OHL Alumni Central

The Brampton Battalion are relative newcomers to the OHL, beginning play in 1998-99. 5 players from the original roster are still playing professional hockey and three of them are in the NHL. Jason Spezza may be considered by some as a star for the Ottawa Senators, Raffi Torres is a grinder for the Columbus Blue Jackets and Jay Harrison is with the Carolina Hurricanes. In total, 34 Brampton alumni are currently still playing professional hockey in various locations throughout the world.

Check out these other OHL teams and their alumni currently playing professional hockey:

Barrie Colts

London Knights

The Latvian Olympic Team that will make an appearance at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver will have three OHL alumni on the roster. Click on their names below to open, in a new window, their pages from their current team’s official sites.

Arvids Rekis will be on the blue line for Team Latvia. Arvids played in the OHL for the Erie Otters from 1996-97 to 1999-00. Between 2000-01 and 2002-03, Rekis spent time in the North American minor leagues with Peoria of the ECHL and Worcester of the AHL. In 2003-04, he switched over the Germany’s DEL and has been in the league ever since. Currently, he is with Wolfsburg where he’s in his second season.

Kaspars Daugavins is currently a rookie with the Binghamton Senators, the AHL farm team of the Ottawa Senators. He was picked 91st overall by the Senators in 2006 and played one game with the big team this season, his first and only game in the NHL. Kaspars spent his days in the OHL as a St. Michael’s Major. In 2006-07, the team was still in Toronto and for his last two seasons, 2007-08 and 2008-09, the team was moved to the Hershey Centre in Mississauga.

Herberts Vasiljevs was a Guelph Storm player for one season, 1995-96. He scored 34 goals and was a point per game in his only OHL season. He played a total of 51 NHL games, shared between Florida, Atlanta and Vancouver over six seasons that were mostly spent with teams in the IHL and AHL. He has spent the last 6 seasons in Germany’s DEL and the last 5 of those with Krefeld Pinguine, pretty much maintaining a point per game pace.

Find out what other OHL grads are appearing in the 2010 Olympics:

Czech Republic

Germany

Belarus

Canada

Stay tuned for the rest of the Olympic teams containing OHL alumni.

Bolzano is currently in 4th place in the 9 team Italian Serie A1. The city is in northern Italy near the border with Austria. The population is just over 100,000 and German is spoken as much as Italian due to the close proximity to their German speaking neighnours.

There are four graduates of the Ontario Hockey League currently playing for Bolzano. What is different from many other Italian teams is that none of these players are of Italian descent. Often the players that go from Canada to play in Italy are sons or grandsons of Italian immigrants.

The four players are listed below. By clicking on their names, their page on the official Bolzano HC website will open up in a new window. The page is in Italian but is easily understandable as hockey is a universal language. Current stats are updated there.

Shawn Mather, Windsor Spitfires, 1999-00 and 2000-01.

Fraser Clair, Barrie Colts, 1998-99, 2000-01 and 2001-02. Mississauga Ice Dogs, 1998-99 to 2000-01.

Kenny Corupe, Toronto St. Michael’s Majors, 1997-98 to 1999-00. Kenny Corupe, Owen Sound Platers 1999-00.

Ryan Jardine, Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, 1997-98 to 1999-00.

Italia team location map

Other posts on OHL Alumni Central that might interest you:

Asiago HC of the Italian League

HC Ocelari Trinec of the Czech Republic

Barrie Colts Alumni in Professional Hockey

John Tripp left his journeyman’s life in North America when the NHL closed up shop for the 2004-05 season. He landed in Germany and loved playing in the DEL so much, he applied for German citizenship and will now represent Germany at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

John spent his OHL days in Oshawa with the Generals. There, he spent three seasons from 1994-95 to 1996-97. He totalled 92 points and 274 PIM in 173 games. He would go on to play a total of 43 games in the NHL, split between the Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers. A lot of his time was spent in the Calgary Flames organization but he neve got to play with the big club.

One season, 2000-01, John split his playing time between teams in 4 cities in 3 leagues: Pensacola Ice Pilots, ECHL; Houston Aeros, IHL; Milwaukee Admirals, IHL; Hershey Bears, IHL.

Currently, he is a member of the Hamburg Freezers of Germany’s DEL. This is his third season with the team and sixth in the league. His first two seasons were with Adler Mannheim and his third was with Ingolstadt ERC.

He is the lone ex-OHLer representing Germany at the 2010 Olympics.

For a really cool article found on the Hamburg Freezers official website about John and featuring several pictures, click here (John is the one in the ’21′ jersey). The rough translation using Google Translate is as follows:

27/01/2010 – The abyss before my eyes even briefly left the courage of John Tripp. “I have a little jitters up here,” revealed the otherwise-nails Striker 50 meters above the rooftops of Hamburg. Along with Alexander Barta, Thomas Pielmeier, Max Brandl, Elia Ostwald and Domenic Bartels ventured Tripp on Wednesday backed the “Jochen Schweizer House running” the facade of the Holiday Inn Hotel Hamburg down – only by a thin rope.
After a short briefing by project manager John Davis Barta and Tripp were the first players who forced their way into the securing straps and the platform at the 17th Floor of the hotel climbed. An anxious glance down, deep breath – then came the hardest part of the House Runnings: Standing at the edge of the roof could be the two strikers tilt slowly forward – with a view at 50 meters depth! A little effort cost of death-defying step, but once in the vertical, was the fear vanished. 
Anxious glances before the run into the deep: Barta (left) and the other TrippAuch teammates dared and had fun at the noticeable vertical walk. Following informed themselves Barta and Co. nor more events from Jochen Schweizer and made plans to bungee jumping and skydiving. “Although the first steps have cost a lot to overcome, it really was fun,” said Elia Ostwald, when he again had solid ground under their feet. “That was certainly not my last event of this kind!”

The next House Running Events at the Holiday Inn Hamburg-rise on 20th March, 3 and 17 April. Further information at www.jochen-schweizer.de and www.hi-hamburg.de!

Surprisingly, the U.S.A. Men’s Olympic hockey team for the upcoming Olympic Games in Vancouver contains just two less OHL alumni than Team Canada. The five former OHLers on the U.S. squad are certainly in the upper echelon of the team. For the full Team U.S.A. roster, click here. The OHL representation on the U.S. Team is proof that the world comes to Ontario to develop their hockey skills in the best program on the globe.

Those five players are:

Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings and formerly of the Guelph Storm.

Ryan Callahan of the New York Rangers and formerly of the Guelph Storm.

Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks and formerly of the London Knights.

Jamie Langenbrunner of the New Jersey Devils and formerly of the Peterborough Petes.

Bobby Ryan of the Anaheim Ducks and formerly of the Owen Sound Attack.