Luck, development and covering the Oshawa Generals

By Joel Wittnebel/Column

The Memorial Cup glinted as the two mounties placed it onto the red, velvet-covered table. Amid the roar of the surrounding crowd, Oshawa Generals captain Josh Brown lifted the trophy above his head and screamed into my camera lens.

Quite honestly, it was a stroke of good luck that put me on the ice for that moment.

After moving to Oshawa nearly two years ago, I have had the amazing opportunity to cover the Generals for back-to-back seasons, catching a team both at its top level and its early stages.

In 2014, I arrived in the city just in time for the start of the Generals’ preseason. My first experience covering the Generals was watching Jeremy Brodeur through the puck-marked glass beneath the dim lights of the Garnet B. Rickard arena in Bowmanville. At that time, I had no idea those first few shutter clicks would add up to thousands over that first season and eventually take me to Quebec City.

It was about halfway through the season that I started to think that perhaps I was witnessing something special in the making.

As part of my coverage last year, I met one-on-one with each of those Generals selected by NHL clubs.

Over the course of the season I sat down with Hunter Smith, Cole Cassels, Tobias Lindberg, Matt Mistele and Michael McCarron, all who appear to be staring down the barrel of great careers in the national hockey league. Though not a Montreal Canadians fan, I’ve got to say I celebrated a little when McCarron netted his first NHL goal this year.

The first person I sat down with though was Brown, in a sunlit boardroom inside the GM Centre.

We talked about his growing up in hockey and his future prospects, but more importantly, we talked about the Memorial Cup. Brown was certain that this was the team that was going to do it.

At this point, the Eastern Conference had been ruled out to the likes of the West in the London Knights, Soo Greyhounds and, most notably, Connor McDavid and the Erie Otters, who were a shoe-in for the Cup.

Over the course of the season, the sentiment continued to be shared by head coach DJ Smith and his players. They were certain it was there time, and as the confident words echoed around the GM Centre, the wins started to stack up.

First breaking a franchise record for points, then claiming the J.Ross Robertson Cup, and well, we all know what happened in Quebec City.

Whether you want to call it luck or perhaps the sport-reporting gods smiling down on me, but I challenge you to find a reporter who was able to cover a championship run in their first season of covering a club. It’s something I’ll never forgot throughout my career.

While this season was a little less eventful for the Oshawa Generals, it was exciting in its own way.

As great as last season was, I felt like I was arriving to the party at 1:30  in the morning. While I still experienced the best part, I missed the entire lead up.

A lot of the players on last year’s club played together for four years, and coming in at the last minute, I didn’t get a chance to know the team in a way that would have made that victory even more meaningful; perhaps as meaningful as it was for them. Look for the picture of goaltender Kenny Appleby with the Memorial Cup in his hands to get an idea of that feeling I’m talking about.

Now I’m getting that opportunity.

This past season was the beginning of another era of Generals who, over the next four years, could shape into a similar club that claimed that OT victory in Quebec City.

The pieces are there – the work of Broduer and his seasoning-opening shutouts and the offense put up by rookie Domenic Commisso are only the beginning for this team.

And who knows, perhaps that development will take a serious jump forward if the Gens are awarded the 2018 Memorial Cup, which actually happens to be the 100th anniversary of the tournament.

I don’t want to get my hopes up for that, but in a future column, I’ll lay out my reasons why I believe the Generals deserve to host that tournament.

It’ll come down to a lot of factors, just like those that brought me here to Oshawa to cover this team, but in the end, I think Brown said it best.

In that interview last season, I asked him about his future in the game.

“I try to just focus on my game and just playing the best I can every night and I think if I do that everything will work out the way that it’s supposed to in the end.”