OHL Alumni Central

The KHL regular season has come to a close in Russia for 2010-11 and Traktor Chelyabinsk finds themselves in ninth place in the Eastern Conference, 11 points out of a playoff spot. Chelyabinsk is the current club of Ontario Hockey League grad, Vitaly Yachmenev.

Yachmenev played two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, 1993-94 and 1994-95 and took the league by storm. In his first season, he led the league with 61 goals and was named not only the OHL’s rookie of the year but the CHL’s rookie of the year as well. He helped the North Bay Centennials to a Hamilton Spectator Trophy as regular season champs and a Robertson Cup as the OHL’s playoff champions. Vitaly added 32 points in 18 playoff games for the Centennials. The team’s luck ran out at the Memorial Cup, going 0-3.

The following season, Yachmenev scored 53 for the Centennials while adding 52 assists for 105 points in 59 games. The 105 points was good enough for ninth in the OHL. He helped Russia to a Silver Medal at the IIHF Under-20 World Hockey Championships. Vitaly was also awarded the William Hanley Trophy as the Ontario Hockey League’s Most Sportsmanlike Player. The award is representative of the way Yachmenev has played the game throughout his career. His highest penalty minute total came in 2005-06 with just 30 in Russia’s Super League.

After his first season with North Bay, Yachmenev was drafted surprisingly low, going in the third round of the 1994 NHL Entry Draft, 59th overall to the Los Angeles Kings. Vitaly put in  almost 500 games in the NHL with Los Angeles and the Nashville Predators before skipping to Russia for the start of the 2003-04 season. Unfortunately, the goal scoring ability that he showed with the Centennials never really resurfaced and he topped out with a season of 19 goals with the Kings.

In his eighth season in Russia, Yachmenev scored just four goals and added 12 assists in 43 games for Chelyabinsk. His current contract expired at the end of this season.

Vitaly spent the year playing with another Ontario Hockey League grad, Alexander Buturlin, on Traktor Chelyabinsk.

Check out Vitaly Yachmenev’s profile page at the KHL official website.

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I’m not sure what Jason Lafreniere has done since retiring from hockey after the 2004-05 season, but travel agent would be a definite possibility. 27 teams in 19 pro seasons amounts to a lot of travel and a lot of change.

Lafreniere played three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1983-84 to 1985-86. He began his OHL career with the Brantford Alexanders and the following season moved with the club to Hamilton where they were called the Steelhawks. In his finals season, Jason was shifted to the Belleville Bulls after 14 games to fortify a potential Memorial Cup contender.

Possibly the most sportsmanlike player to grace the Ontario Hockey League, Lafreniere sat out a total of just 18 minutes in the penalty box during 191 career regular season OHL games. In that time, he contributed 308 points. The ability to play the game without sin resulting in Jason being awarded the William Hanley Trophy as the league’s Most Sportsmanlike in his final season.

That final season saw an offensive outburst of 132 points that tied him with two others for second in Ontario Hockey League scoring. When it came to the Robertson Cup playoffs, Jason’s 32 points were tops in the league despite the fact that his Belleville Bulls lost in the finals to the Guelph Platers 8 points to 4.

Lafreniere was taken by the Quebec Nordiques in the second round of the 1985 NHL draft, 36th overall. He played 56 games with the Nordiques in his first pro season as well as an additional 12 games in the Stanley Cup playoffs. In all, Jason played 146 games in the NHL over five seasons with the Nordiques, New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Over his 19 pro seasons, Jason played on teams in ten different countries: Canada, United States, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Great Britain, Holland, Poland and Spain. His stint in Spain was for just one game with FC Barcelona and he registered a hat trick. His stay in Poland in his final season, 2004-05, lasted just two games and his time in Slovenia with Olimpija Ljubljana was for four games.

His list of credentials also includes a year and a half with the Canadian National Team in 1990-91 and part of 1991-92. The list of leagues he played in is understandably long as well, including: AHL, NHL, IHL, DEL (and German Bundesliga before being called DEL), LIGH in Italy, Austrian Bundesliga (pre-EBEL days), Central Hockey League, West Coast Hockey League, Bundesliga 2 in Germany, British National League, etc.

Jason is NOT on The Big List!

Changes are abound for Sundays at OHL Alumni Central. Out is Sensational Sunday Search For Sites and in is OHL Alumni Classics. SSSFS was a good idea but didn’t focus on what this site is all about, OHL Alumni. Classics will once a week bring you great articles on graduates of the Ontario Hockey League that have retired from active hockey and whose stories are great but not readily known.

Kevin Conway

Kevin Conway played four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League from 1980-81 to 1983-84. His first season consisted of only nine games with the Oshawa Generals. His second and third were played with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and his final season started with two games with the Sault before finishing the season with the Kingston Canadians.

After two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, Conway had played just 45 regular season games while scoring seven goals and adding nine assists for 16 points. In his third and fourth season, Kevin’s offense exploded with seasons of 122 and 130 points.

In 1982-83, his 122 points placed him ninth in Ontario Hockey League scoring. The Greyhounds lost out to the Oshawa Generals in Robertson Cup finals. As a side note, that season was the first for the Guelph Platers and was also the first for the North Bay Centennials after moving from Niagara Falls where they were known as the Flyers.

In 1983-84, Conway was traded to the Kingston Canadians after just two games with the Greyhounds, despite contributing three goals in those two games. Despite the Canadians finishing last in the Leyden Division, Kevin’s 130 total points was good enough for sixth in the league. His 20 penalty minutes helped him win the William Hanley Trophy as the Ontario Hockey League’s Most Sportsmanlike Player.

Despite the numbers, Conway went undrafted by an NHL club. Kevin played one season in the old IHL, split between the Toledo Goaldiggers and the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, before moving to Great Britain and finding his calling as a hockey legend.

Conway put up rediculous numbers playing in the BNL. In his first season, he popped in 129 goals and added 98 assists for 227 points in just 35 games! These numbers would be topped in 1987-88 when he scored 151 goals in addition to 112 assists for a combined total of 263 points. This feat was done in just 31 games, 2 with the Durham Wasps and 29 with the Telford Tigers. He still found time to spend 108 minutes in the penalty box.

In all, Conway reached the 100 goal plateau four times in the BNL and the 100 point mark nine times. He played at various levels of British ice hockey until the end of the 2007-08 season.

Kevin represented Great Britain at the World Championships five different times. His 66 points as a member of the national team is second on the all-time list. His contribution to hockey in Great Britain had him elected to the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005.

There are few that have achieved as much as Andre Benoit over their Ontario Hockey League careers. Despite the lack of love the NHL has given Andre, he still manages to be a major factor wherever he plays.

Benoit played in the Ontario Hockey League for five seasons from 2000-01 to 2004-05, all with the Kitchener Rangers. With the Rangers, he won a Robertson Cup and Memorial Cup in 2002-03. Twice he was the highest point-getting Ontario Hockey League defenseman, 2002-03 and 2004-05. Despite his 67 minutes in penalties, he was awarded the William Hanley Trophy as the OHL’s most sportsmanlike player in 2003-04. In his final season, he was honoured with the Leo Lalonde Trophy as the OHL’s overage player of the year.

During his second season, Benoit was selected to represent Canada at the IIHF World Under 18 Championships held in Slovakia. It was a bit of a disaster for Canada as they went 0-5 in the final round. USA won the gold and a young Alex Ovechkin was the tournament’s scoring leader.

Benoit’s Ontario Hockey League career totals were astounding for a defenseman. In 324 regular season games, Andre netted 99 goals and helped on 200 others for 299 total points. He added another 38 points in 45 playoff games. This, of course, made him an OHL all-star in 2004 and 2005.

Yet, Andre was never drafted by an NHL club. He was signed by the Montreal Canadiens organization as a free agent and has spent three seasons with the Canadiens AHL affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs. In his second season with the Bulldogs, Andre led all AHL defenseman in assists during the playoffs as Hamilton won the Calder Cup as AHL playoff champion. This past season, after returning from a two year stint in Europe, Andre once again led all playoff defensemen in assists but his strongly favoured Bulldogs went down in the conference finals to Texas.

In 2007-08, Andre played in Finland’s SM-Liiga with Tappara. He found himself in familiar territory, leading the league’s defensemen in total assists. Tappara finished third in the league that season. Andre was part of Team Canada at the annual Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland. The team, made up of Canadians playing in European leagues, won the Gold medal.

The following season, Benoit shifted over to Sweden and played for Södertälje of the Elitserien, Sweden’s highest league.

Andre has become property of the Ottawa Senators for the 2010-11 season and will most likely start with their AHL affiliate, the Binghamton Senators.

Check out Andre Benoit’s profile page on the AHL official website.

Andre is also featured in a previous post at OHL Alumni Central detailing the players from Kitchener’s 2002-03 Memorial Cup winning season that are still active in professional hockey today.