OHL Alumni Central

Marek Kvapil played just one season in the Ontario Hockey League, 2004-05, with the Saginaw Spirit. Kvapil started that season with HC Slavia Praha in the Czech Republic under-20 league. After eight games, he made the move to the Ontario Hockey League and was an offensive powerhouse on a Spirit team that had the least goals for in the OHL. He added seven games for the Czech Republic at the 2005 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships where he produced two goals and three assists as the Czech’s lost out to Canada in the semi-finals but beat the USA for the bronze.

Kvapil finished up his season in Saginaw with 25 goals and 37 assists for 62 points in just 53 games. With the Spirit scoring just 150 goals on the season, Marek factored in on 43.4% of the team’s total goals, despite missing 15 games.

Kvapil found his way into the Ontario Hockey League record books during his short career. He is tied for the OHL record for the fastest goal to begin a period. He scored four seconds into the third period of a game against the Mississauga IceDogs.

The Tampa Bay Lightning drafted Marek in the sixth round of the 2005 NHL draft, 163rd overall. He spent three years following his one year stint in the Ontario Hockey League playing for teams in the AHL and ECHL (AHL – Springfield Falcons, Norfolk Admirals; ECHL – Johnstown Chiefs, Mississippi Sea Wolves).

Kvapil will start his third season in the Czech Republic’s Extraliga this upcoming season. His first two seasons were played with HC Vitkovice but he has made a change this year and signed on with HC Kometa Brno. Marek hopes to help lift Brno from 12th in the 14 team league in 2009-10 to at least a playoff berth this season. In the Extraliga, the top ten teams make the post season.

Marek had the fortune of representing the Czech Republic this past spring at the IIHF World Hockey Championships in Germany as the Czechs won the gold medal. He was mentioned in this previous post regarding OHL alumni on the Czech team for the tournament.

Check out Marek Kvapil’s profile page on the HC Kometa Brno official website.

Check out this great profile of Marek Kvapil in the alumni section of the Saginaw Spirit official website.

Danny Syvret played in the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-02 to 2004-05, although his first season had him see only one game. His entire Ontario Hockey League career was played with the London Knights, culminating in a season 99.999% of us could only imagine in our wildest dreams.

In his final season in the OHL, Syvret scored 23 goals and added 46 assists for 69 points in 62 games on the blueline for the Knights. The Knights, of course, won the Robertson Cup as playoff champion in the Ontario Hockey League and won the Memorial Cup on home ice at the Labatt Centre in London.

He was a part of Canada’s gold medal winning team at the 2005 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships when Canada downed Russia easily, 6-1, in the final played at Grand Forks, North Dakota. That was just the beginning.

Syvret was awarded the Max Kaminsky Trophy as the OHL’s most outstanding defenseman. A fine stepping stone to being selected the Canadian Hockey League’s Defenseman of the Year. Danny’s +70 was the league’s best plus/minus. He was also a Canadian Hockey League and Memorial Cup tournament all-star.

Despite this amazing success, Syvret was not picked until the third round of the 2005 NHL draft by the Edmonton Oilers, 81st overall. Danny saw 26 games with the Oilers over his first two seasons. The rest of his time was spent in the American Hockey League with the Hamilton Bulldogs and Grand Rapids Griffins.

2007-08 was a step back as Syvret didn’t appear in any NHL games and split his season with the AHL’s Springfield Falcons and Hershey Bears.

The past two seasons, Danny has been in the Philadelphia Flyers organization. He appeared in 23 NHL games with the Flyers over the two seasons and spent the rest of his time with their AHL affiliate, the Philadelphia / Adirondack Phantoms.

Syvret has been picked up by the Anaheim Ducks organization for the 2010-11 season. It would be nice to see Danny become a regular with the NHL team but there’s a good chance he’ll play a portion of his games in Syracuse with the AHL Crunch.

Danny Syvret is not up on the Anaheim Ducks or Syracuse official websites yet, but his AHL profile can be found here.