OHL Alumni Central

As this article goes live, I am already in my sixth day in Cuba at a small resort near Cienfuegos. Not a vacation, of course, but another hockey scouting mission. The Cuban ice hockey scene is flourishing and it won’t be long before they’re challenging Canada at the Olympics (ok – it’s hard enough to get ice in your drink on this island, let alone install an ice rink…).

Anyhow… This is one of those ‘best of’ or ‘check out these articles’ type article. They are all from my mind and fingers. They are all mediocre to good but somewhat factually accurate.

Four London Knights That Have Won the Red Tilson Trophy

The Red Tilson Trophy has been awarded to the most outstanding player in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL, OMJHL, OHA) since 1944-45. The London Knights entered the OHA as the London Nationals for the 1965-66 season, renamed the Knights for 1968-69. In that time, four London Knights players have been named the recipient of the Red Tilson Trophy.

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8 Memorial Cup Finals Decided in Overtime Since 1972

Previous to 1972, the Memorial Cup was decided with a multi-game series between two teams. Since 1972, the ultimate prize in Canadian major junior hockey has been competed for in a three or four team tournament with a one-game final to decide the champion. In the 40 years with this format, the Memorial Cup final game has been decided in overtime on seven occasions.

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3,649 NHL Games Represented in the 1974-75 OMJHL’s Top 5 Scorers

The top five OHL (then the OMJHL) players in the 1974-75 race for the Eddie Powers Trophy all moved on to careers in the National Hockey League. The Eddie Powers Trophy is handed out each season to the Ontario Hockey League player with the most points during the regular season. The top five players in 1974-75 represent 3,649 regular season NHL games. One player appeared in over 1,000 NHL games but only one was a first round NHL draft pick.

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3 Niagara Falls Flyers to Win The OHL’s Eddie Powers Trophy

Version ‘A’ of the Niagara Falls Flyers existed in the Ontario Hockey Association between 1960-61 and 1971-72. Previous to 1960, the franchise was still known as the Flyers but located in Barrie. The team was relocated for the 1972-73 season and still exists as the Sudbury Wolves. These Flyers are not to be confused with the team (version ‘B’) that was relocated from St. Catherines for the 1976-77 season and is now the current Saginaw Spirit.

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Hockey Trivia 44 – Canadian Hockey League Goal Scoring Records

The 1970’s and 1980’s brought some incredible offensive numbers to the Canadian Hockey League. The three major junior hockey leagues acrossCanadathat make up the CHL all had their individual regular season goal scoring records set in the 1980’s.

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Michal Dvorak played in the Ontario Hockey League for the Kitchener Rangers for three seasons from 1996-97 to 1998-99. The Czech born player arrived part way through his rookie season after starting the year in the Czech Extraliga. That year, the Rangers won the Central Division title and fell to the eventual Robertson Cup champions, the Oshawa Generals, in the semi-finals.

Dvorak went undrafted and returned to Europe for the 1999-00 season. After one year in Germany’s DEL with Moskitos Essen, Michal returned to his homeland. Since 2000-01, he has played in the Czech Extraliga, mostly with HC Plzen. Dvorak had a three year stint with HC Karlovy Vary from 2004-05 to 2006-07 but has been with Plzen since. In a league with a 52 game regular season schedule, topping the 650 game mark and still ticking is quite an accomplishment.

With Plzen, Michal has reached the league semi-finals twice, in 2003-04 and 2008-09. The team is poised to go far in 2011-12. Currently, at nearly the 3/4 mark of the season, Plzen is neck and neck with HC Sparta Praha for the overall lead in the 14 team Extraliga. Both are head and shoulders over the next competitor.

Dvorak is currently the only Ontario Hockey League grad on the Plzen roster. However, North American hockey fans would be interested to know that not only is Martin Straka the team’s star player, he is also 70% owner and general manager! Straka was the nineteenth overall pick at the 1992 NHL Entry Draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Between 1992-93 and 2007-08, Straka played for the Penguins, Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers. He played in 954 regular season NHL games and contributed 717 points. He topped out offensively in 2000-01, finished tied for fourth in the race for the Art Ross Trophy with 95 points.

Another familiar name on HC Plzen is Frantisek Kaberle, brother of current Montreal Canadiens defenseman, Tomas Kaberle. Frantisek played 523 NHL regular season games between 1999-00 and 2008-09 with the Los Angeles Kings, Atlanta Thrashers and Carolina Hurricanes.

The 2010-11 Owen Sound Attack won the Robertson Cup for the second time in franchise history but the first since the team relocated to Owen Sound from Guelph for the 1989-90 Ontario Hockey league season. The Guelph Platers were not only Robertson Cup victors in 1985-86 but were also crowned Memorial Cup champions.

It’s also expected that a Robertson Cup championship team will be stripped of most of it’s players the following season as the team circulates through the junior hockey rebuilding cycle. However, the Attack have seen just nine players graduate to either pro hockey or higher education. Owen Sound is poised, once again, for a post season run, sitting in third in the Midwest Division and fifth in the Western Conference in 2011-12.

Of the nine players moving up, one is currently in the National Hockey League. Five are playing in the North American pro leagues, two are at the university level in the CIS and two are in Europe.

Ricards Berzins played just one game with the Owen Sound Attack in 2010-11 and that was it for his Ontario Hockey League career. Ricards is back in his hometown of Riga, Latvia playing for Prizma Latvia.

Jesse Blacker is waiting to be the Toronto Maple Leafs next big thing on defense while playing for their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies.

Matt Stanisz went the university route and is playing for Carleton.

Roman Berdnikov is playing in his hometown of Omsk, Russia as a member of Avangard Omsk of Russia’s KHL.

Liam Heelis is in university down east, playing for Acadia.

Rob Mignardi is playing for the AHL’s Manchester Monarchs on a professional try-out basis.

Andrew Shaw has spent much of his season with the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL but is currently on the roster of the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks.

Joey Hishon is waiting for his pro career to start. He is on the roster of the American Hockey League’s Lake Erie Monsters but has yet to play a game in 2011-12 due to injury.

Garrett Wilson has split his season thus far with the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL and the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL. Currently, he is with Cincinnati.

A non-player that has moved on is head coach Mark Reeds. Reeds is currently the assistant coach of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators.

At a time when most would have thought that the North Americans would have abandoned hockey in the far east after the devastating earthquake and tsunami of 2011, an Ontario Hockey League grad is running away with the scoring title. Tied, in the assist category at least, is a teammate and yet another OHL alumnus.

Michael Swift sits 20 point higher than the next challenger with an astounding 71 points in 29 games. His 34 goals to date have matched his output from 2006-07 when he scored the same as captain of the Mississauga IceDogs. Swift’s 37 assists are tops in the league, as well, tied with teammate Bryan Young, a Peterborough Petes grad.

Michael played in the Ontario Hockey League for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08. His first four years were with the Mississauga IceDogs and for his final season, he moved with the franchise to Niagara. Swift was team captain in his final two seasons. His 100 points in 2007-08 with the Niagara IceDogs was good for a seventh place tie with Jack Combs of the Saginaw Spirit. The performance earned him the Leo Lalonde Trophy as the OHL’s top overage player.

Swift went undrafted but spent three years in the New Jersey Devils system with their AHL affiliate. This is his first year in the Asia League with High1. The team is currently tied for fourth in the seven team league. High1 is based in Seoul, Korea. The team’s home rink is the Goyang Sport Complex Arena which seats 3,000 for hockey.

Bryan Young is in his second year on the point for High1. Young played for the Peterborough Petes for three full seasons from 2003-04 to 2005-06. He was a fifth round pick of the Edmonton Oilers at the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, 146th overall. Bryan managed to get into 17 NHL games during the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons. For the most part, Young spent between 2006-07 and 2009-10 in the AHL and ECHL.

About as far from Brampton and Ottawa as you can get in the world of hockey is Temirtau, Kazakhstan. Just a “Detroit to Montreal’s” distance from Mongolia and China, this city of 180,000 didn’t even exist before 1905. The team plays out of the ten team Kazak league and features two Ontario Hockey League grads on the roster.

Levente Szuper started his 2011-12 season in the Central Hockey League with the Arizona Sundogs. This ‘hockey vagabond’ is no stranger to the wide world of ice hockey. Since playing two seasons in net for the Ottawa 67′s in 1998-99 and 1999-00, Szuper has played in Canada, the United States, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Sweden and Austria. He has played on the world stage with his native Hungary on a yearly basis.

Levente was a fourth round pick of the Calgary Flames at the 2000 NHL Entry Draft, 116th overall. He spent three seasons with Calgary’s AHL affiliate, the Saint John Flames, and one season split between the AHL’s Worcester IceCats and the ECHL’s Peoria Rivermen before starting his world tour. He has been a member of championship teams in the Ontario Hockey League, Germany’s DEL and the AHL. With Hungary, he has won a handful of medals and individual accolades at the World Championships (D1). He played a role with the 1998-99 Ottawa team that was crowned Memorial Cup champions.

Get your Levente Szuper hockey cards on eBay, right now!

Kurt MacSweyn has been on a similar world journey since leaving the Ontario Hockey League after the 2001-02 season. Kurt was an original Brampton Battalion, playing in the franchise’s first year, 1998-99. He spent four years with the club before heading off to University  at St. Mary’s. After three years getting educated, MacSweyn spent the 2005-06 season in the ECHL with the Idaho Steelheads before heading to Europe, and beyond. Kurt has played in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy and Australia. 2011-12 is his first season with Temirtau.

Arystan Temirtau currently sits in fourth place in the ten team league, 38 games into their 54 game regular season schedule. In 2010-11, the team finished fifth and exited the post season after the quarter-finals. The Kazak league would best be described as a minor league to the KHL. The team plays out of the 2,700 seat Muz Aydin Sport Palace.