Mississauga Steelheads head coach James Richmond is excited to see his team compete in the OHL playoffs and thinks hockey fans all over Ontario can look forward to an entirely different game style.
“The pace you play at is much higher,” Richmond told Humber News. “The schedule is more condensed, and the physicality of the game is much higher.”
The Ontario Hockey League (OHL) kicks off its playoffs tonight and tomorrow night with games taking place across the province. With Mississauga’s OHL team playing its first game Friday, Humber students have a local team to get behind.
Richmond has been coaching the Steelheads for seven seasons and has seen what the playoffs look like in Ontario first hand.
“This time of the year towns all over Ontario get pretty pumped up about their team trying to win the OHL Championship,” he said.
The Steelheads will take on the North Bay Battalion in the first round.
The northern Ontario city has just over 50,000 residents and their team is looking to make their fans proud as they pursue their first finals appearance in ten years.
Kyle McDonald scores one of his 34 goals in win versus the Sudbury Wolves. Photo credit: Tom Martineau
Battalion Head Coach Ryan Oulahen spoke to media Wednesday on how important the North Bay fans are to the team’s success.
“The fans can be huge,” he said. “I’ve seen what this building can do in the spring. It’s pretty amazing what an extra thousand fans can do in this building, so the more the merrier and loud and proud for us.”
Playoff hockey is unlike any other according to Oulahen and he thinks the fans will love the intensity of the games.
“Every play is a little more magnified and the space out there is prime to put it that way,” he said to media. “Every battle and little play matters and that’s the biggest thing in playoff time.”
Oulahen believes in his group and that they will be successful this post-season.
North Bay goaltender Dom DiVincentiis makes save to help evaluate his Batalion to a win over the Sudbury Wolves. Photo credit: Tom Martineau
“It’s not like the FedEx Cup in Golf, where you get a head start and you get extra strokes. Everyone starts with zeros again,” he said. “We’re really confident going in and our down the stretch run and I think we have seen a team that is capable of beating everybody and being very confident.”
Richmond believes there isn’t a better entry level to get into hockey than the OHL as tickets are more affordable for everyday people and the league produces the best hockey talent in the world.
“The OHL is the best developmental league in the world. It has produced and continues to produce the most NHL players,” he said. “If somebody wants an affordable ticket to watch high-end hockey then the OHL is the place to watch it.”
The rest of the games tonight start with the only two teams outside of Ontario battling in Michigan as the Flint Firebirds takes on the Saginaw Spirit. Sudbury is on the hunt for their first-ever championship as they travel to Peterborough to take on the Petes. The defending champion Hamilton Bulldogs look to repeat success as they attempt to corral the Barrie Colts. Kitchener plays the first-place Windsor Spitfires in a series bound to have fireworks and Oshawa travelling to the nation’s capital to play the championship favourites in the Ottawa 67’s.
Most games will be on OHL TV or on your local Rogers TV channel.