Joey Payeur
Age is just a number.
To hockey coaches, so are seedings–no matter how impressive they appear to be.
Muskie head coach Jordan Sinclair wasn’t shooting off any fireworks in celebration of his squad being seeded #1 in the 16-team field for the OFSAA ‘A/AA’ boys’ hockey championship that runs March 21-24 in Fort Frances and Emo.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t mean a thing,” Sinclair shrugged about the distinction handed to his defending provincial champions, who claimed their 10th-straight NorWOSSA title Tuesday night in Kenora against the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints.
“You’ll find some teams have records containing 60 games and some that have just eight games,” he noted.
“There’s a real imbalance there.
“It’ll be nice for the guys to tell their kids and grandkids 50 years from now that they were ranked No. 1,” Sinclair chuckled.
“The older you get, the better you were.”
The Muskies will be in Pool ‘A’ along with the seventh-seeded Holy Cross Crusaders (St. Catharines), the 12th-ranked Immaculata Saints (Ottawa), and the 14th-ranked O’Gorman Knights (Timmins).
Meanwhile, it was confirmed earlier today that three NorWOSSA teams will be in the field.
The ninth-ranked Saints are in Pool ‘D’ as the NorWOSSA rep with the Muskies owning the host berth.
But with the champion and runner-up from the Eastern Ontario Secondary School Athletic Association (EOSSAA) both declining to attend the all-Ontarios, that has opened the door to either the Dryden Eagles or Sioux Lookout Warriors.
The Eagles and Warriors will meet in a one-game playoff this weekend, likely in Dryden since they finished ahead of Sioux Lookout in the standings, to determine who will get the 16th and final OFSAA berth.
The rest of the top five seeds include last year’s top-ranked team in the Holy Trinity Titans (Courtice) at #2, followed by the St. Mary’s Crusaders (Hamilton), the Belle River Nobles (Belle River), and the Campbellford Flames (Campbellford).
The game schedule was not complete as of press time.
