Making The Grade: The 2023-2024 Moncton Wildcats

Making The Grade: The 2023-2024 Moncton Wildcats

For as long as I can remember, former beat reporter for the Times and Transcript and Moncton Wildcats Neil Hodge used to write a column at the midway point of the season grading players.

Each player was given a letter grade based on their performance to that point.

Times have certainly changed since then, but the high expectations surrounding the organization and the emphasis on winning every single game no matter what definitely hasn’t.

Growing up some of us absolutely hated report card time while others loved it.

You see it’s way past the reporting period for the Moncton Wildcats 2023-2024 season. How could you write that, the playoffs haven’t even started?

The QMJHL season can be broken down in several ways, but let’s say for argument sake, three parts.

The start of the season to the trade period, the trade period to the playoffs and finally the playoffs.

What grade would you give the Cats first segment of the season?

What about the second part?

Critics might compare those two sections as Jekyll and Hyde and they wouldn’t be that far off. So with the playoffs just weeks away now, how are the Wildcats gearing up for their final exam or evaluation?

How would you evaluate the Cats?

How’s the brain trust and all those behind the scenes going to come up with a final grade for the 2023-2024 version of the Cats?

What about the players?

What about the coaches? How are they going to evaluate the season?

Let us look at their arch rivals shall we, the Saint John Sea Dogs.

Now this example might not compute with the masses but, it perhaps provides a clearer picture of what the Wildcats wanted to accomplish this year.

The 2015-2016 Sea Dogs were a young talented group looking to gain playoff experience before their “big year” or “go for it” year. That’s exactly what ended up happening.

The following year they dominated the circuit and claimed the President Cup and a Memorial Cup birth.

The Sea Dogs made it look easy, but it clearly wasn’t. The playoff experience they gained the year before was truly invaluable for their young core group.

Sure the Cats made a push last year and were outclassed by a very good Halifax Mooseheads team in Round 2. You see the Mooseheads were built for a two year run, which the Wildcats are aiming for.

Aiming for and hitting the mark are two very different things.

For a second let’s play the what if game. What if the Cats start playing great and make some noise in the playoffs eventually losing Game 7 of the 2nd round? Would that be enough to provide a great final grade or mark for the season?

What about just getting to the 3rd round of the Q playoffs?

Final marks on any report card should reflect an all encompassing look at player and team performance. A cumulative assessment is clearly the way to go, not just a snap shot of winning or losing ones last game of the year and basing everything on that outcome.

The Moncton Wildcats no doubt have all of their assessments parameters already set in place from the top down, now they have to collect all of the data, feedback and assessment tools to provide the final grade.

For some the real test comes at playoff time, but all of the assignments or in this case “regular season games” provide a tremendous opportunity to evaluate everyone involved.

The times have changed and you sure as hell won’t see a public letter grading system for players or anyone involved within the organization.

The 2023-2024 Moncton Wildcats are still trying to make their final mark on a season that was full of optimism and high expectations.

It’s the year before an “all in” campaign some would argue those seasons are always the most difficult to evaluate.

Pass or fail? It’s a lot more complicated than that.