After a 42-win regular season, the Barrie Colts will begin their playoff quest on Thursday, when they host the Niagara IceDogs in the first round of the OHL postseason.
The Colts enter the playoffs as the eastern conference’s second-seed, giving them home ice advantage against a Niagara squad that could be renamed the ‘Underdogs’ for the purposes of this series.
Barrie and Niagara played each other six times during the regular season, with the Colts winning five of those games, including an emphatic 8-1 victory in the final game of the year.
The IceDogs snuck into the playoffs as the conference’s seventh-seed, and are one of only three teams in the east to qualify for the postseason with a losing record.
However, Niagara’s roster features some high-end firepower, including Ryan Roobroeck, a second-year player who scored 41 goals and 87 points this year. The IceDogs’ Kevin He, a fourth-round pick of the Winnipeg Jets in 2024, also scored 75 points this season.
In comparison, the Colts were led in scoring by Kashawn Aitcheson, a third-year defenseman who notched a career-best 59 points.
The series’ first two games will take place at the Sadlon Arena in Barrie, before the teams travel south to St. Catharines for games three and four.
The first team to win four games in the seven-game series will advance to play the winner of the Brantford-North Bay matchup. Brantford will be heavily favoured in that series, as their 44 wins gave them the top-seed in the eastern conference.
The Colts have won the Bobby Orr Trophy, given to the eastern conference champions, four times in franchise history, with the latest coming in 2012-2013. Barrie has also only won one OHL title, which came in 1999-2000.
Earlier this year, the Colts wrapped up the central division title, clinching the team’s first Emms Trophy since 2017-2018.
