OHL Alumni Central

Drew Bannister, as mentioned yesterday, is one of four players from the 1993 Memorial Cup winning Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds that are still playing in professional hockey today.

Bannister played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1990-91 to 1993-94, all with the Greyhounds. His first and second year, the Greyhounds were the Robertson Cup champions. In 1993, the team won the Memorial Cup, despite not winning the Robertson. They earned a berth in the Mem as the host city. In both 1992 and 1993, Drew Bannister was named to the Memorial Cup All-Star team.

In his final season in the Ontario Hockey League, Drew played for Team Canada at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships. The tournament was held in the Czech Republic and Canada won gold. Oddly enough, not a single Canada player made the tournament All-Star team.

Bannister was taken by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the 1992 NHL Entry Draft, 26th overall. Drew has seen a total of 164 NHL games with the Lightning, Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Ducks and New York Rangers. The last NHL game Drew played was during the 2001-02 season. Bannister has been in Europe since the 2002-03 season, with exception of 2009-10 when he returned to the American Hockey League to play for the Binghamton Senators.

Not just a champion in the OHL, Bannister was also part of the AHL’s Calder Cup winning team in 2000, the Hartford Wolf Pack. In 2007-08, he was named the top defenseman in Germany’s 2.Bundesliga as he led the Kassel Huskies to a playoff championship. This allowed Kassel to move up to the elite DEL for the next season.

This season, 2010-11, Bannister has been playing for the Hull Stingrays of Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL). Drew has worn an ‘A’ on his jersey for Hull and is currently trying to help the team through the playoffs.

Check out Drew Bannister’s profile page at the Hull Stingrays official website.

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The Hull Stingrays find themselves 13 points out of first place in Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) standings and they’ve yet to play their first game of the season. Because of turmoil during the summer when the existence of the franchise was in doubt, the team has had to scramble to fill a roster and to slot themselves back in the league’s schedule.

Ontario Hockey League alumnus and Hull Stingrays player/coach, Sylvain Cloutier has brought in another OHL grad that may not put many pucks in the net but will intimidate other teams from scoring on Hull.

Jozef Sladok played two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, 2006-07 and 2007-08, both with the Plymouth Whalers. In his second season Sladok had the dubious destinction of leading the OHL in penalty minutes during the regular season with 223 in 60 games. He added 19 more PIM in just three playoff games that season. In his first season with Plymouth he sat out 100 minutes in just 28 games. His goal scoring total at graduation from the OHL is zero.

The Slovakian played the 2008-09 season in the Central Hockey League with the Corpus Christi IceRayz, playing 29 games and sitting out 154 PIM. This past season, 2009-10, Jozef began the season in his native country but after a game each in the Slovak Extraliga and Extraliga 2, he ended up in Great Britain’s EPIHL which is a tier lower than the EIHL. With the Romford Raiders, the 6’5″, 220 lb. defenseman racked up 149 minutes in penalties in just 31 games. However, he also netted four goals and added 13 assists.

The following video features Jozef Sladok fighting Leigh Salters in 2008 when Salters was still a member of the Guelph Storm.

Check out the roster page at the Hull Stingrays official website.

Jozef Sladok is on the OHL Alumni Big List!

It’s been a turbulent summer for Guelph Storm graduate, Sylvain Cloutier. As player/coach with the Hull Stingrays, things seemed all set heading into the 2010-11 season when the bottom fell out. The owners couldn’t carry the team and the Stingrays were no more.

But wait! All was not lost. New ownership jumped in almost immediately and Hull will field a team for the upcoming season. Some players were lost in the shuffle but Sylvain remains and has his work cut out for him.

Sylvain Cloutier played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1991-92 to 1993-94, all with the Guelph Storm. His 35 goals in his rookie season stands as a Storm record for first year players. His 71 assists and 116 points in his final season when he captained the Storm are team single season records for a left winger. Cloutier is seventh on Guelph’s all-time list for goals scored and assists. He is tied for sixth when it comes to Storm all-time points. In his final season in the Ontario Hockey League, Cloutier finished tied for ninth in league scoring.

He was drafted in the third round of the 1992 NHL draft, 70th overall by the Detroit Red Wings. Sylvain played four seasons in the American Hockey League with Detroit’s affiliate, the Adirondack Red Wings. It wasn’t until 1998-99, after shifting to the Chicago Black Hawks system, that Cloutier got a taste of the NHL, appearing in seven games with the Hawks. This would prove to be the extent of his NHL career.

Cloutier split his time between the AHL and the United Hockey League until the start of the 2006-07 season. He made the jump to European hockey, playing for the Coventry Blaze of Great Britain’s Elite Ice Hockey League. He played two seasons with the Blaze and was better than a point per game player. In each of his two seasons with Coventry, the team won the EIHL championship.

He took time off from playing the game during the 2008-09 season to coach. His stint behind the bench with the Corpus Christi IceRayz of the Central Hockey League lasted 50 games and ended in February of 2009.

Sylvain returned to the EIHL this past season, this time as a player and a coach for the Hull Stingrays. The team finished last among the eight teams in the league with just 43 points in 56 regular season games.

Because of the ownership change, the Hull Stingrays official website is still a work in progress. It can be found here.

However, a better source of all things Hull Stingrays is the F Block Blog.

Check out the following video of highlights from a game between Hull and the Belfast Giants. For North American fans, it’s a great intro to the EIHL game. OHL fans will notice a few familiar names other than Sylvain Cloutier, including Sean McMorrow, George Halkidis and Jeff Szwez. At 1:08 of the video, Cloutier walks away from a fight with ‘The Sheriff’ McMorrow – which is probably a very good idea. At 3:40, he leaves with an injury as a result of a high stick. Cloutier is #83 for the dark jerseys.

Other than what looks to be a small ice surface and a smaller seating area than the Ontario Hockey League, the game itself looks to be pretty fast and exciting. The game is decided in a shootout – you’ll have to watch to see who wins…

George Halkidis played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1999-00 to 2002-03. He began his career with the North Bay Centennials and played his first three OHL seasons on the blueline in North Bay. In his final season, Halkidis played for the Kitchener Rangers.

As luck would have it, in 2002-03, the Kitchener Rangers won the Robertson Cup as the Ontario Hockey League play-off champions and went on to win the Memorial Cup in Quebec City. Halkidis is credited with the game winning goal for the Rangers in the Memorial Cup final game.

Undrafted, Halkidis played a season for the Peoria Rivermen of the East Coast Hockey League in his first season out of junior. For the following two seasons, 2004-05 and 2005-06, George played in Italy’s Lega Italiana Hockey Ghiaccio (LIHG) with HC Fassa and Ritten Renon.

In 2006-07, Halkidis returned to North America and played for the Wichita Thunder of the Central Hockey League. North America was not to George’s liking, however, and he returned to Italy for the following season, this time with Alleghe.

Shoulder surgery kept Halkidis out of hockey for the entire 2008-09 season. He returned to Europe this past season, playing for the Hull Stingrays of Great Britain’s EIHL.

George Halkidis will return to Italy for the upcoming 2010-11 season. This time around, he will be playing in the LIHG Serie 2 with HC Eppan Pirates.

HC Eppan Pirates have yet to update their official website with their 2010-11 roster. Click here to visit the roster page.

Check out this previous post on another Ontario Hockey League grad playing for HC Eppan Pirates, Peter Campbell.