NHL scouts should pay heed to the Ontario tourism marketing slogan.
Yours to Discover.
Because Ontario is where all the primo talent for the 2008 NHL draft can be found this winter.
Surf around a few of the reputable scouting websites if you don't believe me. You'll find out very quickly that the top three prospects for the draft all skate for OHL teams.
Steven Stamkos of the Sarnia Sting is everyone's top pick while Drew Doughty of the Guelph Storm and Alex Pietrangelo of the Niagara IceDogs flip-flop to round out the top three.
Bet the piggy bank that one of those names will be the first called when the microphone goes live in Ottawa next June. Unless someone goes way off the board (Is Mike Smith still around?) the other two will quickly follow.
As I indicated months ago in my inaugural blog on Hockey.com, my money's on Doughty going first. I think Stamkos will slip to second and Pietrangelo will be taken third.
If everything goes as it should, OHL commish Dave Branch should pull a Frank the Tank (Remember the classic scene from Old School?) and run naked through the streets of Toronto. That's how big it would be.
In the history of the draft, which dates back to 1963, OHL players have never swept the top three spots. Reason enough to go streaking as far as I'm concerned.
But the Ontario league's domination of the rankings goes well beyond the top three.
Based on my fastidious research, any scouting report worth killing a tree for has at least half the top 10 (or top 15 or 30, depending on how deep into the first round they go) made up of OHLers.
TSN's top 10 has only four OHL players listed but they are the first four.
Trust me when I say it's a rarity for any league to weigh so heavily at the top of the draft rankings.
So rare that the provincial tourism board should adopt a new catchphrase to promote it.
Never mind. They already nailed it with the current one.