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A change on the ice
As our columnist (and usual Bruins reporter) Roger Varley related in his “Am I Wrong?” column last week, there are apparently still a few folks in town who aren’t happy with the changing of the guard overseeing our Junior C team at the end of last season.
As we contended in this space at the time, the 2011-2012 Bruins were not a group to make Uxbridge proud. It wasn’t that they finished well down in the standings and made a hasty departure from the playoffs. That could happen in any season; ups and downs happen in the history of any team. But it was the way they conducted themselves while doing it.
Last season’s Bruins, although individually fine and talented young men, hardly behaved that way as a group. They were far and away the most penalized team in their division, a dubious honour that has traditionally gone to their rivals in Lakefield or Little Britain. And as it became obvious that their talents were not sufficient to overcome being constantly short-handed, they made no obvious effort to remedy the situation. They continued to act as if they were playing roller derby.
We laid this at the feet of the coach, and it soon became plain that we weren’t alone. Not long after the season ignominiously ended, he and several of his supporters on the Bruins staff were gone, replaced by a former coach, Dan West, and general manager, Ron Archibald, whose names were synonymous with a tradition of Bruins success.
We freely admit here that we are not impartial observers. The Cosmos has been a sponsor of the Bruins for several years, and we’re proud to do that; they are truly Uxbridge’s team, and the Bruin is as much a symbol of the township as the Quaker or the cosmos flower. All the more reason why we expressed our dismay and disappointment last season.
But if you’ve been following the progress of this year’s team over the last couple of months, you will know that the Bruins have made a complete turnaround under West’s and Archibald’s leadership. They are at the top of the standings again, having lost only twice in regulation time over the first 18 games. But more importantly from the standpoint of representing their community, they have gone from being the most-penalized to the least-penalized team in the division, by a healthy margin.
Last Sunday’s game in Bowmanville will serve to illustrate. Over 60 minutes, the Bruins took a grand total of six minutes in penalties, compared to 32 for the Eagles (although 22 of those were taken by one player). The previous game at home, the Bruins also had only three penalties for six minutes in the box.
As Mr. Varley has reported, the team, which underwent almost a complete overhaul, has many more local players on the roster this year. That could be a large part of the reason for its attitude: pride in wearing “Uxbridge” on the jersey.
Whatever the cause, we congratulate the entire Bruins organization, not only for their success on the scoresheet, but in the way they play the game. They give us exciting hockey, and clean hockey. Those who preferred last season’s version had better get used to it.
July 14, 2011
