Mitch Calvert
A third-straight trip to the OHL’s Eastern Conference final didn’t result in a second-straight shot at the league title for Emo native Luke Judson and the Belleville Bulls.
The Bulls made another good run through the regular season and two rounds of the playoffs, but dropped a 7-4 decision to the Brampton Battalion on Friday night to lose the conference final in six games.
Brampton, led by the OHL’s most outstanding player Cody Hodgson and the highly-touted Matt Duchene, proved too tough a test this time.
“They were just a good team,” Judson admitted Monday during his drive home to Emo. “We came out hard and gave them a battle, but they got the bounces they needed to and it obviously worked out well for them.”
Duchene keeps increasing his stock going into June’s NHL draft, with some rumblings suggesting he might overtake John Tavares as the first overall selection.
Judson said N.Y. Islanders’ owner Charles Wang and general manager Garth Snow—holders of this year’s No. 1 pick—took in a few games to scout Duchene in person.
Despite having his season cut shorter than he had hoped, Judson enjoyed a coming out party of sorts this winter, suiting up in all but one of the Bulls’ 68 regular-season games plus all 17 in the playoffs.
“Lots of ups and downs, but I think overall I gained a lot of confidence over the course of the year and chipped in offensively,” Judson enthused.
“If you told me at the start of the year that I would’ve made some of these achievements, I think I would’ve been pretty excited.”
Judson, an 18-year-old in his first full OHL season, recorded 10 goals and 14 assists during the regular season while adding six assists in the playoffs.
“We’re losing a few guys next year, so hopefully I can step into a little bit more of a leadership role,” Judson noted. “Whether that means having a letter [on my sweater] or not, I still want to take on that responsibility.
“Everybody loses guys, and every team needs different guys to step up every year, and hopefully I can do that,” he remarked.
Judson played in 10 games with the Bulls in the 2007-08 season and stayed on as a spare for their run to the Memorial Cup that year, but spent the bulk of the season with the SIJHL’s Thunder Bay Bearcats.
Judson was a healthy scratch early on this season for one game, but committed himself to fighting hard each night for a roster spot—and the hard work paid dividends both on the scoresheet and in the eyes of the coaching staff.
That improved play also was noticed by the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau, with Judson finding himself ranked 129th among the 210 North American skaters listed in the final rankings recently released for the NHL draft, which is set to go June 26-27 in Montreal.
“I’ll definitely have my eye on it, but it’s something that if it happens, it happens, but if it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world,” Judson said about the prospect of being drafted.
“There’s lots of guys who haven’t been there and still go on to have successful careers, maybe not at the top level but at other levels, and even though [the NHL] is the ultimate goal, there are other things,” he reasoned.
For now, Judson just is looking forward to spending a couple of weeks at home in Emo to recharge, then setting his sights on preparations for another full season in the OHL.
“You want to be a guy that comes in at the start of the year ready to play,” Judson stressed. “That’s an important time of the year to gain confidence for the rest of the season, and gain momentum for yourself.”
Judson once again will be heading to Thunder Bay later this summer to train under Steve Bailot.
“The Staals, Patrick Sharp, and a lot of the other Thunder Bay guys who play in the OHL train there, so I’ll be back there again,” Judson noted.
“Just seeing those [NHL] guys, and how they train and different things that they do, helps me out a lot,” Judson added.
“And skating with them shows different things that you can pick up on and help you with, too,” he explained.
