Kevin Raine’s first game as captain of the Sudbury Wolves was over almost before it started.

Foggy conditions at Sudbury Community Arena on Friday night forced the Wolves and the visiting Soo Greyhounds off the ice just 1:21 into their regular-season opener and, after a delay of nearly an hour and a half, Raine heard the news he had feared – the game would be postponed.

“We came here to work,” said Raine, wearing his shirt and tie and a stern expression. “But we got sent home early and this is not the kind of job you want to be sent home early from.

“Guys had their families come in from out of town, mine came 14 hours from Dryden, Ont., to watch me play and now, they’re not going to get to watch me play. I know they’re disappointed and I know others are disappointed, too.”

Even two hours before game time, warm, humid conditions at the Elgin Street barn had a fog hanging over the ice and arena crews busy wiping down the glass.

The fog appeared to lift a little shortly before game time, but set in again as the building filled with fans.

A pre-game pyrotechnics show may not have helped.

“It was dangerous,” Raine said. “There was one shot in that entire (1:21) and I didn’t see it, Franky (Palazzese, Sudbury’s goalie) didn’t see it.”

Officials weren’t long calling a halt to the action and the arena crew went back to wiping things down, with little effect.

Sudbury Fire Services brought in large fans in an attempt to clear the fog, but that didn’t help, either.

Finally, after a conversation with OHL commissioner David Branch, Wolves president/general manager Blaine Smith took the microphone himself and announced the game would be postponed.

Fans responded with a chorus of boos.

“Because of the high glass and the lack of airflow, the fog wasn’t lifting as much as it should,” Smith said. “And if it did, it would just come back as the heat built up.

“Obviously, we’re very disappointed. We were very excited to start the season, with all the hype and all the fan support here. I’d like to apologize to the fans here and the fans from the Sault who travelled here. This was the last way we wanted to start the season.

“We’re disappointed with the arena, in the sense that it’s not equipped to extract fog and humidity fast enough and I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but we do have one of the oldest arenas in the league and this is one more example of what can go wrong.”

Smith said tickets purchased for Friday’s game will be honoured for the next home game, a visit by the Barrie Colts on Sept. 27, or for any other regular-season contest, depending on seat availability.

He said the Wolves hope to make an announcement soon as to when the postponed game will be played.

Paul Fixter was to make his debut as the Sudbury’s new head coach on Friday, but will have to wait until tonight, when the Wolves visit the Greyhounds in a 7 p.m. start.

“We’re disappointed and the players were really looking forward to their home opener,” Fixter said. “But it was the right decision. It was dangerous out there. I could not see beyond the red line. It was the right decision by the league.”

“We still haven’t lost in Sudbury, so that’s the good thing,” he added with a smile. “But the players were excited. For some of them, this was their first chance to play OHL hockey.”

Few players or fans were as excited as Trudy Corbett, the mother of Wolves defenceman Jeff Corbett, who travelled from Uxbridge, Ont., to celebrate her son’s 19th birthday and watch the game.

“I thought it was going to go,” she said. “My son was watching the game from Calgary, too, and we all thought it was going to go, but then it didn’t and we were all so sad.”

She was already planning a trip to the Sault, however, and will be at Essar Centre for tonight’s contest.

“It’s Jeff’s birthday today and we were making a weekend out of it,” she said. “It’s just too bad we won’t see the home opener.”

ben.leeson@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @ben_leeson