As part of my role as team statistician for the Sudbury Wolves, my job description includes the preparation of weekly media notes, featuring various tidbits of information regarding upcoming games.

While these notes have generally been confined to circulating among media types and club officials, it seemed likely that fans of the local OHL team might also have an interest in the odds and ends that I might come across on a weekly basis.

Although the Sudbury Wolves have faced each of the Soo Greyhounds, Niagara Ice Dogs and Kingston Frontenacs already this year – the three teams against whom they close out a five-game homestand this week – it is likely to be a different version of their opponents they face in all three encounters.

Of course, with the OHL trade deadline looming this week, the same will likely be said of the version of the local juniors that will greet the trio as teams sort through the annual jostling of buying and selling based on their feelings of the current strength of roster and where they see themselves in what is often acknowledged as a three to four year junior hockey cycle.

Sudbury opened their six game annual set with the Greyhounds by winning both on the road (6-3 on Sept 28th) and at home (3-1 on Oct 16th) early in the season before the Soo got in the win column roughly a month ago with a 7-4 win in the Lock City. That game included a two point effort by Brady (R.) Smith of the Hounds – and now they have two of them.

Included in the package that included no less than eight draft picks being sent to Sault Ste Marie in exchange for Team Canada blueliner Andrew Gibson was the “other” Brady (T.) Smith, rounding out the package that the Oshawa Generals shipped north.

After snapping an eight game losing skid at home with a 7-3 win at the Sudbury Arena on March 15th 2023 (Landon McCallum and Evan Konyen scored two goals each for the Wolves), Sudbury has seen the pendulum swing back and forth in the past five games, looking to make it back to back home ice wins against the Hounds when the team battle it out Wednesday evening.

The local juniors were riding an eight game winning streak versus the Niagara Ice Dogs entering the 2024-2025 campaign and while a 4-3 overtime loss on the road in early November brought that to an end, it would be hard to complain a whole lot about the first two encounters between these teams.

A 6-3 setback at home on December 15th, however, was not an effort that head coach Scott Barney would like to see repeated as the Wolves contest game four on the season against the Dogs.

The Wolves enjoy a winning record both at home and on the road opposite the Ice Dogs franchise, with their more recent past highlighted by a 13 goal outburst at the Sudbury Arena on December 4th (2022), a night on which Quentin Musty produced a seven point performance that featured no less than six assists.

The Sudbury Wolves were already going to have to dig into their collective memory banks to conjure up images of a Kingston Frontenacs’ crew that saddled them with a 7-2 loss in the Limestone City on October 11th, even before the franchise that was known forever as the Canadians (and for one year as the Kingston Raiders – 1988-1989) traded away no less than 16 different draft picks in acquiring the trio of Joey Willis, Ethan Hay and Will Bishop from the Saginaw Spirit.

The visiting Frontenacs arrive with a pair of players fresh off a silver medal performance at the World Juniors as Finnish stars Tuomas Uronen (39 points in 31 games) and defenceman Emil Pieniniemi (34 points in 32 games) add depth to a roster that is being led, offensively, by the likes of Cedrick Guindon (49 pts) and Jacob Battaglia (47).

Sudbury has taken the season series with Kingston on 16 occasions, with their Eastern Ontario adversaries returning the favour 14 times – but for 2024-2025, at least, the Wolves will be more than happy to earn a season split for a 21st time since the teams battled it out to a 6-6 tie on October 14th 1973.

Ironically, the first three encounters between these OHL entries actually ended in a tie, 5-5 in Kingston on November 2nd (1973) and 3-3 in Sudbury on November 30th. The Wolves drew first blood in the head to head matchups with a 6-2 victory on January 4th as Richie Hansen drilled home the hat trick, leading the Wolves to victory.