the Skyhawks team not appearing to be as dominant as teams in the past, will these interlocking games do more harm than good?

Frank:

”Well Chris, at the beginning of the year we talked about this, and it looks like you may be right about this whole situation but I’m not going to let you win this one. I think it’s a good experience for them, I think it’s good that they’ll be playing Kanata this weekend and I’ll tell you why. First of all, win or lose, they are facing a team that is struggling, if they can pick up a couple of points it can be used for their totals, it would be great. But it will also give them a chance to get some experience against teams that are better. That league is just a better league than the NOJHL so I think right now the best thing for the Skyhawks is still, I’m not going to go away from that, it’s great that they are playing those teams from down there and I think this will help them for later on in the season.”

Chris:

”First things first, I really like the interlocking schedule from a fans perspective. However, the whole reason for this interlocking schedule is to get the Skyhawks an opportunity to face stiffer competition so they’ll be more prepared to play the tougher clubs from the Ontario Jr. ” A” loop in the Dudley-Hewitt Cup.

“Maybe this would have worked out better for the Skyhawks when they had those dominant, high flying squads like they had in their first two seasons in North Bay. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now, I just don’t know if the Skyhawks will benefit from the interlocking schedule because they are far from a lock to win the league in 2005-2006.”

Jason Spezza is considered the number one center with the Ottawa Senators this year. Will this be his breakout year as he leads a potentially lethal scoring line alongside Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley?

Chris:

"I think Jason Spezza will be a top 10, maybe top 5 scorer in the National Hockey League this year. With the departure of Jacques Martin behind the Ottawa bench, Spezza now has the shackles off and has a coach (Bryan Murray) that believes in him. Having the chance to see Heatley and Spezza practice together last week, you could certainly tell there is some very deadly scoring chemistry building between these two stars. Actually, there’s a good chance that both Heatley and Spezza will finish in the top 10 in scoring or maybe both in the top 5! Hey, after all, he’s already on pace for 160 points this season (2 pts. in 1 game)."

Frank:

”Well Chris, I do not believe this guy is going to be a top 10 scorer, first of all I think he’s going to be third on his team, third or fourth top scorer on his team. I do think he’s coming into his own, however he’s not the hockey player everybody thinks he is. Everybody is telling me he’s going to be a top 10 scorer, top 20 scorer, I don’t think so. I think he’s going to be a top 30 scorer, he’s a good hockey player, he’s developing. He’ll be a top 10 scorer maybe next year or the year after. He’s not ready yet. Wait until he meets the big center men that hit and hit hard.”

Toe to Toe can be seen every Friday on BayToday.ca