Steve Milton: Hockey Night in ... Burlington: Cougars in downtown Burlington are no urban myth
Another instalment in a series by Spec columnist Steve Milton that celebrates top-tier amateur hockey in Hamilton and area.
Novelist Tom Wolfe famously wrote You Can't Go Home Again," but the Burlington Cougars are determined to prove you can.
After spending several years at other rinks around the city - the privately owned The Wave and municipally owned Appleby - the iconic junior A team is now in its second season back at its original home, Central Arena in downtown Burlington, playing mostly on Friday nights.
I remember coming to Friday night games at Central Arena when I was a kid myself, so we thought it was important to get back here," says head coach Mark Jooris, a Burlington native who led the then-junior B Cougars in scoring 41 years ago before embarking on a lengthy and productive playing career in NCAA, minor pro, European and senior hockey.
When I was growing up, everyone wanted to be a Burlington Cougar. We want to try to get that vibe back where the younger kids, and high school kids want to come watch their junior team. You could be watching future NHL players."
Many junior A Cougars have gone to the big leagues, including retired Vancouver Canucks defenceman and now Hockey Night in Canada" analyst Kevin Bieksa, Mark's son Josh Jooris, current Montreal Canadiens winger Josh Anderson and former Tampa Bay Lightning forward Cory Conacher.
Central Arena sits on a vast tract - encompassing the rink, playing fields, tennis club, library, Teen Tour Band building, curling rink and right across from a YMCA - just a kilometre east of downtown Brant Street. It opened in 1968, replacing the previous Central Arena, located slightly to the south.
The Cougars originated as the junior B Mohawks in 1952 and have played junior hockey ever since, including a stint in junior C. Technically, they're run by a community-based board of directors. At the suggestion of board members the team nickname was changed to Cougars in 1976 in appreciation of team executive Walter Sedlbauer's local company, Cougar Shoes, always making up any financial shortfalls. Sedlbauer's two sons, Steve and Ron (who is currently team president), now own Cougar Shoes and the company still helps balance the books at the end of the season.
In 1993, the Ontario Hockey Association upgraded the Central Junior B Hockey League - which included the Cougars - to the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League. By 2010, the league was simply dubbed the Ontario Junior Hockey League (OJHL). Because they've been in the loop from the beginning, the league reserves a Friday night spot for their home games.
Like Jooris, Ron Sedlbauer grew up watching the local junior team, and played for them until he moved into major junior hockey with the old Hamilton Red Wings, and then on to the NHL. When he returned to Burlington and Cougar Shoes in the mid-1980s, he got re-involved with the hockey team and, in the late 1990s, took over as president when it was headed toward bankruptcy.
He grew up only a few blocks from Central, and is thrilled to be back.
It was synonymous with the team," he said. Should we have ever left? We had to. We couldn't get enough ice time, and it was hard to get some of the best players when we didn't have enough practice time to offer them."
Many older fans didn't migrate with the team to The Wave or Appleby. Younger potential fans couldn't get to them on their own and the team also went through internal problems that eventually led to some lawsuits.
But before last season the Cougars and Burlington (minor hockey) Eagles' president Dave Armstrong made a swap of the Eagles' under-18 AAA team's Friday night dates and dressing rooms (which the Cougars had originally furnished) for the Cougars' facilities and ice time at Appleby.
And the work of rebuilding the downtown-team brand began. Sedlbauer and Jooris know it will be a long process. Times change and Burlington reflects that. It once had a distinct hometown self-identity, but it has grown exponentially, cleaved by the QEW into north and south sections with barely a half-dozen thoroughfares crossing the highway.
Although rivals Oakville, Milton and Georgetown draw larger crowds, the club averages about 250 fans per game, less than a third of what places like Collingwood and Trenton attract, and only half the following of teams in Wellington, Cobourg and Haliburton, where they're the only real local option for spectators. Most teams in and around Toronto have trouble attracting triple-digit audiences because people have so many other options for their discretionary entertainment and activities time.
But the Cougars' goal is to become more of a go-to place for fans and future players. They now have earlier (3 p.m.) and more frequent practice times, a cosy village of offices and players' quarters and an evolving relationship with local minor hockey. They've fanned out into the community, are active on social media and have built a visually appealing team, which this year is among the best in the country, outscoring everyone else in the 21-team league.
The OJHL is at the top of the provincial hockey pyramid (the major junior OHL is its own entity) and is designed to prepare players for the next level, sometimes the OHL, but more often the NCAA and U Sports.
Jooris says the Cougars focus on the NCAA and recently more Division 1 scouts have been at their games. About five of this year's Cougars are expected to get scholarships and in some years it's more.
It costs about $200,000 to run an OJHL team and the Cougars are among the many junior teams that charge players. Their pay-to-play model is $6,500 per year - it's a little less for older, more skilled and higher-contributing players - and in return players get their game equipment, a team sweatsuit, two sticks and meals on the road - plus a strong, dedicated, organization and excellent coaching.
Player fees account for about half the operating costs and the rest are met by various tiers of sponsorships, merchandise sales, a long-running golf tournament and other promotions. Cougar Shoes steps in if any bills remain unpaid.
The team counts heavily upon a dozen volunteers, but Sedlbauer says they could use four times that. When the city didn't reopen concession stands at the rink, volunteers started the team's own snack bar where you can get a real good hot dog for just three bucks. Mike Moir and his partner Cathy Johnson have volunteered for decades - game nights they sell the admission and 50-50 tickets - and he's glad the team has returned downtown.
I've been here most years, one way or the other, I was even involved a long time ago at the old arena," said Moir, a lifelong Burlington resident, whose son Andrew was a junior B Cougar before embarking an all-American career at Mercyhurst in 1989. I didn't like it when we left Central."
The OJHL once had an unwieldy 37 teams, but paid to buy out or merge 16 teams and reach its 21-franchise slate. The loop is now far less talent-diluted and is one of the best in the country. Its playoff winner advances directly into the Centennial Cup, the national junior A tournament.
Although the junior B GOJHL has been asking for A" status, Sedlbauer and others in the league insist the OJHL is the only viable junior A league for southern Ontario. It's hoping to convince some Ontario teams to stop sending some of its players out of province to higher leagues, rather than to the OJHL.
The Cougars have nine Hamilton-area players on their overall roster, but only a couple from Burlington. Attracting more Burlington players has become a priority for both Sedlbauer and Jooris.
We want them to aspire to become Burlington Cougars," Jooris says.
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com