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AHL Champion Grand Rapids Has Six Former ECHL Players

June 19, 2013 - ECHL (ECHL) News Release


PRINCETON, N.J. - For the 24th year in a row the ECHL is represented on the American Hockey League champion as six of the 24 players who played for Grand Rapids in the 2013 Calder Cup Playoffs played in the Premier ‘AA' Hockey League.

There have been 79 former ECHL players on the last seven AHL winners and 97 former ECHL players on the last nine champions.

The ECHL has had affiliations with 20 or more teams in the AHL the last 12 years and in the past 11 seasons there have been more ECHL players called up to the AHL than all other professional leagues combined.

The Toledo Walleye ECHL affiliate for Grand Rapids and Gleason Fournier, Luke Glendening, Andrej Nestrasil and Petr Mrazek all played for Toledo this season.

The other former ECHL players on the Griffins are Brian Lashoff (Toledo, 2010-11) and Brett Skinner (Augusta, 2006-07).

Grand Rapids' athletic trainer John Bernal served in the same capacity with Texas of the ECHL in 2003-04.

Six of the 22 players on runner-up Syracuse had ECHL experience with Mike Angelidis (Florida, 2006-07), Jean-Philippe Cote (Ontario, 2011-12), Cedrick Desjardins (Cincinnati, 2006-08), Philippe Paradis (Toledo, 2012-13), Dan Sexton (Bakersfield, 2009-10) and J.T. Wyman (Cincinnati, 2008-09).

Other former ECHL personnel with the Crunch are athletic trainer Brad Chavis and broadcaster Dan D'Uva.

During the 2012-13 season, 348 ECHL players were recalled to the American Hockey League for a total of 574 recalls. The Kelly Cup champion Reading Royals led the league with 54 recalls.

Seven times in the last 13 years the winner of the AHL Coach of the Year award has been a former ECHL coach including Scott Gordon and Mike Haviland in 2006 and 2007. Former ECHL coaches won the award four consecutive years from 2001-04 with Don Granato, Bruce Cassidy, Geoff Ward and Claude Noel. The first former ECHL coach to win the award was Peter Laviolette in 1999.

For the sixth season in a row at least eight former ECHL players were named Reebok/AHL Player of the Week with former Gwinnett Gladiators forward Matt Anderson, former Cincinnati Cyclones forward Cory Conacher, former Idaho Steelheads goaltender Dan Ellis, former Cincinnati Cyclones goaltender Magnus Hellberg, former Augusta Lynx, Elmira Jackals and Mississippi Sea Wolves goaltender Riku Helenius, former Toledo Storm and Reading Royals goaltender Drew MacIntyre, former Las Vegas Wranglers goaltender Mike McKenna and former Toledo Walleye goaltender Petr Mrazek.

There were nine former ECHL players in the 2013 AHL All-Star Classic.

Former ECHL broadcasters working in the American Hockey League include Bob Rotruck of the Adirondack Phantoms, Grady Whittenburg of the Binghamton Senators, Jason Shaya of the Charlotte Checkers, Jason Shaver of the Chicago Wolves, Joe O'Donnell of the Iowa Wild, Dan Weiss of the San Antonio Rampage, Mike Kelly of the Springfield Falcons, Dan D'Uva of the Syracuse Crunch and Eric Lindquist of the Worcester Sharks.

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