By Keith Lacey
They say death and taxes are two things guaranteed in life, but for the past few years having the Sudbury Wolves face the Barrie Colts in the Ontario Hockey League playoffs has become part of that short list.
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For the third consecutive season and fourth time in the past five years, the Wolves and Colts will face off in a best-of-seven post-season series.
Last year, the heavily-favoured Wolves knocked off the Colts in five games in the opening round. Two years ago, the Colts defeated the Wolves in a controversial, thrilling seven-game series in the conference semi-finals. Three years ago, the Wolves upset a heavily-favoured Colts squad in six games in the opening round.
The 2002 first round series is set to start Saturday night in Barrie with Game 2 set for the Sudbury Arena Monday night. Game 3 will be played in Barrie next Tuesday with Game 4 in Sudbury a week from Thursday. Game 5, if necessary, will be played in Barrie a week from Saturday with Game 6 set for Sudbury on Sunday. If a seventh game is needed to decide a winner, it will be played in Barrie Tuesday, April 2.
While no one can ever predict exactly what will happen in any hockey series, there's no doubt the Colts will be heavily-favoured this time around.
But the Wolves have played Barrie tough all season and match up very well against the team which now represents the best rivalry with Sudbury in the entire OHL.
Wolves head coach and general manager Bert Templeton knows his squad is an underdog, but that doesn't frighten him or his players.
"They didn't finish 28 points ahead of us for nothing," said Templeton, who coached four years in Barrie before signing a five-year deal with the Wolves three seasons ago.
While the Colts don't have any superstars on their squad, Templeton believes they have one of the most balanced teams in the league with solid talent spread throughout their lineup.
Blaine Down is their only 25-goal scorer, but they have almost a dozen players who scored more than 10 goals, possess a group of big, mobile defencemen and will start one of the league's better goaltenders in David Chant, said Templeton.
"They've got a nice balanced team that obviously comes to play hard every night," he said. "You don't get as many points as they had this season without having a very good hockey club."
The good news for the Wolves is they played very well against the Colts all season and have been playing very good defensive hockey for most of the past four months since a flurry of trades early in the season.
As is the case in all playoff series, goaltending is key and Templeton believes veteran Mike Smith has been playing very well down the stretch and is capable of raising his level of play even more when the games count the most.
The Wolves have struggled all season long scoring goals and that's not likely to change when things get even tighter in the post-season, but team defence has been very good and winning close games will be the key, he said.
"Teams that succeed in the playoffs are teams that can raise their level of play...we'll have to wait and see which team can take it up to the next level the best," he said.
Templeton admits the Wolves and Colts now have a tremendous rivalry and it should make for a close, hard-fought series.
"There's a lot of intensity and the hockey is fast and exciting between these two teams," he said. "As a fan, this is probably the best matchup we could have had, and I'm sure the fans are going to see some really good, fast hockey with some real intensity."
Playoff tickets are now on sale at the Sudbury Arena box office.
