OHL Alumni Central

Tomi Karhunen played one year in the Ontario Hockey League, 2007-08. Karhunen had a great start between the pipes for the Sarnia Sting that season, winning OHL Player of the Week honours in November. Tomi finished the season playing in 39 games with a 3.59 goals against average and two shutouts.

Karhunen was a 35th overall pick of the Sting at the CHL Import Draft in 2007. He continued on at the junior level back in Finland for two seasons following his year in Sarnia.

In 2010-11, Tomi played 13 games for Kärpät Oulu of Finland’s elite SM-Liiga. He also spent some time down in the tier 2 Mestis. Karhunen is under contract with Kärpät until the end of the 2012-13 season. He will go into 2011-12 as the team’s number 2 goalie.

Kärpät finished the 2010-11 season eighth place in the 14 team SM-Liiga and were an early exit from the playoffs. Since being promoted from tier 2 for the 2000-01 season, they have won the SM-Liiga championship four times. In a span of seven years from 2002-03 to 2008-09, Kärpät went to the finals six times.

Kärpät plays out of Oulu, Finland. Their home arena is the Oulun Energia-Areena which seats 6,614.

Check out Tomi Karhunen’s profile page at the Kärpät Oulu official website.

Kamil Kreps is saying goodbye to sunny Florida and hello to Oulu, Finland. The Brampton Battalion alumnus was not given an offer to stay on board with the Florida Panthers of the NHL so he has signed on with Oulun Karpat.

Kreps played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2003-04, all with Brampton. Kamil was a second round pick of the Panthers in the 2003 NHL draft, 38th overall. He spent 14 games with the Panthers in 2006-07 and has been a regular with the team for the past three seasons. Unfortunately, he wasn’t developing in the manner the Panthers had hoped. One report stated that Kamil just didn’t have the strength to compete physically with NHL calibre players. However, himself and his new team believe that he is a perfect fit for the European game.

Karpat finished 9th in the 14 team SM-Liiga over the 58 game regular season schedule this past season. Oulu is a city of around 140,000 people located on the west coast of Finland.  The team plays out of the Oulun Energia Areena which fits 6,614 for hockey.

Kamil has yet to be profiled on the Oulu Karpat official website but you can visit it here.

For the time being, Kamil Krep’s profile page at the Florida Panthers official website is still available.

Check out these previous posts on OHL alumni playing in Finland:

Gabriel Spilar of the Finland Blues.

Scott Barney of Saipa in Finland.

Kamil Kreps is also featured in this previous post listing Brampton Battalion alumni playing pro hockey.

Team Czech Republic at the 2010 IIHF World Hockey Championships features two Ontario Hockey League alumni.

Lukas Kaspar played one season in the OHL, 2004-05, with the Ottawa 67′s. Kaspar helped the team reach the Robertson Cup finals before losing out to the London Knights. The 67′s appeared in the Memorial Cup despite the loss as the OHL was the host league that season.

Drafted in the first round, 22nd overall, by the San Jose Sharks in 2004, Lukas has played 16 games over two seasons with the NHL team. This past season, Kaspar played in Finland’s SM-Liiga with Oulun Karpat, finishing third on the team in scoring. You can view Lukas Kaspar’s profile at the SM-Liiga’s official website by clicking here.

Like Lukas Kaspar, Marek Kvapil played just one season in the OHL in 2004-05. Kvapil played for the Saginaw Spirit and led the team in scoring with 62 points in 53 games. Marek was drafted 163rd overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2005.

Kvapil spent the following three seasons in the North American minors, playing on four different teams between the AHL and ECHL (Springfield Falcons, Johnstown Chiefs, Norfolk Admirals, Mississippi Sea Wolves). The Slovakian born forward has just completed his second season with HC Vitkovice Steel in the Czech Republic’s Extraliga. The team finished 4th in the 14 team league this season. Marek finished second on the team in scoring with 41 points in 50 regular season games.

Check out Marek Kvapil’s profile page on HC Vitkovice Steel’s official website. The site is in Czech. Use our Czech Hockey Language Guide to help navigate the site.

Check out these other OHL grads playing in the IIHF World Hockey Championships:

John Parco on the Italian National Team

Oskar Osala on the Finnish National Team

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