"Bluelines" is written by Ranjan Rupal, the play-by-play voice, and Greg Theberge, a former Memorial Cup winner and Washington Capitals defenseman and hockey analyst for The OHL Tonight on CogecoTV.
With the NHL Draft fast approaching, much attention will be focused on the Toronto Maple Leafs picking first overall for the first time since 1985, and their presumptive ‘Made in the USA’ prize, Auston Matthews.
Matthews’ decidedly unconventional route to the NHL has taken him from sunny California where he was born, to even sunnier Arizona, where, as a child, he developed his passion for hockey, and was motivated by watching Shane Doan and the Phoenix Coyotes to such an extent that he was registered in Arizona Bobcats minor hockey. Eventually, drafted 59th overall by the WHL’s Everett Silvertips, Matthews opted for the US National Team Development Program instead, and never looked back.
That the USNTDP has emerged as a bona fide pathway to the NHL goes without saying. One presumes it’s just a matter of time before America becomes the world’s leading source of hockey talent, and it wouldn’t be surprising, given its massive population and, more importantly, its national preoccupation with winning gold, whatever the sport, whatever the cost.
The North Bay Battalion have benefitted over the years from American-born talent, though not quite as much as some other teams around the League, namely their Western Conference counterparts, the London Knights, the Windsor Spitfires and the Soo Greyhounds.
Our first season saw Buffalo-born Dylan Blujus, now a Tampa Bay Lightning prospect with the Syracuse Crunch, lead an energized Battalion defense into the OHL Championships. And this past season saw New Jersey-native Cam Dineen rack up an incredible 59 points in a 68-game rookie season, most of these by jumping in as third-man high on the rush, or via a well-place shot, sifted through traffic, toward the net.
For much of the season Dineen toiled in the shadows, with little attention paid to him by the media types beyond our city limits. Though Dineen was rated highly by OHL general managers and earned a spot on the top pairing of their 2016 All-Rookie squad, just behind Mikhael Sergachev of the Windsor Spitfires, but ahead of Olli Juolevi of the London Knights, it was the latter two who were profiled in a recent Sports Illustrated piece written by Allan Muir. Even Logan Stanley of the Spitfires caught the author’s eye, albeit deservingly in Stanley’s case, but still, not even a passing mention of Dineen.
“I feel that Cam Dineen is somewhat unappreciated right now,” says Greg Theberge, hockey analyst for The OHL Tonight on TVCogeco. “Maybe because of the size factor, and also he has some proving to do in his defensive-zone work. But those are areas that the Battalion will work on.”
Theberge, a former pro with the Washington Capitals, and who won a Max Kaminsky Trophy as a Peterborough Pete as the league’s best defenseman, has seen a lot of good defensemen in his time, and thinks that Dineen can be one of them.
“To me Cam’s stats speak for themselves,” said Theberge. “I think he resembles some pretty good players that I’ve seen, like a Brian Campbell of the Ottawa 67’s.”
Fitting perhaps that Theberge would identify the 5-foot-10 Campbell, a puck-moving defenseman and former 6th-rounder who started his 16-year career with the Buffalo Sabres. Come Saturday morning in Buffalo, when the second through seventh rounds of the Draft unfold, we will see if NHL general managers have arrived at the same conclusion that we already have – that the Battalion’s Cam Dineen is an extraordinary puck-moving defenseman too.
