By Dave Pollard.

All you Guelph Storm fans agonizing over the team's playoff plight, be assured of one thing -- Jason Brooks feels your pain. And then some.

In what has been a perfect storm of injuries, inconsistency, ineffective goaltending (at times) and seemingly indifferent attitude from some players that has the Ontario Hockey League club on the verge of missing the playoffs for the first time since the early 1990s, fan frustration has reached a fever pitch.

But Brooks, the Storm's head coach and general manager, is feeling exactly the same thing as the people who cheer the team on.

"It's been frustrating, that's the best word you can use," Brooks said. "We've been banged up, injured. We've had our full lineup once since Oct. 15. It's been tough to sustain everything. Our consistency hasn't been there, that's one area that has to get better. But we believe in this group of players. Based on expectations, predictions, we should be better. But since Oct. 15 we haven't had that team we have on paper."

And as of Tuesday, the Storm won't have Brooks either, at least temporarily. Like many of his players this season, he will be going on the disabled list for an indetermined amount of time.

Back surgery that simply cannot be postponed until after the season will force Brooks to step back from his duties as head coach. He'll turn the team over to assistant coaches Chris Hajt, David Milek and Brad Maxwell while he recovers, a period of time he isn't totally sure about.

Brooks has already watched some of the Storm's games from a private box at the Sleeman Centre in recent weeks because his back simply won't hold up to nearly three hours of standing behind the bench. It's afforded him the chance to see how the assistant will run the bench when he's away from the job.

"It was a prelude to when I'm off," Brooks said. "They're going to work as hard as anybody. I think they'll do it as a team, work together. "But we've got a great coaching staff who cares about the team. These guys care about the Guelph Storm, about making the players better."

Naturally, the timing of Brooks surgery could be better but putting it off wasn't an option at this point. The surgery, the third on Brooks' back, was originally scheduled for Jan. 22 but it was moved up 10 days and will now take place just after the trading deadline has passed.

"If I could get to July or August, I'd do that," Brooks said. "If I did that, I wouldn't be doing my job very well. When the discs go, they go. Anyone who has had this will tell you. I can't control that my back got hurt. I feel I can't be the person I am. I can't rant and rave, my back won't allow me to. I'm not supposed to (go on the ice for practice) but I've done it a couple of times out of frustration. This position requires you to be mobile and I can't be."

Brooks' back woes have made this season the most challenging of his coaching career, which started with the Storm in 2001 when he joined Jeff Jackson's staff. The Listowel native is in his first season as the team's general manager, although he effectively filled that role during the 2008-09 season.
Like Brooks, the Storm has been hit hard by injuries this season. Forwards Peter Holland, a first-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks, Michael Latta, recently-traded captain Matt Kennedy and Connor O'Donnell have all missed time due to injuries while defencemen Evgeny Molotilov and rookie David Searle are also victims. Goalie Brandon Foote, who underwent hip surgery in the off-season, only returned to action Friday in Saginaw.

With the first half of the season completed and the stretch drive looming, the Storm sits out of a playoff spot, a handful of points behind the eighth-place Owen Sound Attack. The Storm hasn't missed the playoffs since their inaugural season in the Royal City, a span of nearly two decades, and nobody is more aware of that than Brooks.

"As a coach and manager, you're always frustrated when your team doesn't play as well as it should," Brooks said. "But (the back injury and on-ice performance of the team) are two separate things. My personal stuff I'm dealing with comes into play. It enhances things more but they are two separate issues."

A scalpel and delicate touch of a surgeon should repair what's been ailing Brooks. Whether it will have any effect on the Storm remains to be seen.

And time is running out.