Lakefield Chiefs retain bench staff, add to off-ice staff

By Mike DaviesExaminer Sports Director

Wed., Aug. 19, 2020timer4 min. read

LAKEFIELD — Shawn Dunbar has been busy putting staff together despite uncertainty about the 2020-21 PJHL season.

The new Lakefield Hendren Funeral Home Chiefs general manager has added three off-ice staff and confirmed the return of all bench staff.

Jamie Arcand returns for a seventh season as head coach joined by assistant coaches Jason Hinze, Mark MacDonnell and trainer Corey Skene. Dunbar will also be on the bench as an assistant coach.

In order to be on the bench, he’s recruited off-ice help.

Chiefs alumnus George Ripoll has been named assistant GM, Jeremy Campbell is director of operations and player recruitment and James Lingard will be social media co-ordinator, a role he did in Port Hope when Dunbar was Panthers head coach/GM the past two years.

“I had five hats on in Port Hope,” Dunbar said.

“By having these three guys come on board, two of them specifically are doing jobs I had to do in Port Hope that took up too much of my time.”

Ripoll, a banker, will be in charge of sponsorship.

“He has a lot of connections from the finance industry and he’ll be looking after sponsorship and the business side of things,” Dunbar said.

Campbell, who has coaching experience in Peterborough minor hockey, is in charge of game-night operations fulfilling duties Dunbar is unable to while coaching. Campbell will also scout and recruit players.

“He’ll take care of busing, co-ordinate player events and if I need anything on game days he’ll be at all the games,” Dunbar said.

Lingard will also serve as statistician.

“He’ll look after all our social media platforms,” Dunbar said.

Arcand and Dunbar won a Schmalz Cup together in 2018 so it’s no surprise he retained the coaching staff.

“One of the reasons I came back is because I knew Jamie would be coaching,” Dunbar said.

With COVID-19 postponing the start of the 2020-21 season some leagues have announced target start dates. Dunbar said the PJHL hasn’t made a decision or set a schedule.

“There have been quite a few meetings and behind the scenes conversations but there is no planned date yet,” he said.

“I know when the OHL brought out the planned Dec. 1 start date it raised a lot of eyebrows because they’re technically under the OHF umbrella and a lot of the leagues wondered how does the OHL say they’re going to start Dec. 1 when the rest of the leagues don’t know what’s going on yet?” The OJHL announced it’s prepared to play without fans.

“We’re having discussion within our league as far as is that what we’re going to do?” he said.

“Until the OHF actually comes out and says what return to play is actually going to be and the minister of health acknowledges this is how Ontario can do it, we don’t really have an answer.”

The Lakefield-Smith Community Centre will start making ice Aug. 24, he said, so he booked ice Sept. 8 and 11 for a potential training camp but with a realization it’s unlikely to happen.

“Are we going to start the season in mid-September like we normally do? I can probably say no,” he said.

“My gut feeling, and from talking to the league, is it’s going to be around the OHL start date and it will be a shortened season.”

The uncertainty has made it challenging to recruit players. The Chiefs anticipate losing 10 to 12 players off last year’s roster and will be a young team in need of new faces.

“It’s terrible for recruiting,” Dunbar said.

“Teams can recruit all they want but until you actually know what’s going on and how many games you’re going to have and what your revenues are going to be how are you supposed to nail down players? There’s the whole trickle-down effect. What is junior A doing? There are a whole bunch of midget players who are going to go and try out for junior A. It’s the same for minor hockey. We’re like the AA of the minor system. The AA teams don’t have a clue what’s going on until the AAA are done their tryouts.”

The team usually picks up out-of-town players attending Fleming College and Trent University but if there are online classes those students may not move here.

He had a trade arranged for a player from Kitchener who initially enrolled at Fleming but he’s decided to stay home because of the pandemic.

“There are a bunch of players who played last year in the league who decided they were going to go to school but are they going to go to school or are they going to stay home and study online? Some of those kids who were going to go away may still be around and could be in the mix now,” he said.

mike.davies@peterboroughdaily.com