OHL Alumni Central

Ontario Hockey League grad Marcel Rodman has appeared at nine IIHF World Championships playing for his home country, Slovenia. Considering this his tenth season since leaving the OHL, you could call him Mister Slovenia. Rodman also represented Slovenia three times at the junior level.

Marcel Rodman played two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, 1999-00 and 2000-01, both with the Peterborough Petes. In his second season, his 36 goals and 71 points were both team leading numbers.

Rodman was picked in the ninth round of the 2001 NHL draft by the Boston Bruins, 282nd overall. Marcel never played a game in North America after graduating from the Ontario Hockey League and has since played in Germany, Slovenia and Austria.

Rodman is currently playing for the Vienna Capitals of Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga (EBEL). 2010-11 will be his third season with the club and second consecutive. He is joined on the team by his brother, David, who is also a product of the Canadian Hockey League. David played two seasons in the QMJHL.

Marcel has twice led his team in scoring in the EBEL. The first time was in 2002-03 with the Graz 99ers when he scored 22 goals and added 25 assists for 47 points in 44 games. the second was 2008-09 with HK Jesenice (his hometown team from Slovenia that plays in the EBEL) when his 21 goals and 36 assists for 57 points in 53 games led the team.

Rodman has maintained better than a point per game pace during his career in the EBEL with 276 points in 263 games as of the end of the 2009-10 season.

Check out Marcel Rodman’s profile page on the Vienna Capitals official website.

This video is a just a short one of Marcel Rodman scoring a goal on a shootout while playing for HK Jesenice.

Not active as a player, Ontario Hockey League alumnus Stan Drulia is still much a part of the professional hockey world. Stan is entering his ninth year of coaching since retiring as a player and his first as head coach of the Wheeling Nailers of the East Coast Hockey League.

Stan Drulia played five seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1984-85 to 1988-89. Be began his OHL career with the Belleville Bulls. He played his first two seasons in Belleville, highlighted by a 43 goal performance in his sophomore year. In 1986-87, Stan moved to the Hamilton Steelhawks. After two seasons in Hamilton, Drulia followed the team as they picked up and moved down the QEW to Niagara and became the Thunder.

In 1987-88 with the Steelhawks, Stan was sixth on the Ontario Hockey League scoring list with 121 points on 52 goals and 69 assists. In his final season, he was second only to teammate Bryan Fogarty in league scoring with his 145 points on 52 goals and 93 assists. Drulia added 37 points in 17 playoff games that season as the Thunder reached the Robertson Cup finals before losing out the Peterborough Petes in six games.

In that final season, Stan was awarded the Leo Lalonde Memorial Trophy as the Ontario Hockey League’s best overage player and also the Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy as the league’s top scoring right winger.

Drulia was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the eleventh round of the 1986 NHL draft, 214th overall. He would end up his career with 126 NHL games played, all with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He played 24 games with Tampa Bay in 1992-93 then didn’t play again in the NHL for six seasons before ending out his NHL career with the Lightning in 1999-00 and 2000-01.

In 1990-91, his one and only season in the ECHL, Stan tallied 140 points in just 64 games for the Knoxville Cherokees en route to becoming the ECHL MVP. That point total stands today as the fourth best single season mark in ECHL history. The following season, Drulia notched 49 goals and 53 assists for 102 points for the New Haven Nighthawks in the higher calibre AHL which placed him third in league scoring.

Drulia’s greatest pro success came in the old IHL. He played eight seasons in the league, including the six between stints with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Twice he was on Turner Cup winning teams, the 1993-94 Atlanta Knights and the 1996-97 Detroit Vipers. Twice he was awarded the N.R. “Bud” Poile Trophy as the league’s playoff MVP, first with those 1993-94 Atlanta Knights and again in 1998-99 with the Vipers despite the team losing in the Turner Cup finals to the Chicago Wolves.

Stan played three seasons with the Atlanta Knights of the IHL from 1993-94 to 1995-96. He will forever be etched in that team’s record books as the player with most career goals, assists and points. Drulia also is second on Atlanta’s all-time games played list and appears in the top ten for all-time penalty minutes. The Knights moved to Quebec City for the 1996-97 season and became the Rafales. The Rafales lasted just two seasons.

Check out Stan Drulia’s Wheeling Nailers at their official website.

This video was a promo that was sent out to Vipers season ticket holders after winning the 1997 Turner Cup. Stan Drulia appears at around the 1:50 mark of the video, scoring a big goal for Detroit.

Ontario Hockey League graduate Arvids Rekis is leaving Germany’s Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) after seven seasons. Rekis has moved to Russia’s KHL and will play for Dinamo Riga in his home country of Latvia.

Arvids played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1996-97 to 1999-00, all with the Erie Otters. During his third season in the Ontario Hockey League, Rekis played for Latvia at the IIHF World Under-20 Hockey Championships B Division.

Arvids has since represented Latvia in international competitions eight times. He has been on the blue line for six IIHF World Championships and two Olympic Games – 2006 in Turin, Italy and 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Undrafted by an NHL club, Rekis spent three years with the Peoria Rivermen of the ECHL after graduating from the Ontario Hockey League. In 2003-04, he left for Europe and the DEL. Arvids spent his first five seasons in Germany with the Augsburger Panther and his last two with Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg.

Check out Arvids Rekis’ profile page on the Dinamo Riga official website. The site is actually in English, which is rare for individual KHL sites.

Arvids is featured in two previous posts at OHL Alumni Central: OHL alumni playing for Latvia at the 2010 Olympics and OHL alumni playing for Latvia at the 2010 World Championships.

The following video is from a qualifying game for the 2010 Olympics with Latvia taking Hungary by a 7-3 score. It’s just a short highlight video showing all the goals. Rekis scores the third goal to make it 2-1 for Latvia. Fellow Ontario Hockey League grad Herberts Vasiljevs scores the eighth goal that makes it 5-3.

Brent Kelly is back in the Swiss National League B for the 2010-11 season but has switched teams from Olten to Langenthal. Langenthal is hoping the Ontario Hockey League alumnus will continue to be a dominant scorer in the league.

Kelly played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1998-99 to 2001-02. Brent’s first three seasons were played with the Guelph Storm and his final season was with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. In that final season with the Greyhounds, Kelly led the team in scoring with 70 points on 38 goals and 32 assists over 67 regular season games.

Brent played for eight teams over six seasons in the North American minors. He started his pro career in 2002-03 with the Saint John Flames of the American Hockey League and finished up in North America in 2007-08 with the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League. In between he played for four other AHL teams, an ECHL team (Johnstown Chiefs) and a Central Hockey League team (Arizona Sundogs).

Kelly was an all-star during his one season in the CHL. He led the Sundogs in scoring with 95 points from 42 goals and 53 assists in just 55 games. He added another 22 points in 14 playoff games.

In 2008-09, Brent moved to Europe and played for Herning of Denmarks AL-Bank Ligaen. Kelly was a hit in Denmark. He was an all-star and led the league in goals (30) and points (77).

He moved his scoring act to Switzerland for the 2009-10 season. Brent’s 41 goals and 51 assists for 92 points in just 47 games was good enough for second in league scoring. The team finished second in the National League B, just one point out of first place.

To check out Brent Kelly’s profile on the Langenthal official website, click here then click Brent’s name from the roster 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…