frontenacs trade mccuaig, acquire chamberlain and pick from brantford ahead of ohl priority selection
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cornwall colts' camden mccuaig celebrates scoring a power-play goal against the navan grads on thursday, jan. 29, 2026, in cornwall, ont. mccuaig was traded by the kingston frontenacs to the brantford bulldogs.(robert lefebvre/special to postmedia network)
between conversations with fellow general managers, the families of prospects and agents, kingston frontenacs gm kory cooper has been putting in overtime hours ahead of the ontario hockey league’s priority selection this weekend.
cooper struck a trade with the brantford bulldogs, landing forward ryan chamberlain and a third-round pick in the 2027 priority selection, for forward camden mccuaig. the deal also included an exchange of sixth-round picks in next year’s ohl draft.
chamberlain, a former fifth-round pick of sarnia in the 2024 priority selection, was up against it, trying to crack the line-up of a talented brantford team that leaned on 19-year-olds in its run to the league’s best regular-season record. in 17 games with bulldogs, chamberlain, a peterborough native, picked up a pair of assists. he spent the rest of the year with the brantford titans in junior a, scoring six goals and racking up 19 points in 27 games.
for mccuaig, also a fifth-round pick in the 2024 priority selection, the 2025-26 season was a run of hard luck, starting with injury that held him back in training camp. he was enrolled in school in kingston, but wound up playing most of the campaign for the cornwall colts in the central canada hockey league, his second full season with the club — on at least a couple of occasions over the winter he was playing for the colts one night and then looking at a commute to a frontenacs game the next.
mccuaig posted some big numbers with cornwall (18 goals and 24 assists in 40 games) and chipped in when given an opportunity skating on the third or fourth line with the frontenacs (three goals and three assists in 17 regular-season games). for a good part of the second half of the season, frontenacs coach troy mann’s use of mccuaig was limited by a cap on the number of games he was allowed to play as a non-roster player and a reluctance to compromise cornwall’s run to a playoff spot.
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cooper explained the deal by saying that he anticipated a bit of a logjam on left wing and that mccuaig might get caught up in a numbers game. “we wanted to do right by the player,” the gm said.
the third-round pick coming kingston’s way along with chamberlain represented a stocking of draft capital that will come in handy in trade next season.
the frontenacs also added three prospects via the ohl’s under-18 priority selection: defencemen presley kelly-wright and cole coughlin, and goaltender owen bienstman.
an ottawa native who played for a u18 team in the capital last season, kelly-wright was the kingston first pick in the draft of 2009-birthdays, 10th overall, in the and would help fill an area of need if he lands in the line-up: a right-handed defenceman. cooper suggested that as a late birthday (december 1) kelly-wright might be an outlier in development compared to others in the under-18 class.
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