City North Bay, Ontario Division Central Location North Bay, Canada | Conference Eastern General manager Stan Butler Founded 2013 | |
Home arena North Bay Memorial Gardens Colours Khaki Green, Yellow, Black and White Arena North Bay Memorial Gardens Affiliate Powassan Voodoos (2014–, Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League) Profiles | ||
Ohl mississauga steelheads vs north bay battalion sunday oct 2nd 2016
The North Bay Battalion is a major junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League based in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. The franchise was founded as the Brampton Battalion on December 3, 1996, and began play in 1998. Due to consistently poor attendance, the team relocated to North Bay prior to the 2013–14 OHL season.
Contents
North bay battalion
Early Years, 1998-2013
The Brampton Battalion's inaugural season began in 1998-99, and the team struggled, winning only 8 of 68 games. However, it would be one of only two seasons (the other being 2001-02) in which the Battalion would miss the playoffs. The fifteen season tenure in Brampton saw the Battalion finish with a .484 win percentage in 1020 regular season games and win four Central Division Championships and one Eastern Conference Championship.
Relocation
During the summer of 2012 rumours of the Battalion franchise relocating began to swirl as their lease agreement with the Powerade Centre was nearing an end. Attendance that was never healthy on a regular basis to begin with, was declining in Brampton. Combined with an unfavourable lease in Brampton, owner Scott Abbott looked for other options as the 2012-13 season got under way. On Monday, November 5, 2012 following a meeting with city council in North Bay, Ontario an agreement in principle to move the Battalion to North Bay for the 2013-14 season was agreed upon. Just nine days later fans in North Bay had already bought over 2,000 season tickets as per the conditions of the agreement. The Battalion would play out of the North Bay Memorial Gardens which underwent major renovations, in order to meet league standards. Franchise owner Scott Abbott stated that the team would continue to use the Battalion moniker in North Bay, paying homage to the city's strong military history.
Championships
The North Bay Battalion have won one division title and one conference championship in its first season in North Bay.
Emms Trophy
Central Division Champions
Bobby Orr Trophy Eastern Conference Champions
Uniforms and logos
The Battalion's uniform is primarily an army-like shade of olive green. The shoulders feature black bars, with white outlining, this is then further outlined in black. Evenly between the shoulder and elbow lie three military-style chevrons, connoting rank (here, sergeant) completing armed forces theme.
The logo itself, featuring their mascot, Sarge, gritting his teeth is also army olive green, a mix of yellow and beige, white, fleshish pinky-orange, black, and red. The name Battalion, emblazoned on their uniform is pure red, and is created in a way that it looks three-dimensional.
Uniform Colours: Khaki Green, Yellow, Black and White Logo Design: "A militant with an army hat with the word 'Battalion' under the militant."Arena
The North Bay Battalion play out of the North Bay Memorial Gardens. Built in 1955, it is best known as the home of the North Bay Centennials, which called the Gardens home from 1982 until 2002, after which they moved to Saginaw, Michigan and became the Saginaw Spirit. Most recently, it has served as the home of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League's North Bay Trappers, which called the Memorial Gardens home immediately after the Cents left in 2002 and played in tell 2014, as well as the Nipissing University Lakers hockey team playing in Canadian Interuniversity Sport as a member of the Ontario University Athletics conference.
With the Battalion's arrival and subsequent 15-year lease, the Gardens went under a $12 million renovation; the seating capacity has increased to 4,246, the ice surface has been reconfigured to new OHL standards, 10 private boxes has been added and a new 2-level team dressing room was built.
NHL Alumni
Broadcasting
Country 600CKAT is the radio broadcaster for the team. Matthew Sookram is the Play by Play man and Bob Coles does Color Commentary duties, while they provide scores and updates from around the league.Tristan Fitzpatrick hosts the road game shows alongside the excellent and knowledgeable Tommy Wong aka Tommy 705 and Liam Berti
Canadore College's Television and Video Production program second year students operate and generate content for the video board located above centre ice.
TVCogeco broadcasts all home games, and all away games that are televised. Previous Nipissing Lakers commentators Ranjan Rupal and Greg Theberge call all home games.
Regular season
Legend: OTL = Overtime loss, SL = Shootout loss
Playoffs
Beat Barrie Colts 4 games to 2 in conference semi-finals.
Beat Oshawa Generals 4 games to 0 in conference finals.
Lost to Guelph Storm 4 games to 1 in J. Ross Robertson Cup finals.
Beat Barrie Colts 4 games to 1 in conference semi-finals.
Lost to Oshawa Generals 4 games to 2 in conference finals.
Lost to Barrie Colts 4 games to 0 in conference semi-finals.