NOJHL on the March

By Randy Russon
March 2, 2017
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A grueling 56-game regular season will soon come to an end in the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League before the Ides of March usher in the playoff rounds.

Depending on what the team and personal goals are, the playoffs offer the opportunity to make a point or a statement that could well define the present and future.

For a franchise in just its third term of existence, the league-leading Powassan Voodoos can put a crown on a shiny regular season with a playoff championship.

For the two-time reigning champion Soo Thunderbirds — who will finish on top of the West Division standings with yet-another 40-win regular season — the chance to repeat looms as a sweet treat.

For the upstart Blind River Beavers, they of a 30-win regular season after 20 victories in total over the previous three years, it is the chance to take a playoff series for only the second time in an NOJHL history that began in 1999.

For the Cochrane Crunch, it is taking another title aim with a run-and-gun attack that is as dangerous an offensive weapon as there is in the NOJHL.

Individually, there are players aplenty with something to prove to coaches and managers representing higher levels.

For instance, Rayside-Balfour defenseman Jordan Spadafore is one of three 2000 birth-year players on the Canadians who were selected at the 2016 Ontario Hockey League draft.

But as forward Chad Denault has already signed with the Peterborough Petes and played in a few games with them and as goalie Cameron Lamour has already signed with the Saginaw Spirit and played in a few games with it, Spadafore is out to convince the North Bay Battalion to sign him as a ninth-round pick from the 2016 draft.

As Spadafore has shown ongoing improvement as one of the youngest defensemen in the entire NOJHL, he will have the opportunity of the playoffs to further impress Battalion coach Stan Butler and his staff of assistants with the aim of signing an OHL contract.

The list goes on.

In the Soo, Thunderbirds forward Mark Tassone is already in his second season as a 17-year old.

Tassone plays an all-around game based on skill and smarts and he has OHL scouts and American college recruiters watching him. Tassone has the ability to dominate and should he show his true impact, he is but a mere step away from graduating to the next level.

In the Michigan Soo, Eagles forward Jake Palmerio has managed to attract the attention of an American school or two or three or more. Under-rated by many in the past, there are some who are starting to view Palmerio as the overachiever that he is.

There are but a few games still to play in the NOJHL regular season. And then come the playoffs.

Ah, the playoffs.

Time to rev it up.

PHOTO: Soo Thunderbirds will head into the playoffs as the no. 1 seed in the West Division of the NOJHL. (Photo by Jim Egan.)