OHL Alumni Central

Jason Morgan as Washington Capitals hopeful for the 2007-08 season (he played the season with the Hershey Bears).

Keeping with the recent Norwegian theme, yet another Ontario Hockey League grad has chosen to play in Norway’s Get Ligaen for the 2010-11 season. Jason Morgan brings his many years of pro experience to Stjernen. Although still considered on a ‘tryout’, his close to a point per game production after 10 games with the team is an indication that he may stay.

Jason played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1993-94 to 1995-96. He began his career with the Kitchener Rangers and became a Kingston Frontenac midway through his second season. His best offensive totals in the OHL came in his final season with Kingston when he scored 16 and assisted on 38 for 54 points in 66 games.

Morgan was picked by the Los Angeles Kings in the fifth round of the 1995 NHL draft, 118th overall. He played in three games with the Kings in his first season after graduating from the OHL. In total, he’s played 44 games in the NHL between the Kings, Calgary Flames, Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild.

The bulk of Jason’s pro career in North America was in the American Hockey League. he has played 584 games in the AHL, producing 325 points. His highest producing season was in 2002-03 with the Saint John Flames when he contributed 53 points in 80 games for the Calgary affiliate. He last played in the AHL at the start of this past 2009-10 season when he dressed for four games with the Springfield Falcons.

This season marks his third in Europe, each in a different country. 2008-09 saw him play in Sweden’s Elitserien with Södertälje. This past season after leaving Springfield he played in Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga for Klagenfurter AC.

Check out Jason Morgan’s profile page on Stjernen’s official website.

Check out these recent posts on Ontario Hockey League alumni playing in Norway:

Paul Ballantyne

Andy Delmore

For the second time in a week, we’re featuring an Ontario Hockey League grad playing in Norway’s Get Ligaen. Andy Delmore is playing with Lørenskog. Paul Ballantyne played for Lørenskog in 2008-09 and starts this year with Manglerud Stars.

Paul Ballantyne played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1998-99 to 2001-02, all with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. The D-man was taken by the Detroit Red Wings in the sixth round of the 2000 NHL draft, 196th overall.

Paul spent three seasons split between Detroit’s ECHL affiliate, the Toledo Storm, and their AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins. Over the next three seasons from 2005-06 to 2007-08, he split his time between the ECHL’s Phoenix Roadrunners and Victoria Salmon Kings.

Ballantyne’s Euro career began in 2008-09 with Lørenskog. This past season, he moved a little further south and played in Germany’s 2.Bundesliga with Eispiraten Crimmitschau (Crimmitschau Ice Pirates).

Check out Paul Ballantyne’s profile page at the Manglerud Stars official website.

Find Paul and close to 600 other active OHL Alumni on the OHL Alumni Central Big List.

He was in line to be featured as a Sunday OHL Alumni Classic, but Ontario Hockey League grad Andy Delmore’s career is not dead yet. Delmore has signed on with Lørenskog of Norway’s Get Ligaen.

Andy played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1993-94 to 1996-97. He began his career with the North Bay Centennials and was fortunate to be part of a Robertson Cup winning team in his rookie season. North Bay won the OHL Championship by taking out the Detroit Junior Red Wings four games to three. The Centennials went winless at the Memorial Cup played in Laval, Quebec that year. The team also won the Hamilton Spectator as OHL regular season champion.

Midway through his second season in the Ontario Hockey League, Delmore was dealt to the Sarnia Sting. Andy spent the rest of his OHL career with Sarnia. In his final season in Sarnia, he put up great offensive numbers from the blueline with 18 goals and 60 assists for 78 points in 63 games.

Undrafted, Delmore perservered and has played 283 NHL games to date with the Philadelphia Flyers, Nashville Predators, Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets. He experienced a long playoff run with the Flyers in 1999-00 as the Flyers took the New Jersey Devils to the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals. However, it was in the American Hockey League where he found the most success while playing in North America.

In his first season in the AHL, he was a big part of the Philadelphia Phantoms run to the Calder Cup championship. In 2005-06, he won the Eddie Shore Award as the AHL’s Defenseman of the Year with the Syracuse Crunch. That season, he led the AHL’s defensemen in goals (17), assists (55) and points (72). Great numbers but off the AHL’s single season defenseman records set by fellow OHL Alumni, John Slaney.

Delmore’s first taste of European hockey came during the 2004-05 NHL strike season. Andy played for Adler Mannheim in Germany’s Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The team finished a respectable 6th then turned it on in the playoffs to make it to the league final before bowing out. He also spent two more seasons in the DEL, 2007-08 and 2008-09, with the Hamburg Freezers.

This past season, 2009-10, Delmore returned to the AHL and split the season between the Grand Rapids Griffins and the Abbotsford Heat.

Lörenskog does not have a profile of Andy on their official website yet, but the team’s site can be found here.

Scott Hotham played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2004-05. He began his OHL career with the North Bay Centennials in 2001-02. Hotham followed the team when it moved to Saginaw in 2002-03 and became the Spirit.

Scott’s career with Saginaw was very short-lived as he was traded to the Mississauga IceDogs after just one game. He played the rest of the 2002-03 season with the IceDogs then was traded 10 games into the 2003-04 season to the Barrie Colts, where he would finish out his OHL career.

After four seasons in the Canadian university system with St. Mary’s, Scott has just completed his first season of professional hockey. Hotham played most of the 2009-10 season with the Florida Everblades of the ECHL, but was called up to the AHL’s Rochester Americans for 9 games during the season.

As stated in this article on the official website of the Lillehammer Ishockey Klubb, Scott is on his way to Norway for the 2010-11 season. The story is in Norwegian. What follows is the article translated into English via Google Translate:

Scott Hotham ready L.I.K.!

Lillehammer Ice Hockey Club secured a Thursday night the signature of the Canadian defender Scott Hotham for the season 2010/2011. 25 years old Hotham split last season between Florida Ever Blades in the ECHL and the Rochester Americans of the AHL, and described as a player back with good playmaker skills.
- A very exciting player and a type of back we need, especially since we lost Darrell Hay. Hotham has both strong physical presence, excellent view and great skills as playmaker. There is also a player we’ve had time to consider and which we have received a lot of great feedback on equal concludes coach Thor Nilsen.

As mentioned shared Hotham season 2009/2010 between the ECHL club Florida Ever Blades and the Rochester Americans of the AHL (American Hockey League). In the ECHL, he delivered 38 points in 72 games including playoffs, by 7 goals and 31 assists, while it was 2 points in 9 games (2 goals) in the AHL.

Hotham began his junior career with the Couchiching Terriers in the OPJHL (Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League) where he spent his first season, was voted Rookie of the team. As a 16-year-old, he impressed enough to make their way to the very strong Junior League OHL (Ontario Hockey League) was short.

4 seasons later, Hotham recorded 249 OHL games for four different clubs. The last two seasons he played for the Barrie Colts in his hometown Barrie. Hotham was among other things, to set the record for the Barrie Colts for at least innslupne target rates. season with 171 backward in 2003/2004. But it was the following season, in 2004/2005, Hotham really did put his name in the club’s history books. His 50 points in 62 games (11 goals and 39 assists) is today the 4th highest score by a back in the club’s history. At the same time 39 assists in one season 4 place all-time among the club’s defensemen.

Hotham made his debut as a professional hockey player at the end of the season 2004/2005, when he played two league matches due and 10 playoff games for the Rockford IceHogs in Uhl (United Hockey League). Hotham allowed the further professional career be a bit on hold and went to college CIS League where he played four seasons for Saint Mary’s University while studying in trade. In the last three years he was at the top of the league in points and was also uttatt on various All-Star team in 2009 before he returned to professional hockey and the Florida Ever Blades.

Scott Hotham is the rest of the son of Greg Hotham who can look back in 230 NHL games for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins in the first half of the 1980s. Hotham sr. was like his son, also a back with good offensive abilities. And while we’re on Hotham family, then new corpse back a younger brother, Andrew Hotham, which follows in big brother’s footsteps and plays for Saint Mary’s in the college league.

View Scott Hotham’s profile page on the AHL’s official website.

View Scott Hotham’s profile page on the Florida Everblades official website.

View Scott Hotham’s profile page on the ECHL’s official website.

Scott Hotham appears in this previous post at OHL Alumni Central.

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As a member of the Canadian National Team, 1998-99.

Patrick DesRochers played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1995-96 to

Team map for the GET-Ligaen.

 1998-99. His first three seasons in the OHL were spent with the Sarnia Sting. In his final season, he was traded to the Kingston Frontenacs eight games into the season.

DesRochers spent the past season, 2009-10, in Norway, playing for Vålerenga Ishockey AS – a team that plays out of Oslo. The team finished first in the regular season, 12 points ahead of the next team, in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. The GET-Ligaen is a nine team league that plays a regular season schedule of 48 games. Patrick played 47 of those 48 games.

His 47 games tied him for first in the league among goaltenders. He led the league in minutes played, wins and goals against average (2.10). DesRochers was second in the league for save percentage with a .917.

Patrick was originally a first round pick of the Phoenix Coyotes in the 1998 NHL draft (14th overall). He did get a taste of the NHL with 11 total games, 9 with the Phoenix Coyotes and 2 with the Carolina Hurricanes. The rest of his North American career was spent in the AHL with the Springfield Falcons, Lowell Lock Monsters and San Antonio Rampage. He aslo put in two games in the ECHL with the Texas Wildcatters.

Check out Patrick DesRochers profile page on the Vålerenga Ishockey AS official website.

Some other related posts that might interest you:

Sarnia Sting alumni playing professional hockey. (Patrick was off the radar when this post was published so he’s not included in the lengthy list of Sting grads active in the hockey world)

Former Knight and Sting, Mathis Olimb, on the roster for Norway at the IIHF Worlds

Show-off your OHL trivia skills before May 31, 2010