OHL Alumni Central

There are few that have achieved as much as Andre Benoit over their Ontario Hockey League careers. Despite the lack of love the NHL has given Andre, he still manages to be a major factor wherever he plays.

Benoit played in the Ontario Hockey League for five seasons from 2000-01 to 2004-05, all with the Kitchener Rangers. With the Rangers, he won a Robertson Cup and Memorial Cup in 2002-03. Twice he was the highest point-getting Ontario Hockey League defenseman, 2002-03 and 2004-05. Despite his 67 minutes in penalties, he was awarded the William Hanley Trophy as the OHL’s most sportsmanlike player in 2003-04. In his final season, he was honoured with the Leo Lalonde Trophy as the OHL’s overage player of the year.

During his second season, Benoit was selected to represent Canada at the IIHF World Under 18 Championships held in Slovakia. It was a bit of a disaster for Canada as they went 0-5 in the final round. USA won the gold and a young Alex Ovechkin was the tournament’s scoring leader.

Benoit’s Ontario Hockey League career totals were astounding for a defenseman. In 324 regular season games, Andre netted 99 goals and helped on 200 others for 299 total points. He added another 38 points in 45 playoff games. This, of course, made him an OHL all-star in 2004 and 2005.

Yet, Andre was never drafted by an NHL club. He was signed by the Montreal Canadiens organization as a free agent and has spent three seasons with the Canadiens AHL affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs. In his second season with the Bulldogs, Andre led all AHL defenseman in assists during the playoffs as Hamilton won the Calder Cup as AHL playoff champion. This past season, after returning from a two year stint in Europe, Andre once again led all playoff defensemen in assists but his strongly favoured Bulldogs went down in the conference finals to Texas.

In 2007-08, Andre played in Finland’s SM-Liiga with Tappara. He found himself in familiar territory, leading the league’s defensemen in total assists. Tappara finished third in the league that season. Andre was part of Team Canada at the annual Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland. The team, made up of Canadians playing in European leagues, won the Gold medal.

The following season, Benoit shifted over to Sweden and played for Södertälje of the Elitserien, Sweden’s highest league.

Andre has become property of the Ottawa Senators for the 2010-11 season and will most likely start with their AHL affiliate, the Binghamton Senators.

Check out Andre Benoit’s profile page on the AHL official website.

Andre is also featured in a previous post at OHL Alumni Central detailing the players from Kitchener’s 2002-03 Memorial Cup winning season that are still active in professional hockey today.

With 913 penalty minutes over his four year Ontario Hockey League career with the London Knights, Danny Bois is the Knights all-time leader by 254 minutes. Next in line is Brad Marsh with 659. Despite the penalty numbers, Bois captained the team in the final three of his four seasons and scored 70 regular season goals over his OHL career.

Originally drafted by the Colorado Avalanche in the third round of the 2001 NHL draft, 97th overall, Bois was never signed by Colorado and was eventually picked up as a free agent by the Ottawa Senators. Danny spent five seasons with Ottawa’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Binghamton Senators. He was able to make it up to the NHL for one regular season game in 2006-07 where he had a minor penalty and a fight.

This past season, 2009-10, Bois became property of the Chicago Blackhawks and had hopes of joining fellow London Knights alumni, David Bolland and Patrick Kane on the big club. That didn’t pan out and Danny spent the season with the Rockford Icehogs of the American Hockey League. In six seasons in the AHL, Bois accumulated 1124 minutes in penalties.

Danny has decided to take a new direction and is heading to Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga (EBEL) to play with EC Salzburg Red Bulls for the 2010-11 season.

Danny Bois does not yet have a profile page on the EC Salzburg Red Bulls official website but the site can be accessed by following this link.

Danny Bois also appears in this previous post listing the London Knights alumni still active in professional hockey during the 2009-10 season.

Martin St. Pierre as a Rockford IceHog.

Martin St. Pierre was a huge part of the Ontario Hockey League’s Guelph Storm for four seasons from 2000-01 to 2003-04. In his final season with the Storm, he was simply a stand-out. St. Pierre was third in the Ontario Hockey League in scoring with 110 points on 45 goals and 65 assists. Martin added another 35 points in 22 playoff games, leading Guelph to a Robertson Cup win with a sweep of the Mississauga IceDogs in the OHL final. To top the season off, St. Pierre was awarded the Leo Lalonde Memorial Trophy as the Ontario Hockey League’s best overage player.

With his three games played with the Ottawa Senators this past season, Martin has now played 38 NHL games since entering the world of pro hockey in 2004-05. He has also logged NHL games with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins.

Martin has put some great seasons together in the AHL. In 2005-06, he had 73 points with the Norfolk Admirals. The following season he added 99 points with the Admirals while playing an additional 14 games with the Chicago Blackhawks. The 99 points tied him for second in AHL scoring. In 2007-08, he had 88 points with the Rockford IceHogs, also good for second in the AHL. In 2008-09, he contributed 66 points with the Providence Bruins and this past season he totalled 72 points with the Binghamton Senators.

St. Pierre has recently signed on with HC Nefgekhimik Nizhnekamsk of Russia’s KHL for the 2010-11 season. The team finished fourth in the 12 team Eastern Conference of the 24 team KHL.

His profile has yet to appear on the KHL’s official site, but Martin St. Pierre can still be found on the Binghamton Senators official site.

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Andy Chiodo playing in Finland.

Former Toronto St. Michael’s Majors goalie, Andy Chiodo, has joined EC KAC (the KAC

EC KAC logo.

 stands for Klagenfurter Athletiksport-Club) of Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga for the 2010-11 season. Chiodo split the 2009-10 season between the AHL’s Binghamton Senators and the ECHL’s Elmira Jackals.

Andy Chiodo played in the Ontario Hockey League for three seasons from 2000-01 to 2002-03, all with the Majors. In 2002-03, Chiodo was honoured as the OHL’s Goaltender of the Year.

Andy had a taste of the NHL in 2003-04 when he played eight games with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the team that drafted him 199th overall in the 2003 NHL draft.

This will be Chiodo’s second go at the European game. He played in Finland’s SM-Liiga for two seasons, 2006-07 and 2007-08 and he had a season with Dynamo Minsk in 2008-09.

Klagenfurt is located in the south of Austria near the border with Slovenia and has a population of nearly 100,000. The team plays out of the Stadthalle Klagenfurt which seats 5,500 for hockey. EC KAC finished the 2009-10 regular season fifth in the ten team Erste Bank Eishockey Liga (EBEL).

Chiodo joins fellow Ontario Hockey League alumni Mike Craig and Sean Brown on EC KAC. 

Check out Andy Chiodo’s profile page on the official EC KAC website.

Better late than never! Our apologies to Team USA fans at the 2010 IIHF World Hockey Championships - we almost passed you by.

There is one player on the roster of Team USA that is a graduate of the Ontario Hockey League. Nick Foligno played three seasons in the OHL from 2004-05 to 2006-07, all with the Sudbury Wolves. Nick led the Wolves in scoring in his final two seasons and had an impressive 29 points in 21 playoff games in his final season as the Wolves advanced to the Robertson Cup final before losing out to the Plymouth Whalers in six games.

Nick was a first round pick of the Ottawa Senators in the 2006 NHL draft. He spent a portion of his first pro season with Ottawa’s AHL affiliate, the Binghamton Senators but has been a regular with Ottawa ever since.

Check out Nick Foligno’s profile page on the Ottawa Senators official website.

Check out these posts on other OHL graduates playing in the 2010 IIHF World Hockey Championships:

Latvia

Canada

Italy – Plastino

Italy – Parco

Czech Republic

Norway

Finland

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