OHL Alumni Central

Michal Birner played two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, 2004-05 and 2005-06. His first season in the OHL was split between the Barrie Colts and the Saginaw Spirit. His final season in the Ontario Hockey League was played exclusively with Saginaw. While with Saginaw, he set the team’s mark for the fastest three goals scored.

Over the 2005-06 season, Birner was second on Saginaw Spirit scoring during the regular season, three points behind team leader Ryan McDonough. However, Michal played eight less games during the season. The missed games were in part due to Birner representing his native Czech Republic at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships (under-20) that were played in Canada. The Czechs left the tournament without a medal.

Birner also represented the Czech Republic on the international stage earlier on in his hockey career when he was on the roster for the 2004 IIHF World Under-18 Championships. Michal contributed five points in seven games as the Czech’s won bronze with a win over Canada in Belarus.

Birner was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the fourth round of the 2004 NHL draft, 116th overall. He spent his first full season after graduating from the Ontario Hockey League with the Blues’ AHL farm team, the Peoria Rivermen. The following season, he started with Peoria and ended with the Portland Pirates. In 2008-09, he played two games with the AHL’s Iowa Chops before being demoted to the ECHL. Birner chose not to report and instead signed with Pelicans of Finland’s SM-Liiga.

Michal’s season with Pelicans lasted only six games and he was sidelined for the rest of the season with a broken hand. This past season, he remained in the SM-Liiga but with TPS, a storied team that has been around since 1929 (as a sports club, TPS has been around since 1922). His 45 regular season points with TPS was good enough for third on the team in scoring, only four points from the leader. More importantly, TPS won the league championship.

Birner is signed on with TPS for the upcoming 2010-11 season.

Check out Michal Birner’s profile page on the TPS official website.

Check out this recent post on Michal’s teammate with the Spirit, Patrick Asselin.

Lou Dickenson with Vaasan Sport in Finland.

Never known as a scorer in the Ontario Hockey League, Lou Dickenson poured it on last season in Finland’s Mestis League, a level below the elite SM-Liiga. Lou was the league’s leading point-getter, playing for Vaasan Sport. His 26 goals and 35 assists for 61 points over 44 games was good enough for the league lead. The season before, with KooKoo, Lou lead the league in goals with 28 in 43 games.

Dickenson played five seasons in the Ontario Hockey League. He also appeared on five different team rosters over his OHL career. He began in the OHL in 1998-99 with the Mississauga IceDogs and played his first two full seasons at the Hershey Centre. In 2000-01, he started the season with the London Knights and midway through the season ended up with the Kingston Fontenacs. 2001-02 was split between the Frontenacs and the Guelph Storm and his final season was split between the Storm and the Ottawa 67′s, a team that lost out in the Robertson Cup finals that year.

Lou was drafted in the 4th round of the 2000 NHL draft by the Edmonton Oilers, 113th overall. He spent one season, 2003-04, in the Canadian university system with St. Thomas in New Brunswick. He followed that by a season in the North American pro hockey scene with three different teams: San Antonio Rampage (AHL), Texas Wildcatters (ECHL) and Laredo Bucks (CHL).

2005-06 was Dickenson’s introduction to the world of European hockey. He played in the Italian Serie B and scored 43 goals and 79 points in just 41 games. The following year, he literally toured Europe playing on two Swedish teams, the Edinburgh Capitals of Great Britain’s EIHL and Ljubljana in Slovenia.

Lou returned to North America for the 2007-08 season but found his way back to Europe for the following campaign. Lou has been in Finland since.

The 2010-11 season has Lou stepping up to the SM-Liiga and playing for the Pelicans. The Pelicans play out of Lahti, Finland, a city with just over 100,000 people and the eighth largest city in Finland. Lahti is just 100km out of Helsinki.

Check out Lou Dickenson’s profile page on the Pelicans official website.

Kamil Kreps is saying goodbye to sunny Florida and hello to Oulu, Finland. The Brampton Battalion alumnus was not given an offer to stay on board with the Florida Panthers of the NHL so he has signed on with Oulun Karpat.

Kreps played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2003-04, all with Brampton. Kamil was a second round pick of the Panthers in the 2003 NHL draft, 38th overall. He spent 14 games with the Panthers in 2006-07 and has been a regular with the team for the past three seasons. Unfortunately, he wasn’t developing in the manner the Panthers had hoped. One report stated that Kamil just didn’t have the strength to compete physically with NHL calibre players. However, himself and his new team believe that he is a perfect fit for the European game.

Karpat finished 9th in the 14 team SM-Liiga over the 58 game regular season schedule this past season. Oulu is a city of around 140,000 people located on the west coast of Finland.  The team plays out of the Oulun Energia Areena which fits 6,614 for hockey.

Kamil has yet to be profiled on the Oulu Karpat official website but you can visit it here.

For the time being, Kamil Krep’s profile page at the Florida Panthers official website is still available.

Check out these previous posts on OHL alumni playing in Finland:

Gabriel Spilar of the Finland Blues.

Scott Barney of Saipa in Finland.

Kamil Kreps is also featured in this previous post listing Brampton Battalion alumni playing pro hockey.

No, not the famous director of 1980′s teen angst movies. This John Hughes played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2004-05 to 2007-08. John began his OHL career with the Belleville Bulls and played two full seasons there before being traded midway through the 2006-07 season to the Brampton Batallion.

Hughes has played in Europe since leaving the OHL. This past season, John played for the Hannover Indians of Germany’s Bundesliga and finished off the season with Tappara Tampere in Finland. In his first season in Europe, he played for Salzburg Red Bulls in Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga.

An offensive minded forward, Hughes totalled 283 points over his 256 regular season game OHL career. In 2005-06, he led the Belleville Bulls in points with 82 on 28 goals and 54 assists.

In 2006-07, his 59 points with the Battalion was good for second on the team. With the 20 points he obtained with the Bulls before being traded to Brampton, he was easily the team’s top point getter.

In his final season, John’s 91 points were good for tops on the team and earned him a Jim Mahon Trophy for the Ontario Hockey League’s top point-getting right winger.

Hughes was honoured in Austria as the player with the best plus/minus in 2008-09.

View John’s profile page as a Hannover Indian.

View John’s profile as a Tappara Tampere.

John Hughes is also featured in a previous post listed Brampton Battalion grads playing professional hockey.

Don’t forget to show off your OHL trivia skill before May 31, 2010.

Oskar Osala with Finland's Espoo Blues during the 2007-08 season.

Oskar Osala played two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League with the Mississauga IceDogs, 2005-06 and 2006-07.

Despite being selected 97th overall by the Washington Capitals in the 2006 NHL draft, Oskar went back to his homeland for the 2007-08 season and played for the Espoo Blues of Finland’s SM Liiga.

He would return to North America for the 2008-09 season and play the majority of his time with Washington’s AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears. The Bears would finish first in the Eastern Conference and would go all the way to a Calder Cup victory as the league’s playoff champion. During that season, Osala would play two games with the Capitals.

This season saw him traded to the Carolina Hurricanes organization where he played with their AHL affiliate, the Albany River Rats. Oskar saw one game with the Hurricanes, bringing his NHL career total to 3 games.

Oskar is currently on the roster of the Finnish National Team that will compete at the 2010 IIHF World Championships in Germany this May.

To view Oskar Osala’s profile page on the AHL’s official website, click here.

Check out this post of a popular OHL grad playing in Finland:

Scott Barney Playing for Saipa in Finland