OHL Alumni Central

Update: Looks like after one game, Lorenskog has released Ryan.

Ontario Hockey League grad Ryan Jardine is back in Europe for the 2011-12 season after spending 2010-11 with the Missouri Mavericks of the Central Hockey League. Jardine had been in Europe since the start of the 2005-06 season before his one year return to North America. Ryan will begin the season with Lorenskog of Norway’s GET-Ligaen.

Ryan Jardine with the Louisville Panthers in 2000-01.

Ryan played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1997-98 to 1999-00, all with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. Over his OHL career, he scored exactly a point per game with 198 points in 198 regular season games. In his final season, he was the team’s leader in goals with 43 and points with 77. Just five points behind Jardine was Josef Vasicek. Vasicek was a teammate of Ryan’s with the Greyhounds for 1998-99 and 1999-00. Josef was killed in a plane crash in Russia on September 7, 2011.

Jardine was taken by the Florida Panthers in the fourth round of the 1998 NHL Entry Draft, 89th overall. Ironically, he was drafted just two positions higher than Vasicek. To date, Jardine has played just eight games in the National Hockey League, all with the Panthers during the 2001-02 season.

After five seasons in the American Hockey League with the Louisville Panthers, Utah Grizzlies and San Antonio Rampage, Ryan left for Europe. He played his first season across the pond in 2005-06 with the Hamburg Freezers of Germany’s Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). Since, he has played in Sweden, Italy and Austria.

Jardine is joined on Lorenskog by another former Ontario Hockey League player, Kenny Corupe. Corupe is also returning to Europe after a season in the Central Hockey League. Corupe and Jardine were teammates with Bolzano in Italy’s Lega Italiana Hockey Ghiaccio (LIHG) for three seasons from 2007-08 to 2009-10.

It’s always a horrible tragedy when a commercial jetliner goes down. When Air France flight 447 crashed in 2009, enroute from Brazil to France, 228 lives were immediately lost. The impact would have been devastating to the family, friend and co-workers of each and every one of those souls.

Josef Vasicek as a member of the Czech Republic National Team.

When the charter carrying the members of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of Russia’s KHL crashed this past week, 43 lives were lost. Of course, most of the fatalities were not run-of-the-mill individuals. Many were not just known by family and friends but by the populations of whole countries and even continents. A good number of the 140,000,000 in Russia would have at least heard of the players from Yaroslavl and many were known throughout the hockey circles of Europe and North America. The impact is still incomprehensible.

The names of Pavol Demitra and Ruslan Salei would stand out most to the NHL hockey fan. The coaching staff, consisting of Brad McCrimmon, Igor Korolev and Alexander Karpovtsev, were all retired veterans of the National Hockey League.

One player that lost his life played junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League. Josef Vasicek played two seasons with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, 1998-99 and 1999-00. In his final season with the Greyhounds, Vasicek put up great numbers with 26 goals, 46 assists for 72 points in just 54 games. He added another 2o points for Sault Ste. Marie in 17 playoff games.

Josef played for the Czech Republic at the 2000 IIHF World Junior Tournament, helping his team to a Gold Medal. A regular on the Czech national team, he won gold at the 2005 World Hockey Championships and played in the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

Vasicek came to the Ontario Hockey League already a prospect of the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes took him in the fourth round of the 1998 NHL Entry Drat, 91st overall. In total, he played 460 games in the NHL from 2000-01 to 2007-08, mostly with Carolina. He played a half season with the Nashville Predators in 2006-07 and last played in the NHL with the New York Islanders in 2007-08.

Josef went to the Stanley Cup finals twice in his NHL career, both times with the Hurricanes. In 2002, the team lost to the Detroit Red Wings and in 2006, they were Stanley Cup champions.

2011-12 was to be Vasicek’s fourth season with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. In his first season, the team made it to the finals before losing in seven games to Ak Bars Kazan. The past two seasons, Yaroslavl has been beaten in the Western Coference finals. This past playoffs saw Josef lead the league in assists (15) and points (22) despite not making the finals.

He has played in the KHL All-Star game for the past two seasons and wore the ‘A’ on his jersey with Lokomotiv.

Josef and the rest of the players from Lokomotiv Yaroslavl will be sadly missed throughout the hockey world.

Josef Vasicek will be the lone OHL grad on the Czech Repulic team at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Josef played his OHL days with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in 1998-99 and 1999-00.

Josef had a mediocre NHL career with the Carolina Hurricanes, Nashville Predators and New York Islanders. His past two seasons have been spent in the Russian KHL with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv where he has put up consistant numbers. His page on the team’s official site can be found here. The site is only in Russian.

Yaroslavl plays out of the Lokomotiv Arena 2000 which can hold just over 9000 fans. Yaroslavl is a city of over 600,000 residents and is located not far from Moscow.