Like a pathetic game of limbo, Okanagan Hockey Academy is singing a new tune, "How low can you go?" Predictably, the teams this season are collectively losing, losing, and losing.
Penticton Lakers, formerly the Sting, has begun the season with, shall we say, less than a bang?
14 games played, 12 losses with the Lakers firmly planted at the bottom of their division with no way out of the hole they have dug for themselves. Only one team in the KIJHL has a record slightly more terrible, the Columbia Valley Rockies. It's going to be a long year for the OHA boys with the early losses piling up.
OHA coffers are a bit depleted this year. Is this due to the economy? Their teams are down a minimum of twenty players from last year with area British Columbia players dominating this year's rosters. Very few American boys have returned to the OHA program and new recruits are nil. You might recall we exposed the OHA sliding tuition scale last year. The Americans are the ones the owners rely upon, for the most part, to foot the full tuition bill, while the local boys and sons of staff members practically attend for free.
Stay tuned as the blog heats up over the next few months. We will be following these losing teams and undoubtably hear countless stories of politics during tryouts and disgruntled players doing everything possible to leave OHA.
If you want your son to be forgotten, send him to Okanagan Hockey Academy!
Notice how OHA tried to take credit on their website for 'Moving the entire Major Midget AAAA team' BS. Those kids from AAAA and their parents refused to send their kids to OHA another season even if it meant them not playing this year or dropping down to whatever or wherever they could play. The boys were seen by other teams, without OHA's help or input at spring camps and in turn invited to fall evaluation camps in and out of province. The boys scrambled desperately to find teams to play for this season - who would appreciate them for their talent (pre OHA experience), just so that they would not have to go back to OHA. Parents were happy as now they could afford to buy their own kids a car instead of yet contributing to another one for the Kerr family. Then OHA tried to take credit for them all moving on. Pathetic. OHA had nothing to do with the entire QUAD team moving on. NOTHING. The boys told them they were NOT going back there no matter what. The boys who couldn't make any other Junior A or B team ended up being added to the old Sting team now the Penticton Lakers -Junior B or Alberni Bulldogs, -both owned by OHA just so that they would have a place to play and OHA could take credit for moving them on. By the way...Junior B with OHA costs the same $40,000, whereas other Junior B team players/parents are paying almost NOTHING!
