Posa calls players-only meeting

column by Rob Benneian

The writing may as well have been on the wall.

After dropping three straight games to fall into eighth place in the Ontario Hockey League’s Western Conference, the Windsor Spitfires knew they were in trouble.

This was confirmed when general manager Warren Rychel told reporters changes would be coming for his floundering franchise.

After watching his team struggle through a week of hard practices, captain Saverio Posa recognized something needed to be done. When Spits forward Chris Marchese approached him and said the confidence of the team had been shaken, Posa knew he needed to take action.

“I pulled the guys in for a player meeting and told them ‘These guys are willing to break up our family, we have to go out and make it hard for them to do that,’” Posa said.

The players-only meeting occurred behind closed doors Nov. 14 in the team locker room.

“I knew we had one more practice before game time (Nov. 15 against Saginaw) and I felt like a lot of the guys confidence around the room was a little bit down, guys were a little uptight about the trade (rumours).”

The Spitfires responded with what Posa called a ‘good practice’ and after a sluggish first period against Saginaw they pulled away for a convincing 6-1 win. They chased Detroit Red Wings 2012 third round pick Jake Paterson from the Saginaw goal in the process.

“When we brought everybody into the room, they all gelled together well,” Posa said. “The passion, the family-oriented atmosphere that they have here was definitely shown.”