French River gets Strong
As they begin to plan ahead to next season the French River Rapids of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League have added Kenny Strong to their coaching staff.
The 53-year old Strong, a one-time 40-goal scorer in the Ontario Hockey League for the Peterborough Petes who went on to play in 15 National Hockey League games for the Toronto Maple Leafs before a 10-year European career in Austria and Italy, was behind the French River bench for its most-recent game.
Strong’s arrival in French River last week came just after Rapids first-year owner Jessy Landry announced that he was stepping down as team president.
As Strong was back of the French River bench for Saturday’s game against the Timmins Rock, second-year head coach Moe Mantha was not.
Landry, who is still involved with the Rapids in a scouting capacity, confirmed that Mantha was not at Saturday’s game.
“He’s allowing Kenny to work with the players to evaluate what we have for next year,” Landry told HockeyNewsNorth.com. “He stayed home allowing for the new voice.”
The 56-year old Mantha is not expected to return to French River for the 2017-2018 season. He reportedly has a firm offer to coach another team in another league.
Mantha offered a “no comment for now” when asked why he was not behind the bench for the Rapids game on Saturday.
A second-year NOJHL franchise, the Rapids have struggled on the ice. They had a record of 2-49-3 last season and are 2-48-2 as the 2016-2017 campaign winds down.
French River should move to Parry Sound and draw more attendance because the town hasn’t had a real junior hockey team since 2002 (not counting the Seguin Bruins). Noelville isn’t that far from Parry Sound (about an hour).
So for the second time Moe Mantha is leaving this team????
If a player gets the chance to move on to a higher level of hockey like major Jr or some form of semi pro or pro hockey he should take that opportunity and run with it.
Same thing for Mantha it looks like so why give him grief over working at a higher level of hockey.