Dixon move had to be made

SAINT JOHN - The Saint John Sea Dogs' decision to fire head coach Josh Dixon comes as no surprise - but at the same time, the announcement was surprising.

It appeared that the Sea Dogs were going to ride with Dixon this season no matter how south things turned. There have been numerous loses and stretches of poor play that were textbook "coach killer" moments - but nothing happened. On top of that, the team has been playing noticeably better (although still consistently underperforming, many would argue) which makes the timing of Dixon's firing an interesting one.

According to a team press release, president and general manager Trevor Georgie said that timing was due to a 30-game check point.

Dixon leaves the Sea Dogs with a woeful record of 39-108-12-6 in 165 regular season games - but the ugly numbers can only be blamed on him so much. His first season was basically year zero of Saint John's rebuild and last year the real, slow climb upward began. Even great, experienced coaches could only do so much with what those rosters consisted of.

This season was supposed to be different though. Not a championship caliber team, but a team that showed signs of growth and potential. That hasn't exactly happened so far, with the team just not looking right. When the Sea Dogs get off to good starts, they fall apart late. When they have bad starts, they turn it on too late to make a comeback. Consistency has been an issue. There have been too many games lost against teams they are capable of beating. Sure, these issues are all signs of a young, rebuilding team - but this same team needs to show that they are learning from these problems and making fixes. That hasn't been seen - and now they'll try to do so with Jeff Cowan running the show.

Cowan has been with the club since the Mike Kelly days and is certainly capable of being a head coach at the major junior level. It wouldn't come as a surprise to see Cowan run the bench for the remainder of the season and then reevaluate in the spring.

The Sea Dogs are 12-16-1-0 for 25 points, and will no doubt better their 32 point season from a year ago. While it feels like the Dogs are way back in the standings, they are just eight points back of the top half of the league. There is plenty of time to inch up the standings, especially with some of the teams in front of them expected to unload during the trading period.

The remainder of the season will be an interesting one. Plenty of teams have turned things around following a coaching change. While the Sea Dogs are not going to be a championship level team this season (and they're certainly not expected to be), hopefully they show more signs that this core group has the potential to be one.