Napanee Comets

Napanee Comets
Ontario Intermediate A, Intermediate B, Senior A
City	Napanee, Ontario
Founded
Head Coach	Walt Gerow
General Manager
Arena	Napanee & District Community Arena
Team Colors	Yellow, Black, and White
League Champions	1958, 1959, 1960, 1971, 1972

The Napanee Comets were an ice hockey franchise based in the eastern Ontario town of Napanee, located in Lennox and Addington County, approximately 40 kilometres west of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The Comets played in a number of OHA leagues in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Their home games were played in the Napanee & District Community Arena, 170 York St, Napanee.

Ontario Major Intermediate A

As a member of the Ontario Major Intermediate A Hockey League the Comets had a successful run in the late 1950s capturing three consecutive Ontario championships in 1958, 1959 and 1960. The Comets made it back to the championship series in 1961 but their reign was halted that year by the Port Colborne Sailors. The Comets were led by Walt Gerow and player-coach Les Douglas, a former Stanley Cup Champion (1943) centre with the Detroit Red Wings. ^[1]. Douglas leveraged his connections with the Red Wings to bring the Detroit club to Napanee to play the Comets during both the 1957-58 and 1958-59 seasons. The games were played on 2/27/58 and 2/17/59. Despite the Comets dominance in Major Intermediate A, the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Comets by a wide margin on both occasions.^[2]

Ontario Major Intermediate B

In 1935-36 Napanee made an appearance in the Intermediate B provincial playoffs defeating Trenton in the first round series before bowing out to Belleville in the semi-finals. It wouldn't be until the 1969-70 season that the Comets would make a return to Intermediate B playoff action getting one step closer before falling short against the Lucan Jets in the best of seven final, 4 games to 2. They returned to the finals in 1970-71 but this time the Comets captured the OHA Intermediate B provincial title by defeating the Southern Counties Intermediate B champion, Durham Huskies, 4 games to 1. They repeated as chamipions in 1971-72 in a re-match final with their 70-71 opponents from Lucan, defeating the Jets by a 4 games to 1 margin. The Comets would return one final time to the provincial championship in 1972-73 losing in the championship final to the New Hamburg Screaming Eagles.^[3]

Ontario Major Intermediate C

The Napanee Comets made appearances in the Ontario Major Intermediate C playoffs in the 1955-56 and 1956-57 seasons losing both times to Minden in the semi-finals.

Ontario Senior A

The Napanee Comets was also the name of a Napanee team that played in the OHA Senior 'A' Hockey League from 1974 through 1976 before ceasing operations. ^[4] Their leading scorer during the 1974-75 season was former NHL player Dick Cherry. Their goaltender in the 1975-76 season was Steve Rexe, the first ever draft pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1967 NHL Amateur Draft. The Comets uniforms were fashioned after the black and yellow of the Boston Bruins.

References

1. ^ "Les Douglas in the Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame". http://www.kdshf.ca/index.cfm?page=inducteeDetails&id=26. 
2. ^ "NHL vs The World at the Hockey Almanac". Archived from the original on 2009-10-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20091026180441/http://geocities.com/Colosseum/Dugout/4128/01NHLvs.html. 
3. ^ "OHA Past Champions". http://www.ohahockey.org/page/show/14595l. 
4. ^ "Napanee Comets 1975 Team Statistics". http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0009481975.html.