Gens make a splash in the Sun Sports today

This is not the kind of news we need BUT anyone who reads the SUN SPORTS - will see a huge article about our season

The good news about the rest of the season is most teams might start taking us lightly until we turn it around.

My hope is every player watched Crosby's 1st game on Monday night and how hard he worked to get back

The other day I heard an interview and Crosby was talking to an 11 yr old kid who was asking him advice

Crosby said this - In everything you do work as hard as you can

In the next few weeeks we have more practice time and less game time - we will get better with hard work

Here is Sun article -

Everyone expected the rebuilding Kingston Frontenacs to be bad this season.

The same could be said, to a certain extent, of the Erie Otters.

But the Oshawa Generals below .500 nearly halfway through the OHL season? Nobody would have predicted that.

After a weekend that saw them go 0-2-1 with regulation losses to the Guelph Storm and Windsor Spitfires, that's exactly where the Generals (10-13-1-3) find themselves. And it's starting to get a little ugly in Oshawa, where the fan base is going squirrelly over a team that boasts more talent -- among the forwards anyway -- that most of the teams in the conference.

The Gens have already made a coaching change, often the first response of ownership when a team gets off to a slower start than expected, so that boat has sailed. Chris DePiero turned the bench over to Gary Agnew, a two-time OHL coach of the year, but hung on to his gig as general manager.

Now it's up Agnew to find a way to get through to his core players -- Vancouver first-rounder Nicklas Jensen, 54-goal scorer and New York Rangers prospect Christian Thomas, 2011 second-rounders Lucas Lessio and Boone Jenner and gritty winger Andy Andreoff -- or this team could implode.

Something's a little funky with this group and you need look no further than the standings for proof.

"We're not figuring it out right now," Thomas said. "We think we're good already and we're going to come to games and just win them without having to put some work into it. Our new coach is trying to let us know hard work beats skill. We're getting a little bit better but we just have to work harder than the other team and our skill will show."

In the two weeks since Agnew was hired, the Generals have gone 2-4-1-0. They've lost twice to Kingston (once in OT), last in the conference, but have also beaten Peterborough and Ottawa, two teams they're looking up at in the East.

Sheesh, talk about a split personality.

"I think we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly," admitted Agnew, a former London Knights coach. "We've seen some great periods, we've seen some awful periods and there's definitely a level of consistency that's not happening for this hockey club right now. That's our job as coaches, to make sure we get them to a level where we need to be more consistent, where we do the right things all the time. Right now we'll see it then we won't. So there's an inconsistency in how we play."

If the Gens don't get this thing pointed in the right direction soon, you can bet players will be shipped out. That's the way it works in junior hockey. If you're not a buyer at the trade deadline, you'd better be a seller.

The season started with championship aspirations in Oshawa. It could end in bitter disappointment instead.

Around the O

Niagara IceDogs forward Ryan Strome had his point streak end at 13 games Thursday against Mississauga. The next night he had two goals in a win over Kingston . . . Soo Greyhounds winger Chad Thibodeau has asked to be traded. The 18-year-old, in his second OHL season, is rumoured to be bound for Kitchener but Rangers coach/GM Steve Spott has denied that any deal is imminent . . . Guelph Storm defenceman Matt Finn's stock is rising for the NHL draft. The Toronto native has already developed into the Storm's top two-way D-man. The last time they had a 17-year-old D-man make this much of an impact was Drew Doughty, and we know how that turned out. Finn isn't the same type of player as Doughty but he's been almost as effective this season . . . Owen Sound Attack forward Artur Gavrus was released from hospital Sunday, a day after being hit by London Knights rookie Maxi Domi. Gavrus lost consciousness after the hit, which appeared clean, and was taken from the ice on a stretcher. The Attack have not commented on the nature of the injury to the 17-year-old Belarussian but it's unlikely he will play this weekend.

--- --- ---

EX-OHLER ON MEND

Former OHLer Trevor Koverko is in Hamilton General Hospital after his vehicle collided with a transport truck on Hwy. 401 near Milton on Friday. His condition has reportedly been upgraded from critical to stable. The 24-year-old from Toronto is a student at Western's Richard Ivey School of Business and the founder of eProf.com, an online teaching tool that appears destined for success.


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Well the admin can't lock the Sun from talking about

Thanks for posting that story Gens Camper

LOL.......ZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

I'm going to write the sun and let them know it is okay, and that we are going to get better, all we have to do is cheer for them.

JPH wrote:I'm going to write the sun and let them know it is okay, and that we are going to get better, all we have to do is cheer for them.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not surprising to see an article about a losing "cup worthy" team.

All I heard was how this year was supposed to be our year and yet the first few games we went something like 1/19 on the power play. A stat that hasn't exactly soared since. Suspensions are open to interpretation and while I may not have agreed with some of them, it's part of the game now. We need to be much more disciplined especially in games where the reffing is perhaps biased.

Everyone thought Agnew would fix things, should I remind you that DP had that exact same task when he came on bored? How many cups have we won? How many playoffs have we even made for that matter? The Gens issues run far deeper than coaching.

We don't seem to be connecting with our firepower and our defence is a bigger joke than the Frontenac's (I still can't believe we lost 7-0 and then again in OT to them). Goaltending has been an issue for awhile, now we have a promising goalie in Altshuller but we can't build a team on a solid goalie. Bailie needs to go and hopefully we can get something in return for him.

It's time for some big changes otherwise fans are gonna stop coming altogether and once that happens, it's gonna take a LOT more to build up that trust again.

Just my 2 thoughts on this "team" we have currently.

Errrr I mean GO GENS!

Give credit where it is due - Baille has played GREAT this year

Fair enough, but for a first round pick I don't think it should have taken this long. Since he is playing great though he should have some decent value in a trade.

During the Gens OHL Championship/Memorial Cup run in '97, one of Bill Stewart's favourite lines to quote in an interview was that he's instilling in his team that character beats talent any day of the week. The quotes from Thomas and Agnew are perfect, that the team thinks they're talented already and that's the reason why they will win games without having to put in a consistent effort. Seeing the consistently poor results that come from thinking we're good enough already, I'm not sure why the team still has that attitude. Surely they've figured out by now that since they're almost one of the bottom 2 teams in the conference, no amount of talent entitles you to wins.