OHL History

A Brief Recap of the Kingston Raiders

Over their 46 years of history, the Kingston Frontenacs have had some rough years to say the least. They’ve been fairly mediocre during the regular season, only finishing with a winning record 21 times of those 46 years. Even during the playoffs, they’ve only made it to the 3^rd round twice, and have yet to make appearance in an OHL final. Despite all of the on ice failures that they’ve had, nothing seems as rock bottom for the franchise as it did for a short time back in the late 80’s. A new owner and a name change showed lots of promise, but a couple of threats to move the team turned him into public enemy number one among hockey fans in the Limestone City, and the heartache that their diehard fans endured couldn’t be fixed overnight.

            In early 1988, the Kingston Canadians were at a low point in their 15 year history. They had an ownership group that the fans had grown annoyed with, low attendance that was continuing to dwindle, and very little on ice success to help bring people in. The team was also at the beginning of what would become a 28 game losing streak to end the season, a record that still stands today (London almost surpassed it in 1995-96, but at least had a couple of ties along the way). Around this time, the original owners decided to sell the franchise to Lou Kazowski, a Peterborough based real estate developer and former minor pro hockey player. During his introductory press conference in February 1988, he promised the world to the hockey fans of Kingston, stating that it was the beginning of a new era. He said that by Christmas, “They would all be proud to say that they were part of the hockey club”.  Kazowski was going to turn things around, both on the ice and financially, by doing things such as hiring people with lots of experience, openly saying that he was attempting to hire Roger Neilson to be the team’s new GM. He even said that they might hire a new head coach, despite Jacques Tremblay being in the first year of a three-year contract, though he said he was going to assess Tremblay at the end of the season and decide then.

            As it would turn out, Lou Kazowski wouldn’t have to wait until the end of the season to deal with Jacques Tremblay. On March 4^th, after the Canadians finished the first period down 7-2 to the first place Peterborough Petes, Kazowski went on a tirade in the dressing room during the intermission. When the second period started, he was on the bench with Tremblay to help coach the team, then returned to his seat for the third period. The whole ordeal humiliated Tremblay and in the following days would quit the team, saying that “there’s one thing Kazowski can’t buy and that’s class”. Also, the humiliation of Jacques Tremblay caused team trainer Peter Campbell to quit too, even though Kazowski promised that he would make him a full time employee when he bought the team two weeks prior. Jim Dorey, the team’s radio broadcaster, would coach the team for the remaining three games of the season.

            Over the long summer of 1988, Kazowski wasted no time putting his own stamp on the organization. In March, he announced the team would change their colours to black, white and silver for the next season, and kicked off a name the team contest. The contest only lasted a couple of weeks and by the end of April the OHL Board of Governors approved the new name, the Kingston Raiders. Kazowski like it because he was hoping that it would give the team a physical presence. Many fans were displeased with the new name. They wanted something with local ties or that had some originality to it. He also went out and hired Larry Mavity from the Belleville Bulls as the team’s GM and coach. Mavity made a few moves to help change up the team too, by trading away players such as Jeff Sirkka (who was already disgruntled because of Kazowski), Mark Turner, and Brian Fogarty (who would go on to have one of the greatest seasons in OHL history after the trade). Going into the new season, the team had a lot of hype around it, causing a rise in attendance. Over 1,800 showed up for a preseason game, which lead Kazowski to call his turnaround of the franchise a success before even playing one regular season game.

            Everything seemed like it was going fairly smoothly for the Raiders during the first half of the season. They had a much better start than the previous season, and aside from a couple of issues involving Kazowski calling out players to the media and yelling at them, there were no real problems. That changed in mid-December when Lou Kazowski told the Kingston Whig-Standard that he was going to move the Raiders out of Kingston. There were two reasons for the potential move. One was some disagreements with the Memorial Centre board of directors during their negotiations for a new lease, saying that they’re being unreasonable and that they don’t want them there. Kazowski’s main points were that the team plays a lot of Tuesday night home games, which kills attendance, claiming that they’d rather cater to wrestling and trade shows. He also allegedly was told by the board that it was the club’s responsibility to clear the snow out of the parking lot on game days. Other reasons that were brought up at this time include the board not letting him build an owner’s box with his own money, and not approving a steel door for the team’s dressing room. The other reason for Kazowski to move out of Kingston was the Memorial Centre itself. The 37-year-old arena hadn’t been properly maintained and was in rough shape. It was dirty on the inside, and the outside was making its way inside due to a leaky roof.

            Lou Kazowski and the Memorial Centre board spent most of their time leading up to the Christmas break trying to fix all the issues and renegotiate to keep the team in Kingston, otherwise they were as good as gone to either Barrie, Owen Sound, Syracuse or Detroit to name a few. During this time, most of the Raiders fans had Kazowski’s side in the battle, agreeing that the arena was subpar and could use a lot of work. During the negotiations, the Memorial Centre made some of the upgrades that he requested since the board considered most of them reasonable. They worked on patching up the leaky roof, eliminating issues with the concession stands, fixing broken seats, and taking the responsibility back to clear the snow from the parking lot. In late December, they finally came to an agreement. A new three-year lease was agreed upon and all sides seemed happy with the new agreement. When Kazowski spoke to the media after the lease deal was announced, he said the most important part of the new lease was the commitment to stay in Kingston for three years, “and hopefully 10”. The agreement would be written up and then sent to his lawyer on January 9^thfor Kazowski to sign.

            In the months following the lease agreement, there was lots of hope for junior hockey in Kingston. A feasibility study was starting to show results regarding whether they should renovate the Memorial Centre or replace it. They even went as far as discussing a potential new 5,000-7,000 seat arena in downtown Kingston (the location for the proposed arena was only a block away from where the Leon’s Centre was built 20 years later). As for Kazowski, when he promised that the team would stay for “hopefully 10”, it started to seem like maybe he meant 10 weeks. In mid-March the Whig-Standard reported that according to an official from Owen Sound, Lou Kazowski had been in negotiations with them despite the three-year lease with Kingston. It then came out that Kazowski had never signed the amendments to make the lease official when it was sent to him back in January. The Memorial Centre board didn’t seem too concerned since he seemed happy, so they didn’t send him a subsequent letter until March 7^th, one week before the Owen Sound negotiations were reported. When interviewed about it, Lou said that he would wait until April to make his decision on whether to move or not. Commissioner David Branch wasn’t very happy about the possible move since he considers Kingston integral to the league, even saying that they might consider blocking the move when it comes time to vote on it. The Raiders players weren’t happy either. Many of the ones interviewed about it said that they were happy in Kingston.

            While the Raiders were fighting for their playoff lives, Kazowski continued ahead with his plans to move the team. Despite the team having a 30% spike in attendance over the previous season, he claimed that one of his reasons to move was the lack of fan support. The Kingston Raiders would play their final game on March 17^th1989 against the Toronto Marlboros, losing to them 9-4. During the second intermission of that game Lou Kazowski was interviewed on the radio broadcast, where he announced that he was moving the team. According to him, the Kingston Whig-Standard had “ruined his credibility” by their depictions of him He claimed that he was 60-40 on keeping the team until he read an editorial, column and cartoon that were all critical of him in the paper that morning. Coach and GM Larry Mavity would later disagreed with his statement saying that the media in Kingston had been good to the team. Regardless of how the media saw Lou, he had just burned the last bridge out of town with the fanbase. All the fans who had brought portable radios to the game all heard the interview and many fans had gathered by the press box to verbally abuse and boo him as he exited into the crowd. Many of the fans who had stuck by him all season long, through all the battles with the Memorial Centre board and the last threat to move, felt like they had been used and lied to. One fan even made a sign with a placecard during that intermission: Roses are red. Violets are blue. Keep the Raiders in town. And dispose of Lou. 

            By Monday, only three days after the announcement of the move, Kazowski had already cleaned out everything that the Raiders owned and shipped off to Peterborough to be stored until a move was made. Equipment, sound equipment, papers, even the coach’s desk was gone. He wasted no time packing up, telling the trainer after the game on Friday to start packing. Even with all of this going on, the league was doing everything that they possibly could to keep the team in Kingston. With that, Lou offered the team to the city if they were willing to purchase it, but council decided that they couldn’t afford it. While the move was going on, Larry Mavety was fired. According to reports, Kazowski and Mavety hadn’t got along since January when they had a falling out after being blown out in Cornwall. Mavety was also against the move since his family was still in Belleville at this time and he had been commuting back and forth between the two cities. This firing angered the fans and players even more than they already had been. Those same fans who had been angered by the hell that their hockey club has been put through, went out to collect 3,000 signatures on a petition in two and a half days to present at the OHL meeting on April 10^thto discuss the potential move. Lou decided to add even more fuel to the already uncontrollable fire by telling the Owen Sound media, “If you charged them each 10 cents you wouldn’t get 30 names”.

            When the league met on April 10^th, everybody came to a decision that despite Kazowski not wanting to sell the team, he agreed to sell it if somebody was willing to give him $575,000 for it by April 28^th(a fair offer considering an expansion franchise at the time cost $450,000). While it does come across as the league making him sell it, Lou said that it was his decision to sell, though if there were no buyers by the deadline, he’s moving the team to Owen Sound. There was interest from a few parties. Compuware showed interest in buying and did submit a bid, but it was too late since Kazowski had already accepted an offer when he received their bid. The new buyers were lead by Whitby mayor Bob Attersley and former NHL executive Wren Blair. Both were tight lipped about their involvement in the deal until it became official out of fear the Kazowski would cancel it if it leaked to the public. In his last grasp of power with his hockey team, he insisted that he was to be the only person present when they announced the sale of the club to the public.

            With new ownership came a lot of changes to the franchise that was used to lots of change after the events of the last 15 months. Attersley and Blair promised right from the start that they were going to keep the club in Kingston. They wasted no time in fixing the mistakes made by Lou Kazowski, rehiring the recently fired Larry Mavety to lead the team. Though before that they starting off by changing the team name to the Kingston Frontenacs, in honor of the organization that both men were apart of in the early 1960’s, and a name that had been used for many years, dating back to the late 1890’s (originally named after New France Governor Louis de Buade de Frontenac). There was a third member of the group who would be announced later, Don Anderson.  The new group wanted to draw up excitement and hope for junior hockey in the city, but didn’t want to go the same route that Lou did last season by promising on ice success and full stands immediately. They kept it simple, saying that they were going to restore the hockey heritage that belongs in the city of Kingston. With a name as familiar as the Frontenacs and names as familiar to the city as theirs, the new owners were off to a great start.

            In the 30 years since these events took place, the Kingston Frontenacs have had very little on ice success. They have still never been to the OHL finals, and have only made the conference finals twice since becoming the Frontenacs. Despite that, things aren’t anywhere near as bleak as they were in the late 80’s. The team did finally move out of the Memorial Centre in 2008 and into a beautiful new downtown arena. The three men who bought the team from Lou Kazowski in 1989 eventually sold it in 1998 to Doug Springer, who still owns the team to this day. While fan opinions about the current ownership are certainly mixed, the franchise is stable in Kingston for the foreseeable future.