Ten years in.
Does it feel like it has been that long? North Bay has had Major Junior Hockey back in its city now for a decade and the North Bay Battalion has had plenty of great moments along the way.
They are currently celebrating the milestone with a logo update on the jerseys and in their branding. The jersey this year features a patch that says N10RTH Bay Anniversary with the years 2013-14 to 2023-24 on either side of the traditional Sarge face Battalion logo.
It’s a nice design to reflect the team's first 10 seasons since moving up north from Brampton. There’s been plenty of success and memorable moments to talk about both on and off the ice over that time and this article looks at 10 of those moments that defined the decade for the Troops.
(With files from a previous top ten article.)
10. The unveiling of the renovations and opening night for the North Bay Battalion
The Centennials had played their final game at Memorial Gardens over ten years earlier. The move of the franchise to Saginaw had left a big hole in the heart of the community which has proven time and time again that it is a great ‘hockey town.’
So, when the night finally came on October 11th, 2013, North Bay’s new team, the Battalion, suited up for the first time in front of the home fans inside the newly renovated Memorial Gardens and played the Peterborough Petes in front of 4200 fans, and it was a moment many had been waiting years to see.
The renovations of the Gardens itself were a major story in the lead-up to puck drop and getting to see all the upgraded amenities was something the fans were clamouring for.
Pregame festivities included former North Bay Centennial Nick Kypreos returning to the Gateway City and Chase Hatcher (son of Derian Hatcher who was a captain of the Centennials) scored the first goal of the game, albeit for the Petes but still the name recognition was a nice tie in from the old team and the new team.
The Troops lost that game 2-1 but it marked the beginning of a new era for Major Junior Hockey in North Bay.
9. Nick Paul brings Gold Medal to the Gardens
The 2015 World Junior Hockey Championship had some local flair. Centre Nick Paul suited up for the red and white, looking to help Canada win the tournament for the first time since 2009. Paul had a good tournament scoring three goals, including one in the gold medal game which Canada won 5-4 over Russia, in Toronto.
On January 15th, Paul played in his first game in North Bay since claiming the gold and he was honoured in a pre-game ceremony for being the first (and to date only) Battalion player to play for Team Canada at this tournament. 3,871 fans gave Paul a standing ovation when he was presented with a plaque to recognize his feat. The fans also got to see his Team Canada sweater on display in the concourse.
8. Adam Dennis named as Battalion General Manager / Ryan Oulahen Head Coach
It was time for a fresh start. After more than 20 years with the same personnel running the ship, Owner Scott Abbott felt it was time to go in another direction. Adam Dennis was appointed general manager; Ryan Oulahen was named interim head coach; Bill Houlder became a full-time assistant coach, and Scott Wray maintained his full-time assistant coaching role as Stan Butler was reassigned from his duties as GM and Head Coach on December 10, 2019. The team was 5-23 on that year’s campaign. They had put together some uninspiring seasons on the ice leading up to that year, and the drafts were not yielding much in the way of star talent. There was an immediate commitment from those involved that they had to be better in everything they did.
The results have spoken for themselves so far with the Battalion winning the Central Division and finishing as the runners-up in the Eastern Conference in two of the three seasons following the change and have had multiple players drafted to NHL clubs, while making significant roster additions that have bolstered the team en route to those runs, and have reinvigorated the meaning ‘Battalion hockey.’
7. Drafting first overall
With the Battalion committed to a rebuild during the 2019-20 season, the Troops finished last in the entire Canadian Hockey League, meaning they would get the number one overall pick in the Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection, as well as the CHL Import Draft.
General Manager Adam Dennis used those picks to select two players who would and have become pivotal to the successful turnaround of the Battalion franchise, Ty Nelson and Matvei Petrov.
On April 3rd, 2020 the Battalion took Nelson from the Toronto Jr. Canadians program. He was touted as a highly skilled offensive defenseman who could play in all situations. That scouting report has remained accurate through Nelson’s tenure with the Troops. He has helped the Battalion get to back-to-back Eastern Conference finals while scoring 33 goals and 128 points going into the 2023-24 season. He was also selected by the Seattle Kraken in the 3rd round (68th overall) in the 2022 NHL entry draft.
A few months later, the Battalion would pick Petrov in the CHL import draft. Petrov came into the fold and put together two of the most impressive seasons by a Battalion import player since their move north. Back-to-back seasons of 90+ points, including a 40-goal campaign in 2021-22, and leads as the highest-scoring import player in the North Bay era of the Battalion franchise with 67 goals and 183 points in 123 games, and a further 42 career points in 33 playoff games. He was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in the 6th round (180 overall) in 2021 and was a scoring threat from the wing on any line he played on.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Battalion only got two seasons of Petrov and Nelson together, but it was two memorable years where the number one picks lived up to their potential.
It isn’t often an organization lands the opportunity to draft first overall and Dennis made sure that he wasn’t going to miss that chance. Along with the efforts of Head Coach Ryan Oulahen and his staff developing these players' skills on the ice, Nelson and Petrov are two names Battalion fans won’t soon forget.
6. Goodrow lifts Lord Stanley’s Cup
He was the first captain of the North Bay Battalion. The guy who consistently put the team on his back and willed them to a victory during the Battalion’s inaugural season in North Bay. Time and time again Goodrow came through when it mattered most and so it was only fitting that he would be the first member of the North Bay Battalion to become a Stanley Cup Champion as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning during their championship season in 2019-2020.
Head Coach Ryan Oulahen was the team's Assistant Coach during Goodrow's year in North Bay and he told BayToday, "To see Barclay hoist the Stanley Cup is very special for the Battalion organization. He was instrumental on so many levels during our first year in North Bay both on and off the ice. I couldn’t be prouder for him and his family on this huge accomplishment. Barclay has set a great example that shows hard work pays off. Congrats Barclay!”
Goodrow and the Lightning would repeat as champions the following season as well.
5. Back-to-back Division titles
The Battalion were Central Division champions in their first season in 2013-14. They got close the following season but hadn’t been able to claim the top spot since that first year. That changed in 2021-22. The team was stacked with promise as players such as Ty Nelson and Matvei Petrov made their OHL debuts. Goaltender and Montreal Canadians prospect Joe Vrbetic was primed for a big season. Overagers Brandon Coe and Mitchell Russell were looking to go out strong in their final tours of duty, and players like Liam Arnsby, Paul Christopoulos, and Kyle Jackson were looking to make up for lost time as they lost a year of Major Junior eligibility due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Adam Dennis added some veteran experience to the group in trades for Kyle McDonald and Grayson Ladd. People thought they would be good, but they may have outperformed those expectations as they won 43 games, accumulated 93 points, and won the Central by 9 points over Mississauga. The team went all the way to the Eastern Conference finals before bowing out to the Hamilton Bulldogs.
As a follow up, they did it again.
A 48-win season and another Central Division title with 99 points. It was predicated by another year of maturity by many of the names mentioned, while Winnipeg Jets prospect Dom DiVincentiis came into his own as a number one goalie, and once again Dennis was pushing the right buttons in the front office by making key trades to acquire guys like Josh Bloom, and Pasquale Zito. Dalyn Wakely was one of four 30-goal scorers as he solidified himself as an offensive threat.
The team battled through the post-season, ending in an Eastern Conference Finals loss in seven games to the Peterborough Petes. But the Troops had managed to reestablish themselves as an upper-echelon team in the Ontario Hockey League and those two banners now hanging from the rafters were well-earned and will fly forever.
4. Miller to Moutrey to Kujawinski to end the game in double OT
It was the longest playoff game to that point for the Battalion in North Bay. Coming off their first season in which they went all the way to the OHL finals, the Troops found themselves in familiar territory the very next year when their Central Division rivals the Barrie Colts would line up as their opponents in the Eastern Conference Semi-final series for a second straight year.
Barrie took the opening game, but North Bay got the next two right back. On to Game Four on April 16th 2015. North Bay took a 2-0 lead into the third period and were leading 3-1 after the first five minutes. But the Colts got two back off the stick of Roy Radke to tie the game at 13:50. For the next half hour of on-ice play, nobody could beat Jake Smith in net for the Battalion nor Mackenzie Blackwood of the Colts.
But just before the four-minute mark of the second overtime period, Troops defenceman Brenden Miller carried the puck out of the defensive zone down the left-wing side and found one of the two major trade deadline acquisitions in Nick Moutrey, behind the Colts' blue line. Miller gave the puck to Moutrey, who spotted the other major trade deadline acquisition Ryan Kujawinski streaking in on the right side of the zone. Moutrey fed the puck to Kujawinski and on the 49th shot of the game, the Iroquois Falls native sent the Gardens into a frenzy when he beat Blackwood to end the game and take a 3-1 series lead over the Colts.
North Bay would take that series before being eliminated by the Oshawa Generals in the next round.
3. Amadio and Brazeau score in bunches
50 goals has always been a special number in hockey. For years it was the ultimate mark of legendary status in the NHL. While it has been accomplished numerous times in the OHL – a member of the Battalion franchise had never gotten there. Some came close, but it wasn’t until the franchise moved to North Bay that a player reached the 50-goal plateau.
On March 18th, 2016, Captain Mike Amadio capped off a phenomenal season with a shorthanded goal at 12:34 of the first period in an eventual 4-3 overtime win over the rival Sudbury Wolves in the second last game of the season. He had already secured the franchise record a few days earlier but scoring a nice round 50 helped solidify himself as one of the greats in the early days of this iteration of the franchise. Remarkably, that season for Amadio started out slowly. He went goalless in his first six games, totalling just two points in that span. After that, he went on a tear. He had multi-goal games ten times including a hat trick on October 18th against Niagara and a five-goal performance against Kingston February 13th.
But Amadio’s record didn’t last long. In that same game in which he scored his 50th, a tall lanky first-year player from New Liskeard watched it happen from the bench and later picked up an assist himself in that game.
That player was Justin Brazeau, and three years later, he would not only surpass Amadio's total but entered an exclusive North Bay Major Junior club by scoring his 60th of the season on March 14th 2019 in a 3-1 win over the Hamilton Bulldogs, on a night the Battalion were paying tribute to North Bay’s old team, the Centennials no less. With alumni in tow, Brazeau put on a show, scoring twice to become only the third player in Major Junior hockey in North Bay to score at least 60. He finished with 61 at year end, tying Vitali Yachmenyev, and finishing one behind Nick Kypreos. Amadio set the standard, Brazeau surpassed it as they both accomplished the rare feats.
2. Paul pulls Battalion into the second round
Many will remember the first season in North Bay for the Battalion as a Cinderella story. But it almost ended in heartbreak in round one of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Niagara IceDogs. The Troops took the first game of the series but fell behind 3-1. They came home and won game five before taking game six on the road. Year One and the First Playoff Series; why wouldn’t it go to a Game Seven?
And it was a nail-biter. Jake Smith did his thing as usual, stopping virtually everything that came his way outside of a late goal in the first. But Niagara rode that one goal through the next 20 minutes, and things were looking dire for the Troops with just 20 minutes remaining in regulations.
“We started the third period down 1-0 and we had our backs against the wall. But you have to give our players a lot of credit. They battled extremely hard and found a way to get the job done,” said former Battalion Head Coach Stan Butler after that game.
“I told the players after the second period that it would be a shame to have battled back to tie the series and not play your best game in Game 7. We didn’t play very well in the first two periods, but we were down only one goal.”
After firing 16 shots at IceDogs goaltender Brent Moran in the second, the Troops found quality over quantity was the way to go and at 6:05 of the third, Alex Henriksson finally got one past Moran to tie the game when Moran stopped a shot by the Zach Bratina at the right post. Henriksson picked up the puck, wheeled around the net, and tucked it inside the left post.
Just over three minutes later Nick Paul finished off a passing play into the zone started by Captain Barclay Goodrow, who dished it off to Ben Thomson who got the one-timer pass right onto Paul’s stick on the right-wing circle and Paul shot it over the blocker side.
The Troops then shut down the game at that point and would secure the first-round series in seven games in front of 4,249 fans on April 1st 2014.
1. Troops take Eastern Conference Championship
That Cinderella story continued over the next few weeks as the Battalion would go on to clinch an Eastern Conference Championship in their first season in North Bay.
The Battalion had gone from being middle of the pack to Central Division champions to the brink of elimination in the first round to sweeping an Oshawa Generals team that many pundits picked as the favourites to win the series. The Battalion not only defeated the Generals but they swept them in four straight games, culminating in a 3-2 victory on April 23rd, 2014.
The game went back and forth with Marcus McIvor opening the scoring for North Bay, followed by Michael Dal Colle tying the game for Oshawa near the end of the first. Alex Henriksson regained the lead for the Troops in the second, before Dylan Smoskowitz once again tied it for the visiting Generals, halfway through the third. Then with just over six minutes to play, Jamie Lewis took a pass from Brenden Miller over the blue line and rifled a shot over the stick side shoulder of the goaltender, (North Bay native) Ken Appleby. It was the first goal of that post-season for Lewis and it would hold up as the series-clinching goal as North Bay got 31 saves from Jake Smith to capture the Bobby Orr trophy in front of 4,235 fans. Interestingly enough, it had been 25 years since North Bay defeated Oshawa in the Leyden Division finals to move on to the OHL championship, which they captured against Detroit.
And while the North Bay Battalion would come up just short against the Guelph Storm, it was a fitting way to culminate a crazy first season of OHL hockey in North Bay.
Watching guys like Barclay Goodrow and Ben Thomson and Matthew McLeod lift the trophy was a really touching moment. They were the three overagers on the club and for Barclay he wore it like a badge of honour to make sure that this team was going to have some kind of success in their initial run in the Gateway City. He took it upon himself to get everyone to buy into their potential and truly got the most out of the group.
It is rare that a team can have a moment like this in front of their home fans and even more rare to be able to do it the first year after a relocation. But the night that the Battalion won the Bobby Orr Trophy at Memorial Gardens will not only stand out for this decade but for many more years to come.
