Dukes at practice on home ice Jan. 9. Photo by Alana Pickrell, QNet News
By Daniel Taylor [1]
BELLEVILLE – Wellington Dukes [2] fans will have more to cheer about when the Ontario Junior Hockey League [3] season wraps up at the end of the month.
Last Thursday, the Dukes qualified for the post-season for the 29th time in 29 years, having never missed the playoffs in their franchise history to date.
The Dukes currently sit 10 points up on the second place Kingston Voyageurs in the east division with nine games remaining. Wellington would match up against the Pickering Panthers of the north division if the playoffs started today, a series that the Dukes would surely be expected to win.
Lead by captain Colin Doyle and leading point scorer Mitchell Martan, the Dukes are a team that thrives on speed and skill. With plenty of depth in all positions, the boys in blue and red are favoured by many to bring home the league’s championship trophy, the Dudley Hewitt Cup, [4] this season.
Dukes play by play announcer Brock Ormond says he has noticed a different Dukes team since ex-NHLer John Druce [5] was hired as the new head coach last month.
“Druce is a guy that is very calm and collected,” said Ormond. “He doesn’t like to yell at the guys too much. He’ll raise his voice if he feels like the guys need a wake up call, but he’s not the type of coach to yell at the refs or be yelling out on the ice. He’s the type of coach who lets his coaching do the talking.”
Druce knows what it takes to win. Last season Druce guided the Cobourg Cougars to an RBC Cup [6] (National Jr. A Championship). With Druce as head coach since Jan. 5, Wellington has won six of their last eight games and have a strangle hold on the top seed in the east division.
Wellington has five players committed to division 1 NCAA schools after this season, a testament to how skilled this team really is. With speed and skill spread throughout their entire lineup, the Dukes will be a tough team to contain in the playoffs.
“They’ve got extremely good depth down the roster,” said Ormond. “Up front they’ve got guys like Teddy McGeen, Mitchell Martan and Andrew Rinaldi” (Each have 20-plus goals this season). “And then, on the back-end we have players like rookie Declan Carlile and veteran Daniel Panetta, who is a real physical force and of course great goaltending.”
Wellington’s next game is at home against the Markham Royals on Friday at 7:30 p.m.