Goaltender Carter George. (Photo: Nick Iwanyshyn, The Canadian Press)

Not that long ago, if you were one of the top minor hockey players in Thunder Bay, Ont., you spent two weekends each month flying on a chartered jet to Toronto. Your team would play one game on Friday night, two on Saturday and another on Sunday, before flying home.  

This was the life Carter George lived as a promising goaltender, and it is part of the path he has taken to the Ontario Hockey League, and to the world junior championships. Our Greg Cowan does a wonderful job telling that story in The Owen Sound Sun Times.  

“The Kings chartered the same Air Canada plane used by professional hockey teams for $48,000 per weekend," writes Cowan. “They loaded up four Kings teams, from under-13 to under-18, and headed to Toronto every other weekend during the hockey season.” 

Organizers in Thunder Bay had to get special clearance from Hockey Canada to play games outside their jurisdiction. They did it because the Greater Toronto Hockey League is home to many of the top minor hockey teams in the country and is a hotspot for junior scouts.  

It has been reported some Northern Ontario families mortgaged their homes to cover the additional travel costs. The long-distance relationship has since dissolved, and Thunder Bay is no longer part of the triple-A loop in Toronto.  

George, though, still remembers the first time he faced shots from the top team in Toronto, the Jr. Canadiens.  

"It was scoreless after the first, and I think we were only down 3-1 after two periods,” George tells Cowan. “We were thinking, this league is easy, we’re going to run through this league, and then we lost that game 6-1 and lost every game the rest of the year pretty much.” 

Getting peppered in Toronto meant getting noticed. Scouts got to see George play. 

“He’d meet with a scout at the concessions,” family friend Trevor Mikus tells Cowan, "then you’d see another scout talking with him in a stairwell, then another outside, it was crazy.” 

You can read the full story right here.

On Sunday, the Flint Firebirds pulled off a massive trade with the Niagara IceDogs, picking up captain Kevin He in the process. Flint already held sole possession of first place in the Western Conference, meaning this deal was a signal of intent.  

Sault Ste. Marie has also made moves to get better. Writing in The Windsor Star, Jim Parker gathers reaction from the Spitfires.  

“We have an awesome group in Windsor here and are a big family,” forward Ethan Belchetz tells Parker. “As a team, we are not trying to think about trades or anything like that. We just want to go into the second half playing some really good hockey.”    

At the start of the week, the Spitfires were only within a couple of wins of first place in the overall OHL standings.  

“The Firebirds are great, they just added a guy, too,” Spitfires’ defenceman Conor Walton tells Parker. “We expect to face them in a battle for first. Should be fun the rest of the season.”   

You can read the whole story right here.

Illustration of goalie Bill Taugher. (Source: Kingston Whig-Standard archives)

Gare Joyce has spent weeks exploring the curious case of Bill Taugher, the late goaltender credited with appearing in precisely one game with the Montreal Canadians 100 years ago. 

Did he actually play that game, though?  

As far as Joyce can tell: No.  

And in the finale of his three-part series in The Kingston Whig-Standard, Joyce approaches Taugher’s 93-year-old son with the news.  

“Yeah, I was telling a boy that his father didn’t play for the Montreal Canadiens like he was led to believe," Joyce writes. "I was prepared to be shown the door.” 

Instead, he was met with legitimate interest and curiosity.  

“My mother hated hockey,” Art Taugher tells Joyce. “My father was away all season while she was back in Kingston raising us. She resented it. And because he was away playing I never saw him play. Even if I had, I’d have been too young to remember. Then when he passed, hockey became the thing that robbed her of husband.” 

You can read the whole story right here. 

Ben Leeson, the Wolves beat reporter with The Sudbury Star, spent some time with GM Rob Papineau to chat about the team, and where it might be looking ahead of the Jan. 10 OHL trade deadline.  

“There have been different times along the way where you thought you might do one thing, but something else popped up and you decided to make a different decision," Papineau tells Leeson. "But there’s no question, the players have the belief  of the coaching staff in them and they have the belief of the management and ownership in them and that’s something they have earned.” 

Sudbury sits near the bottom of the OHL standings, sitting 18th out of 20 teams earlier this week. 

“We’ll continue to do our diligence and make sure we’re having all the conversations,” Papineau tells Leeson. "But with this group, you look at the way they’ve been trending and they have been one of the top teams in the Ontario Hockey League over the past four weeks and that’s something they deserve, because they’re the ones on the ice, doing the work.” 

You can read the full story right here

(Photo: Christopher Katsarov, The Canadian Press)

If Ben Danford's stick represents the year 2025, then we are all Latvia's Kristians Utnans.