OHL Alumni Central

Nathan Robinson as a member of the DEL's Eisbaren Berlin.

Ontario Hockey League grad Nathan Robinson finds himself without a home after recently being released by Adler Mannheim of Germany’s Deutsche Eishockey Liga. Robinson was in his third season (2nd consecutively) with Mannheim and his fifth in the DEL. Rumour has it, Nathan is off to the Vienna Capitals of Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga.

Nathan Robinson played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1998-99 to 2001-02, all with the Belleville Bulls. In his first season, the Bulls beat the London Knights to win the Robertson Cup as OHL playoff champs. In his final season, his 110 points was good enough to win the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy as the league’s top point getter. Robinson was named a Canadian Hockey League First Team All-Star.

Undrafted, Nathan has had a cup of coffee in the NHL. He played five games with the Detroit Red Wings in 2003-04 and two games with the Boston Bruins in 2005-06.

Robinson has made it somewhat of a habit to finish second in team scoring throughout his professional career. he was second in each of the following seasons:

2003-04 Grand Rapids Griffins-AHL 50 pts.

2005-06 Providence Bruins-AHL 60 pts.

2006-07 Adler Mannheim-DEL 44 pts.

2007-08 Eisbaren Berlin-DEL 54 pts.

2008-09 Eisbaren Berlin-DEL 51 pts.

Nathan’s string of three consecutive DEL championships was broken last season. This year’s version of Adler Mannheim isn’t likely to win the championship either, sitting in ninth out of fourteen teams in the DEL.

Nathan leaves behind former Ontario Hockey League grads, Fred Brathwaite and Justin Papineau. Papineau was a teammate of Robinson’s in Belleville. They both appear in this previous post at OHL Alumni Central featuring players from the 1998-99 Robertson Cup winning team.

Nathan Robinson appears in a previous post featuring winners of the Eddie Powers Trophy that are still active in professional hockey.

Fred Brathwaite played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1989-90 to 1992-93. He began his OHL career with the Oshawa Generals and played there until the midway point of the 1991-92 season when he shifted to the London Knights. His final season was played with the Detroit Junior Red Wings.

Fred was undrafted but went on to a nine year NHL career. The pinnacle of Brathwaite’s NHL career was 1999-00 and 2000-01 when he was the primary goalie with the Calgary Flames playing 61 and 49 regular season games. Throughout his NHL days, Fred also played for the Edmonton Oilers, St. Louis Blues and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

During the 2004-05 NHL strike season, Brathwaite ventured out into the European hockey scene and played with Kazan Ak-Bars of the Russian Super League. He returned the following season and Ak-Bars won the RSL championship.

Fred made an attempt at a return to the North American game, playing for the Chicago Wolves of the AHL for the 2006-07 season and part of the 2007-08 season. The Wolves are the AHL affiliate of the Atlanta Thrashers but Fred didn’t get a call-up to the NHL club.

Since 2008-09, Brathwaite has been a member of Adler Mannheim of Germany’s Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). In his first season with the club, Fred was named the DEL Player Of The Year. The numbers that season included six shutouts, a goals against average of 2.37 and a save percentage of .925 in 49 regular season games.

Brathwaite returned to Adler Mannheim for the 2010-11 season. This will be his 18th season in professional hockey and his 21st since winning the Robertson Cup and Memorial Cup with the Oshawa Generals in his first season of Ontario Hockey League play.

Check out Fred Brathwaite’s profile page on the Adler Mannheim official website.

Twenty seasons ago, in 1989-90, the Oshawa Generals took the Memorial Cup against the Kitchener Rangers at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. It was historical in that the host of the Memorial Cup tournament up to and including that season had been decided at the start of the season. The Hamilton Dukes had such an incredibly dismal season with only 11 wins that they denied their automatic entry into the tournament and the Kitchener Rangers took their spot. This brought changes to the host selection process to ensure that it would never happen again.

This was also the Eric Lindros era in Oshawa and ‘The Next One’ was an integral part of the Generals Memorial Cup victory. However, what’s amazing about that team is that twenty years later two players are not only still playing professional hockey but are still top players on their teams.

Mike Craig and Fred Brathwaite are bothing playing in Europe after decent NHL careers. Craig is with Klagenfurt AC in Austria and Brathwaite is in his second season with Adler Mannheim (Eagles) of the DEL in Europe.

Mike Craig of Klagenfurt AC

Mike Craig’s info page on Klagenfurt’s official site can be found here. Mike is third in team scoring on a team that is in 8th place in the 10 team Erste Bank Eishockey Liga. Klagenfurt is a city of 90,000 in the south of Austria near the borders of Italy and Slovenia.

Fred Brathwaite remains the starting goaltender for Mannheim of Germany’s DEL. Mannheim sits 9th in the 15 team league and Brathwaite is one of the top goaltenders in the league.