Four Oakville hockey players win the OJHL Buckland Cup

by

With the OJHL season over, the Buckland Cup championship has been awarded to the Collingwood Blues after they defeated the Trenton Golden Hawks in five games.

Collingwood was the clear-cut favourite to win the Buckland Cup from the start of the playoffs, and they met those expectations as they raised the trophy on home ice.

Although the Blues play up north in Collingwood, the team has many players from Oakville on their roster.

The first of which being defender Robert Strachan. Strachan is in his last year of junior hockey and has had an extensive OJHL career.

Growing up, Strachan played for a stacked Oakville Rangers that included Predators prospect Luke Evangelista and veteran OHL defender Ethan Ritchie.

In the past two years, Strachan has really found his game. He scored 36 points in 51 games last season for the Georgetown Raiders. This season with the Collingwood Blues, he scored 46 points in 53 games and added 13 points in 18 playoff games to help the Blues secure a Buckland Cup.

Next on the team is forward Cameron Garvey. Garvey is also in his last year of junior hockey and played minor hockey with the Oakville Rangers alongside Strachan.

Garvey started his junior hockey career with the Blades in 2019-20, scoring 37 points in 49 games.

Then after the pandemic, he was sent to Collingwood, where he would play out the rest of his junior career.

Last season, Garvey scored 27 points in 32 games, but this season he led all Collingwood Blues in scoring with 67 points in 52 games and added 14 points in the playoffs.

Garvey will continue his playing career next year when he plays Division 1 hockey at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania.

Collingwood also has Justin Legault on their roster. Legault also spent his minor hockey career playing for the Oakville Rangers.

Legault played with the Rangers until 2020; after the pandemic, he was able to make the transition to the OJHL.

He played last season with the Toronto Patriots and then played 47 games with the Blues this season and scored 25 points.

Born in 2003, he has another year of OJHL eligibility before he graduates from the league.

Then we come to the heart and soul of the Blues: their goaltender Noah Pak.

Pak grew up as an Oakville Ranger, and once he was given a starting goaltender opportunity last season, he was one of the best goaltenders in the OJHL.

Last season, Pak posted a .922 save percentage and a 2.28 goals-against average in 41 games. This season, he posted a slightly worse .917 save percentage but a slightly better 2.01 goals-against average.

But the playoffs were really where Pak shined. He posted a .947 save percentage and a 1.37 goals-against average in 18 playoff games. Absolutely outstanding.

Pak’s stats captured the eyes of NCAA scouts, and he has committed to play at Yale University next season.

But how did these players end up on the Collingwood Blues and not on the Blades?

Although recruiting players is a complex process for teams, the Blues were able to recruit many of these Oakville players because of their general manager, Mike Tarantino.

Tarantino was the head coach of the Oakville Blades from 2014-2019 and won the OJHL championship with Oakville back in 2019.

When Tarantino left the Blades to be Collingwood's general manager, he had been scouting the pool of Oakville Rangers talent for a few years and was able to bring some players over with him to Collingwood.

Tarantino also grew up in Oakville. He played in the Rangers system and for the Blades from 1998-2000. He rounded off his hockey player ice time in Division 1 hockey at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) from 2000-2004.

The Blues now head to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, as they will be the OJHL's representative at the 2023 Centennial Cup.