But can it finally buy success for the Kingston Voyageurs, a franchise historically long on promise but short on results?

After owner Greg Rosen watched his handpicked crew get decisively whipped in the Eastern Division finals a year ago, only five players survived the cleansing.

The Vees shopping spree was extensive and impressive.

Forwards Mike Farrell and Justin Levac were brought in from the OHL to add some offensive punch. They were joined by 2 more OHL alumni in behemoth defensemen Kevin Christmas and Stepane Chabot.

Jarrett Burton was enticed south from the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, Devon Montgomery was plucked from the Central Junior Hockey league, and Jacob Chiblow was brought in from the western Ontario Junior B loop.

Forward Adam McAllister was purchased from the cash-strapped Trenton Hercs to provide a mixture of offence and grit.

The Vees picked up netminder Shawn Sirman at that same auction to do the heavy lifting for Rosens number 1 hockey son and Vees number 2 goaltender, Cody Rosen.

Former Herc offensive spark plug Dustin Walsh was scooped up at the Trenton fire sale later in the season.

Have the Vees brought in enough talent to get by a tired and injury-riddled version of the defending league champion Oakville Blades?

Stay Tuned.

Somebody sounds jealous and also sounds like they have their excuses already lined up and in order.

As you say, stay tuned

excuses lined up or excuses for why they couldn't get to the finals and set up the southeastern Ontario dream match-up

Court, get use to the jealously of some here.

It good to see that now Kingston as well as Oakville are being accused of "buying" their respective teams.

Funny these are the two teams left battling for the league title??

Yet again just a lot of sour grapes.

Buying a team? this season or last season? from what I can see most of the Blades on this year's team are the same ones that eliminated the Tigers last season in the N/W final.

Also, it's the Dukes that have the big $300,000 budget that the Central demands not the Blades. It would appear that the Dukes would have the money to "buy" a team. It would be very interesting to find out what the Dukes paid for DeFazio.

Maybe it will be made public since the Central Division teams must be now preparing to open their books to the public CA's coming in to perform audits and report their findings to Central headquarters.

MA will have their heads spinning in about an hour.

you want to win you have to be prepared to spend the money to do it. usually its not nearly as much as what people think. by the time you buy and sell players it works out.
the teams that really want to win generally pick up the missing pieces around the deadline.
smc...aurora always did that and showed that they were serious and it worked. look at aurora this year..they sold off high priced talent and at the deadline they got a sixteen year old player. the core was there to challenge but they didnt spend the dough for the extra one or two pieces to go for it. i'm sure j.d. would have found the money to get those players and it would have showed the rest of the team and fans that they were serious. go a couple of more rounds and those players would have paid for themselves.

Words of wisdom Wingfan, so right.

I tell you one thing the $300,000 put up (??) by the Central teams make Aurora's budget look like a petty cash fund. The Tigers always operate on much less but have the knack to make the right acquisitions at the right time. It's called "hockey savy".

I think Wingfans comment hits the nail on the head. JD leaves and the Tigers are sellers instead of buyers, as you said needing only a couple of pieces to complete the puzzle. Almost seems that the one that was being pushed for advancement was JD and once that happened there was no need to spend money this year. Be interesting to see if this trend continues next year.

duponts coaching and recruiting record speaks for itself and he has proven he can do it at the next level.
when he left the tigers they became a different organization.
he was a hockey guy that wanted to win and winning is why anyone in sports is there(or should be)
when he left it appears that the spirit of the entire organization dropped a notch. players of top quality were sold with nothing in return except cash. the message changed and it showed.
when the hockey team is run by the accountant then thats what you get. it takes years to build an organization that is the first choice for players to want to be. it doesn't take long for that to change.
obviously you cant replace a coach of duponts quality however the coach that took over is seems very capable at this level. noboby would want to follow jd as its a no win for him. win and its jds team lose and its your fault.
will the budget be there to produce a winner again?
there looks like there is enough top end talent returning to be more than competitive BUT will they get the experienced additions to challenge? both cooch and huntsville are losing a ton of talent so the opportunuty is certainly there to dominate a weak division .we'll see!!

He belonged to Hamilton and Turnbull ran out of cards because Owner wanted Branco and they only had one card left, so he went to Welly end of tale. Thats how he got to Wellington for free.

Yeah, I don't understand why it's so hard for people to wrap their head around Defazio....He left NCAA because he wasn't satisfied with the school and was a free agent-end of story.