OHL Alumni Central

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.

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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.

Back in 1974-75 and 1975-76, Greg Hotham played for the Kingston Canadians. Three decades later, both of Greg’s sons, Andrew and Scott, also played in the Ontario Hockey League. All three are blue liners.

The Toronto Maple Leafs selected Greg in the fifth round of the 1976 NHL Amateur Draft, 84th overall. Between 1979-80 and 1984-85, Greg played in 230 regular season NHL games with the Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins. He retired from the American Hockey League after the 1989-90 season, after playing 513 regular season games with the New Brunswick Hawks, Baltimore Skipjacks and Newmarket Saints (all three are extinct now).

The oldest Hotham son, Scott, played in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2004-05. He began with the North Bay Centennials and moved with the club to Saginaw, where he played one game with the Spirit in 2002-03. After that game, Scott went back to Canada to play for the Mississauga IceDogs. The following season, he was traded early again, this time to the Barrie Colts.

Scott Hotham went undrafted and spent the four years post-OHL with St. Mary’s University. Hotham entered the world of pro hockey in 2009-10, mostly with the ECHL’s Florida Everblades but also playing nine games with the Rochester Americans of the AHL. In 2010-11, he played for Lillehammer in Norway’s Get-Ligaen. This season, he is playing in Austria’s Erste Bank Hockey League (EBEL) for Olimija Ljubljana.

Andrew Hotham’s career has paralleled brother Scott’s in several ways. Both played for the Barrie Colts (at the same time) and Saginaw Spirit (not at the same time) in the Ontario Hockey League. Both played four years with St. Mary’s. Both had a cup of coffee with the Rochester Americans.

Andrew played in the Ontario Hockey League from 2003-04 to 2006-07 with the Barrie Colts, Erie Otters and Saginaw Spirit. He played with St. Mary’s from 2007-08 to 2010-11, joining the Americans after the CIS season had ended. With St. Mary’s, Andrew was an All-Canadian First Team All-Star in his final three seasons and was the Atlantic’s Most Valuable Player for 2010-11, This season, Hotham is playing for the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL.

Ontario Hockey League grad Wes Goldie is closing in fast on ECHL history. Goldie started out the season second all-time for goals scored in the league. He is still in second, behind Rod Taylor, but has moved within 17 goals of overtaking Taylor for the all-time lead. Wes began the 2011-12 ECHL season with 335 goals while Taylor retired at 368. 34 games into the season, Goldie has increased his total by 17 for 352.

Considering Wes has scored between 40 and 50 goals in each of his past five seasons, a 34 goal season in 2011-12 is certainly achievable. Goldie’s ECHL high came in 2008-09 with the Victoria Salmon Kings when he recorded 48 goals. Last season with the Alaska Aces, he led the league with 46 goals. His career high came in 2004-05 while playing for Sorel-Tracy in Quebec’s LNAH with 57 goals in 59 games. Back in 1998-99, he scored 46 in the Ontario Hockey League with the Owen Sound Platers.

Goldie played four full seasons in the Ontario Hockey League with the Platers from 1996-97 to 1999-00. He appeared in two games with the London Knights in 1995-96. Undrafted, he played four years in the ECHL before a two year stint in the Quebec league. He returned to the ECHL for the 2006-07 season with Victoria. He played four years with the Salmon Kings and was captain for the final two seasons. Wes has been with the Alaska Aces since the start of the 2010-11 season.

This season, Goldie is tied for ninth in the ECHL with 36 points. He has also made strides up the ECHL all-time points list. He started the season in 17th place and is now just a handful of points away from cracking the top ten. He’s also a bit of an ironman, missing a few games this season for the first time since rejoining the league in 2006.

The Aces are ripping up the ECHL in 2011-12. The team currently has a 15 point lead in their division and have a 13 point cushion between them and the next best team in the league. Alaska is the reigning Kelly Cup champion and Wes Goldie is the reigning ECHL Most Valuable Player.