Jason Pitton Profile

Last week I did a little re-cap of the Brampton Beast player signing announcements. Today I wanted to take the time out and do a little player profile on Jason Pitton.
Jason is actually a Brampton native, which is a nice tie-in for the team. He's a 27 year old who was drafted by the Islanders in the 2004 Entry Draft. Jason stands at 6'2 and weighs 215 lbs.

Jason started his career on the path to pro hockey in the 2002-03 season with the Brampton Capitals of the OPJHL (junior B). He did manage to get 1 game in with his OHL team that season, the Sault Saint Marie Greyhounds.

For the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons Jason spent the time with the Greyhounds scoring 66 points and 76 penalty minutes.
2004 was the year of his draft and he was selected by the New York Islanders in the 8th round, 244th overall. The Islanders decided to send him back to the OHL for some more seasoning and, In his final OHL season (2005-06) Jason was traded to the Guelph Storm about halfway through the season. That season he came up with 50 PIM and 42 points.

The 2006-07 season was spent with the Islander's AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Jason scored 19 points that year but came out with 65 penalty minutes.

2007-08 was split between the ECHL's Utah Grizzlies and Bridgeport. over 44 games in the 2 leagues Jason scored 18 points and 45 PIM.

2008-09 was a bit of a step up as Jason managed to stay in the AHL all season, but he only scored 4 points. He came out with 47 PIM.

In 2009-10 Jason signed a contract with the Stockton Thunder of the ECHL. So did younger brother Bryan who plays goaltender. Jason spent 38 games with the team scoring 24 points and 48 PIM. As a result, he earned a professional tryout agreement with the Spingfield Falcons of the AHL. He spent 25 games with the Falcons and scored 1 goal, 1 assist and got 22 PIM. He then returned to the Stockton Thunder of the ECHL for the playoffs. In 15 playoff games he scored 14 points and added 20 PIM..

2010-11 Was a really interesting season for Jason. He returned to the Stockton Thunder and in 41 games during the course of the ECHL season he scored 30 points and 73 PIM. The thing about the season that made it so interesting was that Stockton loaned him to 3 separate AHL teams during the course of the season. I haven't been able to find out exactly why in each case, but I can assume that it was either to cover for a call up to the NHL or injury related. He spent 1 game with the Manitoba Moose where he did not score and ended up with 2 PIM. Jason spent 9 games with the Worcester Sharks where he scored 2 goals, 1 assist and, got 7 PIM. Finally he spent 16 games with his old team, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. He scored 1 goal and 4 assists in Bridgeport and also ended up with 7 PIM.

For the 2011-12 season Jason decided to head over to Italy. He signed with HC Asiago of the Italian "La Serie A di hockey su ghiaccio" or "A series of ice hockey" in hockey. Asiago was the 2 time defending Serie A champions. He played 32 games with Asiago ending with 21 points and 86 PIM. Unfortunately there was no repeat.

2012-13 took Jason to the EIHL (Elite Ice Hockey League) in the United Kingdom. He joined the Fife Flyers, a team based in Scotland. The Flyers were actually established in 1938 and have won 60 Scottish and British titles over the years.
Jason was reunited with his younger brother Bryan, who himself is a former member of the Brampton Battalion. In 50 games in the UK Jason scored 58 points and got 187 PIM.

Here is a video done by the Fife Flyers about Jason

Now, it's all come full circle. Jason is back at home and ready to play 2013-14 for the Brampton Beast.

Darren O'Dea

I was reading Duane Rollins' recent column over at Canadian Soccer News about Darren O'Dea leaving Toronto FC.

The paragraph that really hit home is this one:

What we do know is that a 26 year old player, good enough for his national team and good enough to be named captain, who could have been part of Toronto FC for a number of years into the future won’t be sticking around. Regardless of the arguments over its necessity, and obvious lack of efficacy, the culture of disposability at TFC hasn't been changed.

This signing was one of the best signings in club history in my opinion. A young player who is clearly one of the best from his country (being an Irish international) who wanted to come to TFC and help fix the struggling back line. To boot, due to his age, he could have stuck around for a long time and started to turn TFC into a place for some higher profile players to consider coming to.

I strongly believe that this is one of the worst moves TFC has made to date. O'Dea is worth the $200K they are were paying him in my opinion.

I'm really not happy about this.

Beast Unleashed

On Tuesday night I received a tweet from the Brampton Beast, inviting me to come out to a player signing announcement event. I thought that was really cool of the team and it goes to what I was saying in my previous blog post about the Beast in terms of their goal to reach out to the community and actually try to sell tickets (as opposed to the Battalion who never advertised).

So my good friend and I went down to Oscar's Roadhouse, a local Brampton restaurant, to check out the event. I have to admit, I was surprised when we arrived to find that the restaurant was packed. We got a seat in the back corner and settled in to hear the news.

The first person we heard from was Carey Kaplin. Carey is the President, General Manager and, co-owner of the Beast. The first thing he mentioned was that the team has sold 2,000 tickets to every game thus far (keep in mind he did not say that they sold 2,000 season seats) and that the club feels that they are trending towards getting sell out crowds. I remain in the "I'll believe it when I see it" frame of mind. In all fairness, that's not directed towards the team but rather the citizens of Brampton and how much they really care for hockey.
Carey also mentioned that the Beast will have both an NHL and a AHL affiliation team and that will be announced in the next couple of months. Personally that was the biggest news of the night to me. If the team can gain an affiliation then they may get a chance to be loaned an AHL player coming back from an injury which can't hurt the ticket sales.
The next piece of information is that the new scoreboard is about to begin construction. Apparently it will be big one too, spanning from blue line to blue line. I got the impression that it will basically be a mini version of the scoreboard the Dallas Cowboys have in their new stadium, which is to say a big video screen in a rectangular shape.
There was also mention that the team's jersey will be unveiled soon and there will be another event for that (which I'm looking forward to) but we were basically told to "stay tuned" for that information.
We were also told that the Beast intend on having plenty of give-a-ways at all of their games and theme nights. I'm sure my friends over at the Chris Creamer Sports Logo Community will look forward to those themed nights (and potential themed jerseys) as much as I will.

Next a video was played showing pictures from the community event the Beast have attended, I do not recall the number mentioned now but I know it was over 100. That was pretty impressive.

Next up we had counselor Sanderson. He didn't really say anything in terms of news. He gave the Beast organization kudos for their community involvement, told us that he bought his season tickets and, told us to buy our season seats. The highlight of his speech was when he said the Battalion didn't ever do a thing to advertise. I found that funny. True, but funny. In fairness to counselor Sanderson, he did say that he wished the Battalion the best of luck right after.

At this point head coach Mark DeSantis came up and told the crowd that he has been constantly on the phone and the computer scouting and talking to player agents. He mentioned that his goal is to have a competitive team right off the bat. He admitted that it is hard as an expansion team to do so but he wanted a winning team. He then went into the player signing announcements:

Calin Wild is the first player announced. Cal is a Brampton resident who was born in Winnipeg. Calin played the last 3 season with the Texas/Fort Worth Brahmas organisation who are right now an "inactive" team looking for a new venue to play in. Calin seems to be about a 20 point a season who plays center. My friend kind of laughed when he heard Calin's last name mentioning that it was perfect to fit in with the club's branding. Calin "The Beast" Wild, ha ha ha.

The second player announced was Jason Pitton. Jason was born and raised in Brampton. Jason is a former member of the old Junior "B" Brampton Capitals, played with the Sault Saint Marie Greyhounds and Guelph Storm in the OHL. He's the older brother of former Battalion goaltender Bryan Pitton and spent last year with his brother in the UK playing for the Fife Flyers. Jason plays on the left wing.





Finally, Bret Smith (the first Beast signing) came up to the podium to confirm he will wear number 41. He mentioned that the Beast said they were so excited to sign him and that when he arrived in Brampton they gave him the number 14 and he started to wonder if they really wanted him (jokingly of course). He also said that he was glad to have some teammates because he wasn't sure if he could do it all himself. Seems like a pretty funny guy.

The night ended with a couple of questions from the audience, nothing serious, just wanting to know the players positions, ect.

All in all, pretty much what you would expect from a player announcement but it was cool that the team gave out so much information as to what they are working on so willingly.

Next week I plan on going into more depth on the players with a some player profiles, so stay tuned if you'd like to hear more about the Brampton Beast players.

***Edit: The nickname was to be Calin "The Wild Beast" Wild. My apologies Garrett!***

Diego Frolan to TFC?

I got a text this morning from a good friend of mine.

"Did I just hear that TFC is signing Diego? Fancy!".

I asked said friend what she (take note of the gender) thought of the signing. The response was basically "Well he is an MVP and he's sexy LOL".

Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not going to slag my friend at all. She's not exactly a soccer fanatic and she probably represents a large portion of the population. It's clear she has the perception that TFC is signing a star player (well he was 4 years ago in reference to her MVP comment). I even saw a New England fan tweet this morning that he would like to purchase a Forlan TFC jersey.

The stats speak for themselves. From 2007 to 2011 he played 134 league games and score 74 goals. He also played 62 international games and 22 goals. That was all part of his stay with Athletico Madrid. In this time frame he won the Golden Ball (best player of the tournament) at the 2010 FIFA World Cup and became Uruguay's all time leading scorer.

From 2011 up until the end of the 2013 season (in Brazil) he played 37 club games and scored 7 goals. Meanwhile he only had 2 appearances on the international stage, no goals. This time from was spent between 2 different clubs as well, Inter Milan and Internacional.

So now that I've laid out the stats to back it up, here's my opinion on this signing:

Stupid.

Yup, that's it. It clear that he's at a stage where he's older and more injury prone, This is not his fault, this is a common occurrence for players who are coming towards the end of their career. You can't blame the player for this, you can only blame TFC management.
I mean, a simple look on the internet would have told you his stats and that should be enough to think "maybe this isn't going to be a good idea, he obviously isn't as productive as he used to be.".

Now, If TFC comes out and says "look, we realize that he's not as productive as he once was but we wanted to bring in a player that has name recognition" then I'll be less upset. But who am I kidding? That's not going to happen. This is TFC trying to make the big name signing in order to get some more butts in the seats. That's fine too, but I have no disillusions of this being anything other than that and I think if TFC tries to sell us on this being a tactical signing then they are stupid.

I hate when players like this come into MLS. It's a wasted roster spot. If MLS has a grand vision of being one of the top leagues in the world by 2020 (tm: Don Garber) then they have to stop signing old players who aren't worth the insane amounts of money they sign for. We've seen this story with TFC before, Danny Kovermans (who by the way, I really like), Toresten Frings (another player I liked but was injury prone) and, Mista. They play so little because they are injured half the time and usually it all ends with a player being waived and a career ending. If TFC is going to be bad on the field, I'd rather they use that roster spot to sign a young Canadian player and let that player develop in MLS.

This signing may sell some more tickets but it's probably not going to help the team win at all.
It's starting to feel like nothing ever will.
That sincerely makes me sad.

The Beast

For those of you who don't know, the OHL's Brampton Battalion decided to pack up and move to North Bay. Poor attendance and an unfavorable lease agreement with the city of Brampton's Powerade Centre being the reasons. It was sad to see the Battalion go but, when butts aren't in the seats what do you expect will happen?

It didn't take long for the city of Brampton to come up with some alternative content to put in the Powerade Centre. The Brampton A's of the National Basketball League of Canada will be 1 option.
The Brampton Beast of the Central Hockey League is the other option.

Now, I'm not going to kid myself. These are 2 leagues that call themselves professional but are anything but professional. I'll go check out the A's mostly because I want to see what basketball will look like in the "Powerade" as I call it. That's not what I wanted to post about today though.

The Brampton Beast are the team I want to speak about. Let me give you a little background on the Central Hockey League.
The CeHL (as opposed to CHL because the Canadian Hockey League gets the CHL short form) is technically a mid-level minor professional hockey league. In terms of the North American hockey pyramid, it is tier 4. Currently the league does have NHL and AHL affiliates but rarely will you see NHL prospects play in the league.

The Beast themselves came to be on March 8, 2013. Clearly the OHL is considered a much better brand of hockey so the question lingers, why are the Beast and the CeHL going to work when the Battalion and the OHL didn't?

I don't know that they are, if I can be completely honest. This is the only Canadian team in the league, in fact the next closest team is located in Moline, Illinois (3 hours west of Chicago). So travel cost are going to be expensive. Obviously Brampton is not a "hockey town". The attendance number for the Battalion proved that to be the case and if the OHL is a better brand of hockey then what would make the people come out to see the Beast?

Well, there are a few reasons. Reason number one is that the city is working very closely with this team. As far as I have been able to find out, the city thought that the Battalion weren't going anywhere and could basically negotiate a nice chunk of change as rent for the Powerade Centre. Of course that caused a problem with Scott Abott (owner of the Battalion...and, side fun fact, co creator of the board game Trivial Pursuit) and was part of the reason he moved the team. I have to think the Beast are paying less than the Battalion ever did but, in all fairness, I don't know that for a fact. This time around the city has also committed to installing a new state of the art score clock.

Reason number two: advertising in the community. This was literally NEVER done with the Battalion. I guess the Battalion figured that because Brampton re-named all the rep hockey teams after the OHL team, that was advertisement enough. Of course not, the hockey community is going to know about the hockey teams they can go see, it's the people outside of that community that you need to advertise to! As of today, I've seen the Beast have representatives at every city event. Last night (July 1st) I saw them at 10pm in the park where the city's firework display was going off. I've seen them outside of Brampton's theatre for the preforming arts (called the Rose Centre) and, I've even seen them at the farmer's market. In fact; my grandmother, who couldn't care less about hockey, even saw them at an event for seniors and she asked me what kind of hockey the Beast are. That's getting your name out there.

Reason three is not a sure-fire thing,  but it helps. Brampton's minority owner and president/GM is Cary Kiplan. Cary is a former Canadian Soccer League commissioner and former president of the Hamilton Bulldogs. My feelings aside on the CSL (they are very strongly negative, but that's another story for another day) that's still a pretty impressive resume.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect the Beast to be a success. According to the management of the club, they have sold 2,000 tickets for every game next season. This is about the numbers the Battalion did (including walk up) so the team has more work to do, but if they keep getting out there in the community and make sure that people know their name then maybe this team does stand a chance.

Wrestlemania 29 and Raw on April 8

I was going to post my Wrestlemania thoughts yesterday but decided to wait and see how the follow up Raw would be. 

The tradition has become that the Raw after 'mania has become just as much of an event as Wrestlemania itself. This year Raw proved to be the better show.

Let me say first that I had ordered the PPV online and had about 10 people over to watch, and the stream from wwe.com did not work all night long. I have e-mailed WWE since and explained how disappointed my guests were and I requested a refund. WWE has come back telling me that I was given an extra 48 hours to "enjoy" the event at my leisure. I've responded again explaining that the 10 guests I had over don't get that same luxury. Plus, the results are out and the excitement and surprises of watching a live event are now gone. Anyway, that battle for my $60 back goes on. But here are my 'mania thoughts. (Yes, we found another way to watch it but that is not the point is it? I paid for a service that I did not receive)

Intercontinental Championship: Wade Barrett vs The Miz

Short match as part of the pre show. Miz got the submission (with the figure 4) and won the title. I did not feel strongly either way. Until Raw when Barrett used his rematch clause and won the title back! So what was the point? Seems a little stupid to me.

The Shield vs Randy Orton, Sheamus and, The Big Show  

I actually enjoyed this match. I felt that the shield was kept strong and it was not at the expense of the WWE crew of guys. Ambrose got the clean pin on Orton which I thought was a nice touch to keep the shield strong. Afterwards Big Show knocked out Sheamus and Orton. It was a little confusing because Big show was a heel already and he just kind of eased off of it in this story line. So he didn't really turn on Orton or Sheamus he just kind of stopped playing nice. It was justified in the post show on wwe.com by Big Show. He mentioned that he tried to be a good guy and do the right thing but Orton and Sheamus screwed that up for him (or something to that effect) and that he just can't play nice anymore.

Mark Henry vs Ryback

It was a short match, which I feel it should have been due to the fact that these 2 can't go that long. In the end it was nothing spectacular and Mark Henry won. After that Ryback attacked Henry. Kind of defeated the purpose if you ask me. On Raw Henry wrestled Cena and got disqualified. Had Henry won that match he would have got a title shot. After the DQ Henry continued to attack Cena until Ryback came down and took out Henry. Ryback then took out Cena. So I guess it's a 3 way for the WWE championship coming up. I guess Ryback is also heel now? 

WWE Tag Team Championship: Team Hell No vs Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston

Team Hello No ended up defending the titles. I didn't feel that there was much to this match but the start was funny as Ziggler and AJ kissed and Daniel Bryan went for the pin right away. Just like last year when Bryan and AJ kissed and Sheamus used that to his advantage to win the World Heavyweight Championship. I was really hoping Ziggler and Big E would win this. On Raw Ziggler took advantage of a beat up Alberto Del Rio and cashed in his money in the bank to win the World Heavyweight Championship. To me that makes sense, you get the divas belt on AJ and then you have a group that has tons of gold. 

Fandango vs Chris Jericho

I expected this one to be the match of the night. It didn't end up being the match of the night but it was still good. Not a heck of a lot to say, Jericho put Fandango over

as expected and now WWE needs to follow up with making a star out of Fandango.

World Heavyweight Championship: Alberto Del Rio vs Jack Swagger

I really don't have much to say. The match was not exciting and Alberto Del Rio retained. It was just a back and forth between the 2 wrestler's submission holds.

The Undertaker vs CM Punk

I think that I was expecting this to be a let down. Punk was going to save this match for sure but I thought that Taker was just too old and beat up. I was wrong, this was the match of the night! Not too much to note. Punk did the old school to Undertaker and teased a tombstone which was countered. In the end it was a well worked match that kept myself and the crowd pretty excited. Taker continued the streak (as expected) and all is right in the world. On Raw Taker came out to do a little promo and The Shield interrupted him. They came down to ring side but as soon as they got there Kane's fireworks went off and Daniel Bryan and Kane ran down to the ring to back up Taker. The Shield retreated. I guess this means that Taker is sticking around for another match this year. That's pretty cool and I like the idea of the Brothers of Destruction working together again.

Triple H vs Brock Lesnar in a No Holds Barred match

The stipulation was that if Triple H lost he'd have to retire. Brock had Paul Heyman in his corner and HHH had Shaun Michaels in his. 

I did not really enjoy this match. There was so many suplex spots that it just got a little stupid. Belly to belly, belly to back...we started making jokes that the next suplex would be a back to back suplex. There were some chair shots, the stairs were used and, good old sledgy (as I call Triple H's sledge hammer) made an appearance. Triple H went through the Spanish announce table. Lesnar took out HBK with an F-5. Triple H applied the Kimura lock on Brock Lesnar a few times after Brock had done it to him already. The last 5 - 10 miniutes of the match were basically the 2 guys beating each other's arms up. In the end Triple H won, he doesn't have to retire.

WWE Championship: The Rock vs John Cena

Snooze fest! Honestly, it was a slow match that never really got going. John Cena won and is the new WWE champion as expected. Apparently Rock had torn his abdomen and adductor muscles right off the bone so maybe that played a factor. Either way it served the purpose, bring back Rock to get more eyes on the product.

Just another thought: The crowd at Raw was super hot, they deserve a lot of credit. When Ziggler cashed in and won the title I thought the roof was going to blow off that stadium, it's been a long time since that has happened. Also the match that was taken off the Wrestlemania card: Tons of funk with the Funkadactyls vs Rhodes Scholars and the Bella Twins was on Raw. So no 'mania payday but the match did happen. 

Kevin Kolb is a Bill

The Buffalo Bills signed QB Kevin Kolb yesterday.

If you recall Kevin Kolb was supposed to take over the reins from Donnovan McNab in Philadelphia about 6 years ago, or at least that was the intent the Eagles had when drafting him. He never quite made it, lost his job to the returning Michael Vick and ended up in Arizona after playing only 19 games in 4 years.

His 2 seasons in Arizona (as the starter) he ended up playing only 15 games, most due to injury issues. Last season he got 4 wins in his 6 games. Not horrible, but I think the real number that sticks out is his 8 touchdown passes with only 3 interceptions.

The rumors were very lively that the Jets and Raiders were both very interested in in bringing Kolb in, the likelihood is that it was meant to be in a backup capacity. If not a backup then a QB who could push for the starting role in an attempt to get better performances from the established starters. That's not the case in Buffalo.

So now the Bills have Kevin Kolb, Travaris Jackson and, Aaron Corp (was a practise squad member in 2012) on the roster fighting for the lead QB spot. It will come of no surprise that the Bills intend to draft a QB this year as well. Basically we are looking at an injury prone QB, a 30 year old who's best days seem to be behind him, a draft pick and, a 2012 undrafted practise squad player.

Sometime I seriously wonder what the heck the Bills are thinking. I get that there is no elite name out there to sign right now and, with as poorly as this team has played over the last 10+ years, the last thing that the Bills need to do is trade assets away to get a QB. I also get that there is no real elite QB in this year's draft, at least nothing like last year's draft. Here's what you do: just play the season. Use Travaris Jackson. Use your 2013 draft pick for a receiver (another position that is seriously lacking in Buffalo) and just play. It will be a brutal year but that will put the Bills in a spot to draft a highly touted QB or use that draft pick to trade for a good, established QB.

I don't really think this is rocket science.
This is fairly common practise. Why the Bills insist on getting "middle of the road" players at QB and having 5 to 8 win seasons just blows my mind. Now the Bills have invested another 13 million (over 2 years) to a QB who just doesn't isn't going to be god enough to be a game changer.
So annoying.