If Niagara finishes a perfectly middling 10-11, it will have been a surprisingly good season.
Import draft??? The IceDogs try to avoid picking players in the import draft, likely due to the costs. Last year’s pick, Podrekar, was traded away after just one season despite the IceDogs having the 4th overall pick and this years pick, Eliasson, appeared to be a blind pick by the IceDogs and failed to report.
If there appears to be a good season ahead in addition to draft years for Roobroek, Wassylin, and Crete; agents and NHL teams will be more willing to send their players to Niagara.
One statistical analysis of the first third of the season may indicate a possible pattern? The real outlier, statistically, were those first 12 games, where the IceDogs played .750 hockey. The following 10 games, the IceDogs played .550 hockey; followed by the last 5 games which has been .400 hockey.
Exactly! The cost required to bring in an elite player over in the Import draft is too expensive for Niagara. The initial $2000.00 dollar draft fee and just the travel expenses alone required in an Import’s OHL contract is way out of the owner’s price range. The team has in place some serious financial restraints and the recent focus has been on cost-cutting.
After back to back losing seasons, wasteful disposal of high draft capital (and youth) on over-pays to finish 6th or 7th, all while leaving yourself with insufficient draft capital to make any improvements to the team over the next two years is not the measure of a successful season to anyone in Niagara other than Darren DeDobbelear. His cost-cutting measures, fixation on the present and lack of long term planning is the reason half of his STH base is gone and will not return!
I think it was a bad trade. I would have traded Loshko. He is slow and adds zero on the defensive side of the puck. Gavin was a better fit and a better all around player plus we could have turned a waiver signing into some decent assets.
I agreed with everything in your post except the last part. Niagara has shown time and again that they are OHL Hockey fans. Do the right things and the STH will return. Do I think Darren DeDobbelaer has the capacity to make these changes? No. This would require a new owner who invested not only in purchasing the team, but also on making it successful in a multi-year scenario. The fans in Niagara are not fickle, they are educated. That's a huge difference. Give them a new take on OHL hockey and they will return faster than they left.
100% agree! Just to clarify my comment regarding "STHs will not return", I meant "never return as long as DD is the owner".
I’m not getting too excited as I’m thinking it’s likely either discounted tickets or discounted merchandise.
Every team does this to get fans thinking it's a trade/signing so they care but no team ever hints at trades/signings days in advance lol. Then the day of it's a themed jersey night and fans are mad
