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.

EV Bozen 84 began play in the Lega Italiana Hockey su Ghiaccio Serie A2 last season, 2010-11. Things didn’t fare well for the club. The team played 32 games, lost 31 in regulation time and lost the other in overtime for a grand total of one point on the year. The team is affiliated with HC Asiago, the playoff champion in the LIHG Serie A1 for the past two seasons.

EV Bozen 84 will have two Ontario Hockey League grads on the roster to start the 2011-12 season. One, is the second oldest in the league and an integral part of Asiago’s back-to-back championships. The other, a goalie fifteen years younger and fresh out of the Canadian university system.

Ralph Intranuovo has averaged over a point per game while being a leader for HC Asiago for the past two seasons. Intranuovo played in the Ontario Hockey League for three seasons, starting way back in 1990-91, all with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. His OHL career culminated with a Memorial Cup victory with the Greyhounds. He was selected the Memorial Cup MVP in 1993.

Ralph was selected in the fourth round of the 1992 NHL Entry Draft by the Edmonton Oilers, 96th overall. His NHL experience consists of 22 games with the Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs. He was an American Hockey League all-star in 1994-95 with the Cape Breton Oilers and in 1996-97 with the Hamilton Bulldogs.

During his career, Intranuovo has played for teams in Canada, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy. Interestingly, he has never played for a club based in the United States. During him North American minor league career, he played for the Cape Breton Oilers and Hamilton Bulldogs of the AHL, as well as, the Manitoba Moose of the IHL.

Anthony Grieco played between the pipes in 25 games for the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors in 2007-08, posting a less-than-stellar 4.00 goals against average.

In 2009-10 and 2010-11, Grieco played net for the University of Western Ontario Mustangs. He posted incredible numbers on a very strong team. In his first season, his GAA was just 1.66 with a .954 save percentage. He played more games in his final seasons with UWO, recording a 2.57 GAA and .921 save percentage. In eight playoff games in 2010-11, he had a 1.96 GAA and .936 save percentage. Grieco played for Team Canada at the 2011 World University Games.

Anthony is officially a member of HC Asiago for 2011-12, but is on loan to EV Bozen 84. He will have a hard time not being an improvement over the goaltenders of 2010-11. Two goalies split the work for EV Bozen 84, the best played in 19 games with a 6.75 GAA and .847 save percentage. The lesser of the two goalies played in 15 games with a dreadful 8.39 GAA and .781 save percentage.

Mike Looby played five seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2005-06. He began his OHL career with the Brampton Battalion and called the Bunker home for two seasons. Looby spent the 2003-04 season with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds before heading to the Plymouth Whalers for the 2004-05 season. He split his final year between the Whalers and the Kingston Frontenacs.

After an early exit by the Frontenacs in Mike’s final OHL season (losing in the first round to the Sudbury Wolves in six games), it was off to the Central Hockey League’s Laredo Bucks. The Bucks won the CHL championship in 2005-06 and Looby played in 12 of the team’s playoff games, contributing a goal and two assists from the blue line.

Undrafted by an NHL club, Mike has spent most of his professional hockey career in the Central Hockey League. The exception was 2008-09 when he played in the East Coast Hockey League, split between the Dayton Bombers and the Gwinnett Gladiators. This past season, Mike played 54 games on the point for the CHL’s Wichita Thunder after starting the season with two games played for the Queen City Storm of the All-American Hockey League.

2011-12 brings about a major change in landscape for Looby. Mike will cross the Atlantic and play for Eaters Geleen in the Netherlands. This past season, Geleen finished sixth in the nine team Dutch elite league.

Ontario Hockey League grad David Kuchejda will return for his fifth season with HC Ceske Budejovice in 2011-12. HC Ceske Budejovice finished the 2010-11 season sixth place in the 14 team Czech Republic Extraliga. The team made a quick exit from the playoffs, losing in the quarter-finals.

Kuchejda came to the Ontario Hockey League already a prospect of the Chicago Blackhawks. David was taken by Chicago in the seventh round of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, 202nd overall. He made his first appearance in the OHL in 2005-06 after being a 13th overall pick by Sault Ste. Marie in the 2005 CHL Import Draft.

Kuchejda played two seasons with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, 2005-06 and 2006-07. In his rookie season, he scored 19 and totalled 40 points in a year when the Greyhounds were the third lowest scoring team in the OHL. The following season, playing just 59 games, he scored 25 and added 28 assists in the Greyhounds first season in their new arena, the Steelback Centre.

David played for the Czech Republic at the 2007 IIHF World Under-20 Hockey Championships, held in Leksand, Sweden. The team went 2-2 in the round robin and made a quick exit from the playoffs with a loss to Sweden in the Quarter-Finals. Kuchejda played in all the team’s games but didn’t register a point.

Kuchejda immediately returned to the Czech Republic upon graduation from the Ontario Hockey League. He has played with HC Ceske Budejovice (Mountfield) since, with some trips down to the tier 2 league. The team plays out of Budvar Arena which holds 6,421 for hockey. The team was founded in 1928 but has won only one league championship, all the way back in 1951.

Although in Czech, you can check out David Kuchejda’s profile page at the HC Ceske Budejovice official website.

Three other Ontario Hockey League grads are playing on HC Ceske Budejovice:

Dustin Wood

Michael Kolarz

Jakub Kovar