Kevin Perrott son of former Lincoln and NHLer Nathan
By Pat Payton
St. Marys Lincolns now have 10 players on cards as they continue to fill their roster for the 2020-21 Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League (GOJHL) season.
Last week, Director of hockey operations/GM Greg Smale announced the signing of three more new players — goalie Sean Andrus, forward Kevin Perrott and defenceman Zach Betts.
Andrus, 19, hails from Oshawa and attended Lincs’ training camp last fall. He played in one exhibition game.
The 6 ft., 2 inch, 195 lb. Andrus spent last season with the Kincardine Jr. ‘C’ Bulldogs. In 26 games, he had a 2.74 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage. “He was real solid for Kincardine,” Smale said.
Son of former NHLer
Perrott is the son of former Lincolns’ forward Nathan Perrott (1993-94), who went on to play in the OHL and then professional hockey. He’s also the younger brother of Andrew Perrott, a defenceman with the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack.
Kevin Perrott, 17, is from Columbia Station, Ohio. The 6 ft., 192 lb. centre-right winger played for the Cleveland Barons U-16 team a year ago. In 29 games, he had six goals, 21 points and 34 penalty minutes. He’s a draft pick of the OHL’s North Bay Battalion. In 2018-19, Perrott was a member of the Oakland Jr. Grizzlies U-15 team.
“He also attended our training camp last year,” Smale noted. “He’s a good, hard-nosed player.”
Betts, 17, is a right-shooting blue-liner who calls Woodstock home.
The 6 ft., 1 inch, 190 lb. Betts spent most of last season with the TRC Hockey Academy Wolfpack in Brantford. He also played 15 games, including playoffs, as an affiliate skater with Pelham Panthers of the GOJHL’s Golden Horseshoe Conference.
“He’s a good, defensive defenceman,” the GM says. “He’s a stay-at-home guy who can chip in with a little offence. He’s a good solid defender, something that we really need.”
Of the 10 players Lincs have signed to date, seven are forwards, two are defencemen and one is a goaltender.
Junior hockey notebook:
–Kevin Perrott’s dad Nathan played on the last St. Marys team to win a Western League title (in the spring of 1994). Perrott was a member of a big, tough and talented Lincolns team which defeated Petrolia Jets in six games in the final.
Perrott played in a total of 89 NHL games with Nashville, Toronto and Dallas.
–Ayr will soon be home to a Junior ‘B’ team. The Ontario Hockey Association board of directors has given final approval to the Ayr Centennials to purchase and move the Kitchener Dutchmen to the town, population 4,100. Ayr is about 27 kilometres from Kitchener.
The new team will be called the Ayr Centennials (Junior B) and feature a patch on the jerseys to honour the history of the Dutchmen. They were previously known as the Greenshirts and are also the affiliate club of the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers. The Dutchmen were a member of the GOJHL’s Midwestern Conference since 1977.
Ayr Centennials, meanwhile, were founded in 1982. They were a Jr. ‘D’ club up until 2012, and then elevated to the Jr. ‘C’ ranks.
–In other Jr. ‘B’ news, the Waterloo Siskins will now be known as the Kitchener-Waterloo Siskins. The oldest Jr. ‘B’ team in the province recently unveiled a new logo. Siskins plan to play some games in Kitchener next season as well as their home rink in Waterloo (Waterloo Rec. Complex).
–Stratford Warriors’ coach Dave Williams was recently named OHA coach-of-the-year for the 2019-20 season. Williams’ assistants this past season were Mike McLeod, Dave Schlitt and goalie coach Mark Nelson.
