A KNIGHT'S TALE
Catch a falling OJHL 'star'
By Darryl Knight/The Scugog Standard

Hockey season is in the home stretch here in North Durham. Local minor hockey teams are wrapping up their first round of playdowns and the Mojacks and Bruins will soon join them in the postseason.
_While there is a great deal of enthusiasm at local rinks in North Durham, the same cannot be said for many of the cities and towns that are home to Junior ‘A’ hockey clubs.
_Starting in 2009, the OJHL (Ontario Junior Hockey League) began an aggressive campaign to eliminate some of the teams that had bloated the league to a whopping 37 teams at one point.
_Among the first teams to go were the Bowmanville Eagles, who officially merged with the Cobourg Cougars but, in reality, ceased to exist after almost 50 years in the community.
_Since then, the league has seen several teams either fold or merge with other clubs. Some of the affected teams had long and storied traditions of their own, including the Streetsville Derbys, Ajax Attack (a.k.a. Axemen), Couchiching Terriers and Collingwood Blackhawks.
_This year, the OJHL started play with 27 teams in the loop and that number is expected to dwindle to 24 next season.
_According to those in the know, a few teams always seem to come up whenver there is talk of contraction: Peterborough Stars, Pickering Panthers, Huntsville Otters and the Toronto Jr. Canadiens, who were known for years as the Wexford Raiders.
_These are all teams with long, and mostly proud traditions of Tier II Junior Hockey. And while they each have their issues, I do not feel they are the type of teams the OJHL should be looking at folding.
_Instead, I look at the glut of teams in and around Toronto, which all have one thing in common. No one comes out to see them play.
_The bottom seven teams in the league are all based in the GTA and all of them would be ecstatic to have a crowd the size of the one that typically takes in an 8 a.m. Atom House League game in Uxbridge or Port Perry.
_Mississauga sits 20th in the 27-team loop with an average of just 136 fans per game. And it only gets worse from there. The two bottom teams - the North York Rangers and Brampton Capitals - both bring in crowds that average under 100. Just 90 fans pass through the turnstiles at North York games, while a laughable 71 turn out for the puck drop in Brampton.
_I have been to OHL games in both Brampton and Mississauga where the arena was less than half full. It begs the question: if there is no audience in these communities for the premier Junior hockey league in the world, how can fans be expected to come out for a league that is one step down?
_And why is the league so interested in hunting down and killing teams that, in many cases, originate in hockey hotbeds with a dedicated and loyal group of fans? The OJHL should be looking to the west when it comes time for the next round of contractions, not the north and east.
_There may, however, be a silver lining in the OJHL squeeze for local fans of Junior ‘C’ hockey. With Ajax and Bowmanville among the OJHL teams now deceased, there has been an increase in talent trickling down to Junior ‘C’ leagues over the past few years.
_Just this year, Bowmanville jumped back into the Junior ‘C’ ranks, and the Clarington Eagles are currently battling with the MoJacks for third place.
_Hopefully, other hockey minded people with more money than me will cultivate Junior ‘C’ teams in Ajax/Pickering, Orillia, Collingwood and other places abandoned by the OJHL.
_This will mean better hockey for the fans who actually want it, not the 50 people (friends and family of the players I assume) who turn out to a game between the Brampton Capitals and Vaughn Vipers.