OHL Alumni Central

Well over halfway into the 54 game Erste Bank Eishockey Liga schedule, Ontario Hockey League grad John Hughes is atop the Austrian league’s scoring race. Hughes has a slim lead with 49 points as a member of Olimpija Ljubljana. Last season, he was fifth in points while leading the league in assists.

John played in the Ontario Hockey League for four seasons from 2004-05 to 2007-08. He was the first overall pick by the Belleville Bulls at the 2004 OHL Priority Selection. He played with Belleville until a trade sent him to the Brampton Battalion during the 2006-07 season. Hughes finished his OHL career with 283 points in 256 regular season games.

Undrafted, Hughes made his way to Europe immediately upon leaving the OHL. This is John’s second season with Ljubljana. He has also played for teams in Finland in Germany. The team is sitting in fifth place in the eleven team EBEL in what well could be Ljubljana’s best showing in the Austrian elite league.

Joining John Hughes on Olimpija Ljubljana are two defenseman that also played their junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League. Jamie Fraser played four seasons in the OHL from 2002-03 to 2005-06. His first two years were spent with the Brampton Battalion and his final two were with the Sarnia Sting. Undrafted, Fraser spent five years from 2006-07 to 2010-11 in the North American minors, mostly in the American Hockey League. He did get to play one NHL regular season game in 2008-09 with the New York Islanders. 2011-12 marks Fraser’s first year playing in Europe.

Scott Hotham is in his second year playing in Europe after playing for Lillehammer in Norway’s Get-Ligaen in 2010-11. Hotham played four years in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2004-05 with the North Bay Centennials, Saginaw Spirit, Mississauga IceDogs and Barrie Colts. Scott followed up his junior career with four years with St. Mary’s of the CIS. In his first year of pro hockey, 2009-10, he split his season with the Florida Everblades of the ECHL and the Rochester Americans of the AHL. Scott’s brother and father also are graduates of the Ontario Hockey League.

Jon Sim was an original Sarnia Sting, playing in their first season after relocating from Newmarket. Sim was the man when it came to goal scoring until Steve Stamkos came along. Jon played four seasons with the Sting from 1994-95 to 1997-98. His first season consisted of just 25 games after starting the season in the QMJHL with the Laval Titan.

Sim started the 2011-12 season with HC Pardubice of the Czech Republic’s Extraliga. He played 20 games with the club before being loaned to CH Slavia Prague and has now played four games for that club. This is Jon’s first full season in Europe after ending up in Switzerland at the end of the 2010-11 season and playing seven games for Gotteron, plus three in the National League A playoffs.

Jon broke out offensively in his second season with Sarnia. His 56 goals were second in the Ontario Hockey League and his 101 points were good for seventh. The following season, 1996-97, he once again scored 56 goals, this time tying him for first in the OHL with Alyn McCauley of the Ottawa 67′s. His point total dropped to 95 but still tied him for ninth in the league with Matt Cooke of the Windsor Spitfires. In his final season in the OHL, his goal total dropped to 44. He was still in the top ten, tied for fifth with Scott Barney of the Peterborough Petes. His 94 points tied him for eighth in the league.

Sim was drafted after his first 56 goal outburst. The Dallas Stars picked Jon in the third round of the 1996 NHL Entry Draft, 70th overall. He has played in 469 regular season NHL games with Dallas, the Nashville Predators, Los Angeles Kings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Florida Panthers, Atlanta Thrashers and New York Islanders. In 1998-99, despite only playing seven games for the Dallas Stars during the regular season, he played in four during the playoffs as the Stars captured the Stanley Cup.

Perhaps, Sim’s best season in pro hockey came in 2004-05. He played ten games with the AHL’s Utah Grizzlies then finished off the season with 63 games for the Philadelphia Phantoms. His combined 37 goals placed him tied for sixth in the American Hockey League. He played 21 playoff games for the Phantoms, contributing 17 points as the team marched on to win the Calder Cup.

 

***Update***(Feb. 4, 12)

Missed one! Not sure how Jakub Svoboda got missed. Jakub played the 2008-09 season with the Saginaw Spirit. Thank you to Miroslava Svoboda for the reminder! Here is Jakub’s career stats, courtesy of eliteprospects.com:

 

HC Kometa Brno was promoted back to the top division of the Czech Republic Extraliga for the 2009-10 season. Brno won the Czechoslovakia championship eleven of twelve years between 1954-55 and 1965-66. The one season in that span when they didn’t win, 1958-59, they finished second. The team fell on hard times, dealing with relegation over the past few decades.

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HC Kometa currently sits tenth in the fourteen team league, playing out of the 7,200 seat Kajot Arena in Brno. Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, next to Prague, and has a metro population of 810,000. The hockey team has three Ontario Hockey League grads helping the cause, all natives of the Czech Republic.

Radim Bicanek played two years in the Ontario Hockey League with the Belleville Bulls, 1993-94 and 1994-95. The solid D-man came to Belleville already a prospect of the Ottawa Senators. Bicanek was taken in the second round of the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, 27th overall. Radim’s NHL career consisted of 122 games with the Senators, Chicago Blackhawks and Columbus Blue Jackets. He has been in the Czech Extraliga since the 2004-05 season and is in his third year with Brno. Bicanek has been an assistant captain with HC Kometa since coming from HC Znojemsti Orli where he served as team captain for two seasons.

Jakub Koreis came to Brno during the 2010-11 season from HC Sparta Prague and finished off the season with six games in a HC Kometa uniform. Koreis played just one season in the Ontario Hockey League, 2003-04 with the Guelph Storm. In 48 regular season games, Jakub contributed 38 points to Guelph’s cause. In the Storm’s run to a Robertson Cup championship, Koreis totalled 18 points in 22 games. He played for Guelph at the Memorial Cup and the Czech Republic at the 2004 IIHF World Juniors.

Koreis was drafted by the Phoenix Coyotes at the 2002 NHL Entry Draft, over a year before even playing a game in the Ontario Hockey League. Jakub was a first round pick, going nineteenth overall. After three years in the American Hockey League, Koreis returned to Europe, playing one year in Finland’s SM-Liiga before heading to the Czech Republic.

Tomas Pospisil played two years in the Ontario Hockey League with the Sarnia Sting, 2005-06 and 2006-07. Like Jakub Koreis and Radim Bicanek, Pospisil came to the OHL already drafted to an NHL club. Tomas was a fifth round pick of the Atlanta Thrashers in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, 135th overall. He was twice a member of the Czech Republic’s team at the IIHF World Juniors. After two years in the AHL, Pospisil returned to the Czech Republic for the 2009-10 season.

 

Ontario Hockey League grad Vladimir Nikiforov is an undersized man putting up oversized numbers with the Brooklyn Aviators so far this season. Brooklyn plays in the Federal Hockey League and Vlad is currently seventh overall in the league with 19 points in just nine games.

Nikiforov played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2005-06 to 2007-08. He was a lowly ninth round pick of the Barrie Colts in the 2005 OHL Priority Draft, 175th overall. The 5’6″ 160 lb’er scored 19 and totalled 55 points in his rookie season with the Colts. He added seventeen points in fourteen Robertson Cup playoff games as the Colts made it to the Eastern Conference finals before losing in five to the eventual Robertson Cup winners, the Peterborough Petes.

Vlad played with Barrie until being traded to the Sarnia Sting for the 2007-08 playoff run. In just 36 games with the Colts in that final season before moving west to Sarnia, Nikiforov scored 21 and added 32 assists for 53 points. Those totals were enough to be Barrie’s assist leader for the season, as well as finishing second in points, two behind team leader Alex Hutchings.

Over the past three seasons, Nikiforov has played for four teams in the ECHL and had a 19 game stint with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the American Hockey League in 2008-09. This past season, 2010-11, he played games with the Florida Everblades, Bakersfield Condors and Reading Royals.

With Brooklyn, Vlad has eight goals and eleven assists in nine games. The team is sitting tied for fourth in the seven team league. Last season, the Aviators finished first overall in the FHL and lost in the playoff finals to the Akwesasne Warriors. Not surprisingly, Nikiforov currently holds the honour of the FHL’s shortest player.

 

Andris Dzerins played two years in the Ontario Hockey League, 2007-08 and 2008-09, both with the Kingston Frontenacs. In each season with Kingston, Dzerins reached 20 goals, 20 in his first and 21 in his second. Previous to the OHL, Andris played junior in Latvia, Sweden and Finland.

Since leaving the Ontario Hockey League, Dzerins has been with Dinamo Riga of Russia’s KHL. The team plays out of the 10,300 seat Arena Riga in Riga, Latvia. In its recent history, Dinamo has been mediocre, finishing around .500 each season. This season has started out as no exception with the team beginning with a 7-8 record and sitting in seventh in the eleven team KHL West Conference. Riga is captained by former NHLer Sandis Ozolins.

Like mostly every other player on Dinamo Riga, Dzerins is an annual fixture on Latvia’s national team. He played for Latvia two years in the IIHF under-18 D1 World Juniors, winning one gold and one silver. He followed that up with two years with the under-20 team, also winning a gold and silver. Over the past two seasons, he has been a member of Latvia’s squad at the World Championships. In 2011, he contributed five assists in six games.

Joining Andris on Dinamo Riga are two other Ontario Hockey League grads. Arvids Rekis played four seasons with the Erie Otters from 1996-97 to 1999-00. Juris Stals played the 2001-02 season with the Sarnia Sting and the following season with the Owen Sound Attack. Both were teammates of Dzerins on the 2011 Latvia team at the Worlds. Rekis was a member of the Team Latvia at the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, British Columbia. Stals was the only one of the three drafted by a National Hockey League club. He was a ninth rounder of the New York Rangers in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft.