When the Voodoos begin the unofficial second half of the season on January 4, 2025, they will be getting a welcomed addition back into their lineup. North Bay native Cayden Kowal is expected to return from an injury that has kept him out of action since November 16.
“We miss him a lot, but the guys have held in there while he’s been out. We are all very excited to get him back into our lineup,” says Powassan Head Coach Peter Goulet.
The team currently sits sixth in the NOJHL standings at 14-11-0-3 with 31 points, trailing the fifth-place Timmins Rock (20-12-0-0, 40 points), with the Rock having played four more games than Powassan.
Kowal should provide a boost to the offensive corps, as he was having the best stretch of his NOJHL career before the injury. Between October 11 and November 16, Kowal recorded points in 10 of 11 games, notching 9 goals and 19 points, including a seven-game point streak. He was turning into one of the league's top scorers and was recognized as the NOJHL’s first star of the week (ending November 4) after scoring the game-winning goal in the Voodoos' victories over Timmins and Kirkland Lake.
“It was pretty cool to get that recognition. My brother and I grew up watching the Voodoos, and the other day, my brother asked me, ‘What’s it like to play there?’ That was the first time it really came full circle for me, that I’m now playing for a team I grew up watching,” Kowal told the Frontline podcast. “So to be able to get that recognition while representing the Voodoos—it’s a great honour.”
“Cayden is a tremendous hockey player and an even better young man, and he’s been great for us,” says Voodoos head coach Peter Goulet. “He did have a slow start, and I remember talking to him seven or eight games into the season. He was a little frustrated with his production, and I said to him, ‘There’s no reason you can’t score 30 goals in this league, but you need to play the right way and play well without the puck. The points will come naturally.’ Once he committed to playing better without the puck, his game took off in all areas.”
Kowal credits his linemates, Justin Rousseau and Nathan Pelletier, for his uptick in production.
“We’re in the right mindset,” says Kowal. “Pelletier reminds us before every game, ‘It doesn’t matter how many points we get; at the end of the day, we’re just going to have fun doing it,’ and that’s been working for us.”
Playing alongside Rousseau is something Kowal has done before, as the two of them grew up in the Trappers system alongside other current Voodoos Caleb Dawson, Anthony Boyes and Heath Bradley. When Kowal joined the Voodoos this past off-season, it meant he got to rejoin some of his long-time teammates.
“It’s great to be back playing with them. I grew up playing with those guys, and we built up a lot of chemistry,” he says. “I’m really enjoying playing on a line with Rousseau and Pelletier. It’s easy to rack up points when they are feeding me the puck, or I’m finding them on the ice.”
Kowal’s journey to the Voodoos took a few turns. The North Bay native appeared in 24 games with the North Bay U18 Trappers, scoring 34 points before getting a call-up to the Espanola Paper Kings in 2022-23.
“I got to play quite a few games as an AP call-up, which was pretty great. I scored in my second game, and then they paired me with Lucas Signoretti on the first line. There was no looking back after that, and I had a good finish to the season,” says Kowal, who posted 4 goals and 8 points in nine games with the Paper Kings.
Kowal began the 2023-24 season with the Georgetown Raiders of the OJHL before heading back north to finish the year with Espanola, scoring 11 goals and 28 points in 20 games.
“I had a good experience playing in the OJHL with Georgetown, but I wasn’t living in Georgetown—I was actually living in Milton, which was about 45 minutes away from the rink. There was always so much traffic and construction going on—it was just a different lifestyle from what I was used to,” he says.
“Espanola helped me get those games under my belt at the next level in my U18 year, so when I was leaving Georgetown, I wanted to show my respect to the team and finish off the year and try to make a playoff run.”
The Paper Kings finished fourth in the West Division with 69 points, just squeaking into the playoffs as they finished tied with the Soo Eagles but had one more regulation win, giving them the tiebreaker. Their reward was playing the top team in the league, the Blind River Beavers, who amassed 91 points—22 more than Espanola.
“I thought we should’ve won that series,” Kowal recalls, and for good reason. After dropping Game 1, 6-3 on the road, the Paper Kings won the next three games by scores of 7-3, 8-1, and 3-2, including a third-period comeback in Game 4 to take a 3-1 series lead.
“We were the underdogs, and we took Blind River to Game 7, but we just couldn’t put them away,” says Kowal.
The Beavers stormed back, winning the next three games 6-1, 3-2, and 5-1 to end Espanola’s season. “Overall, I had a really good experience in Espanola,” Kowal says, adding that he had every intention of coming back to play closer to his hometown when the season ended. “It was really just a matter of time of when, not if, the trade was going to go through.”
In his first full season in the NOJHL, Kowal and the Voodoos are finding their rhythm, with Powassan winning four of their last five games before the break.
“I think we’re just playing the right system; we’re playing simple hockey. We’re not trying to do too much, and I feel like that’s what has been driving us. We’re a bit of a younger team, and through the early part of the season, a lot of the guys were getting that wake-up call that this isn’t U18 or Junior B. The hits are going to be harder, the skating is faster,” says Kowal.
The Voodoos host the Sudbury Cubs on Saturday at the Powassan Sportsplex at 7 p.m.
