With the Legionnaires gone, the league downsized from 15 teams to 14, as the league was hoping to expand from two to three divisions, but that didn’t happen. Midway into the season, Lakers owner Tim O’Connor announced that the team will fold after the 83-84 season as the deal for a relocation to Belleville fell through as the Ottawa Guardians (NIHA) kept their minor pro team in Belleville long term, for the OMJHA it’s the third year in a row that a team folded after the season ended.
Another team will be gone after this season but in a relocation way. Harold MacFarland officially sold his team to Leon Littlestone, the owner of Canpress Trucking, a shipping company that delivers goods across Canada and North America. Leon will have the team play in a 1900-seat Newmarket Memorial Forum in Newmarket, Ontario. He will announce the team’s new name during the 1984 off-season.
Once again, the Oakville Oaks took first place in the Hero division. With the right players put together and getting the right wins, the Oaks are once again ready to make a deep playoff run this time around. Taking second place is the Toronto Hornets, which surprised many critics as they predicted them to be 4th place, but they were wrong. The Barrie Admirals take third place after a big last ten games of the season (8-0-2), mainly after rough mid-season issues where two of their top players got called up to the pros. After a rough first 25 games to even news of them being relocated after this season, the Milton Micmacs came back to win many critical games and even beat the Brantford Skyflyers at the last game of the season to take the fourth-place spot. Rounding out the rest from fifth to seventh are Brantford, Oshawa, and Kitchener.
Led by many veterans from the beginning, the Toronto Neon takes the Steel Division in a big way with a 78-point performance (38-10-2) and skyrocketed to the top with no issues whatsoever. “We play this season great; now it’s time for us to turn to the next level, the playoffs.” Neon head coach Warren Coyle said after the team’s practice days before the playoffs. The two-time Smyth Cup Champions, the Buffalo Bees, had some highs and lows from the start, but they won a good number of games to finish 2nd place but the big story was that word that the partnership between owner Ryan Byron Sr. and Ryan Byron Jr. who has 20% ownership of the team and current GM is falling apart despite successful seasons, and well put together team of talented players, but problems between the two could come to a head sooner than before the 1984 Valor Cup Tournament that the Bees are hosting. During off-seasons, the Arrowbirds made some questionable trades here and there, including trading away 1984 2nd, and 3rd-round picks to the Kitchener Generals for a 1984 1st-round pick, then they traded 1985 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-round draft picks to the Brantford Skyflyers for a 1985 1st round pick; lastly, the Arrowbirds gave 1986 3rd, 4th, and 5th round picks to Barrie for a 1st round and forward Greg McBill a 2nd-year player who got drafted in the forth round. As the 83-84 season came and went, Greg played like a first-rounder and helped the Arrowbirds to a third-place finish. The Waterloo Maroons have kept pace in staying in playoff form, but after losing 7 of the last 10 games, some concerns from the Maroons offices had a bad feeling that they are on the verge of a rebuild for the first time since the late ’50s. But never did the team get 60 points to get fourth place locked and ready for the playoffs. Finishing fifth, sixth, and seventh are Peterborough, Orangeville, and Orillia.
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