OHL Alumni Central

***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.

 

Chad Painchaud played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2003-04 to 2005-06. He began with the Mississauga IceDogs and was shipped to the Sarnia Sting eight games into his second season. In that first season with Mississauga, Chad played in all of the IceDogs playoff games as they went to the Robertson Cup finals before being swept by the Guelph Storm.

Painchaud, playing just 49 games with the Sting in 2005-06, led the team in goals, assists and points with 31, 34 and 65.

After just one season in the Ontario Hockey League, Chad was drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers in the fourth round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, 106th overall. Although most of his professional career to date has been played in the East Coast Hockey League, each year Painchaud has been a call-up to the American Hockey League. However, the number of games he has played in the AHL each season has diminished each year.

Chad has maintained nearly a point per game pace during his ECHL career. He led the Victoria Salmon Kings in points with 68 during the 2009-10 season. This past season, he scored 27 and totalled 49 points in 56 games with the Salmon Kings while contributing another eight points in twelve playoff games.

Painchaud will start the 2011-12 season with the Reading Royals of the ECHL. This will be his fourth team in the ECHL, having also played for the Gwinnett Gladiators and Bakersfield Condors. His AHL experience has been with the Chicago Wolves, Iowa Chops and Manitoba Moose.

 

Ontario Hockey League grad David Pszenyczny helped the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs to their first ever Ray Miron President’s Trophy in the Central Hockey League in 2010-11. The Mudbugs reached the finals in 2003-04 and 2005-06, losing both times to the Laredo Bucks. After winning the championship, the team celebrated by folding.

Pszenyczny was picked up by the Missouri Mavericks of the CHL in July. The Mavericks have four other Ontario Hockey League alumni on the roster for the 2011-12 season, including Brad Good (Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, 03-04 to 06-07), Matt Dias (Sudbury Wolves 05-06 to 08-09), John-Scott Dickson (Windsor Spitfires 00-01 to 04-05) and Nathan O’Nabigon (Plymouth, Mississauga, Kitchener 00-01 to 03-04).

David played five seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2005-06. His first season consisted of just five games with the Sarnia Sting after starting the season in the NAHL. Early in his fourth season with Sarnia, he was shipped to the Mississauga IceDogs along with John Hecimovic and Daniel Carcillo for Chad Painchaud, Brad Efthimiou and Chris Chimienti.

Pszenyczny’s final season in the OHL saw him moved to the Barrie Colts midway through the season as the club beefed up for the Robertson Cup playoff run. David contributed 14 points in 14 games from the point in the playoffs as Barrie came up short against eventual Robertson Cup winner, Peterborough Petes.

David was with Bossier-Shreveport for three seasons. In his first two, he made his goals count. Seven of his eighteen goals during 2008-09 and 2009-10 were game winners.

The Missouri Mavericks are primed to do what the Mudbugs did in 2010-11. The team is coming off a fourth place finish in the Turner Conference with just four points seperating the Mavericks and the first place Rapid City Rush.