Ontario High School Hockey Madness Week

Here we go, another flood of provincial championships and all in a few days when things all but shut down next week. Maybe, there is a reason to rushing and getting everything ended before April.

Anyway, if you're a hockey fan - the school version - get the car going and shuffle off to Wingham, Ottawa and St. Catharines for various levels of girls' and boys' hockey. You might have just enough time, when all the finals are on Friday, to get back to Toronto for the curling championships on Saturday.

Some interesting things happened on Day One of the playoffs on ice.

Boys hockey in St. Catharines, let's start with the Triple/Quad-A - the bigger schools, as they often get referred too by organizers. The guys at top-ranked St. Marcellinus in Mississauga are still undefeated this year - but not without a scare. They beat Humberside of Toronto 3-0  and then Jordan Nichols scored the winner in a come-from-behind victory, 2-1, over St. Michael's of Toronto - and the Double Blues weren't even the private school champs. In fact, they finished way down the list in their league. Figure that one out.

Yes, more Saints. This time, St. Mary of Pickering. Corrado Cammisuli scored four goals - and not one was the winner - in a 6-2 pool win over St. Joan of Arc from Barrie. Also, another win by St. Mary - a 6-0 yawner over Fellowes of Pembroke.

Some interesting excitement in the game with Christ the King, that's the school from Georgetown, and nearby Orangeville. Alright, so Orangeville won 7-5 - but 25 penalties in the game, two for abusing officials and one for failure to go to the penalty box. I am sure the Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association might have something to say about this.

At the boys' playoffs for Single/Double-A (yes, smaller schools), Appleby of Oakville crushed St. Anne's of Clinton 10-0 and then thumped Richview of Toronto, 7-1. I wonder why Appleby is top-ranked in this playoff? Bill Crothers, make that the sports school from Markham, may have set some kind of record in a 12-2 thrashing of Queen Elizabeth from Sioux Lookout. How about eight goals in a span of 12 minutes and 14 seconds of the second period? Great players and another chapter in education and sport.

And now the girls - and more Saints.

It was another edition of the "Thea Imbrogno Show". She's the very talented player, and a Toronto Star all-star, with the defending Ontario Triple/Quad-A champs from St. Basil the Great in Toronto. Three goals, and the winner, in a 4-2 victory over Sacred Heart and three more goals in a 5-0 victory over St. Joseph/Scollard Hall from North Bay. Could they win another gold?

One team hoping to end that St. Basil dream is Monsignor Paul Dwyer - the Oshawa school.

Stephanie Nehring, yet another Toronto Star all-star, is hoping to cap her high school career between the pipes with a provincial gold medal. Two games, two shutouts for her school. Dwyer beat South Carleton 4-0 and St. Joseph 1-0.

Bring on the curlers.

Comments

[MLF]

I agree with you Grossman. Maybe OFSSAA is very sensitive to climate change and believes ice will melt next week. Why is OFSSAA so determined to squeeze all these playoffs at the same time and everyone is tagging along on the fish line. Whatever happened to the good leadership?

[Daniel]

Time to give the private schools more credit. Who cares what the jealous people have to say. Performance counts and there are some very good teams who deserve attention like your newspaper has given them in past. Appleby is ranked No. 1 and wiping out teams. Upper Canada and St. Michael's are also doing well. Would be nice if private schools won both those hockey playoffs.

[Mike]

You could see it coming. After reading what the sports stars at Bill Crothers High School did to other teams, I think the word you could have used in your blog was humiliation, maybe that will serve as a notice to all those educators in sports associations to deal with the problems of sports schools kicking the daylights out of other schools. So much for fair play.

[Joe]

Appleby is ranked number one and wiping out teams because they are not a high school team. They are operated as a rep team now. A little under half of the team, including most key players, have been recruited from places such as Nova Scotia and PEI. I had to chuckle a while ago when reading an article about Appleby in the Oakville Beaver where coach dan poliziani commented on the skill level in Oakville that his team draws from. After a brief tally, I realized there are two oakville natives on the team. The rest are from burlington, mississauga and the maritimes. They even brought in a kid from austria two years ago.
They start their season in september when most public school players are busy playing football, and are on the ice five or six times a week. Ice time is allocated incredibly heavily among the top players; only four defencemen recieve more than half a regular shift. Many high school kids join high school hockey because they just want to have fun playing the game and not go anywhere, but Appleby is focused on getting its kids to the NCAA and OHL, although they have had little success of late.
I think it is silly that such a team should be allowed to play with true high school teams and take the glory of a "high school" championship. Especially because the AA label implies that the schools draw from a smaller base and should therefore be weaker, something that is eliminated by recruiting.