Latest news with #EIHL
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Former Monster Jake Gaudet Signs In Europe
Former Cleveland Monsters center Jake Gaudet has signed with the Belfast Giants of the EIHL. The signing was made official today by the Giants.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Former Sabres, Hurricanes Prospect Signs In England
Canadian forward Cliff Pu, 27, has signed a one-year contract with the Sheffield Steelers, the EIHL club announced on Thursday.
BBC News
07-07-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Devils confirm four more players on 2025-26 roster
Cardiff Devils have confirmed four further players to their roster for the 2025-26 Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) capital club confirmed Brett Perlini has re-signed while forwards Connor Caponi and Cedric Lacroix along with netminder Christian Stoever have all signed on for the upcoming Britain forward Perlini re-signs following a stellar 2024-25 season in which he netted a hat-trick in the Devils' Continental Cup final United States of America Under-19 player Caponi had five seasons at the University of Denver, winning the NCAA national championship with them in 2022 and forward Lacroix joins from Italian club HC played four seasons at Bowling Green State University and earlier this year took up an amateur try-out (ATO) contract with the AHL's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coach Paul Thompson was joined by the club's ownership to announce the latest deals at the Devils' annual summer meeting in Calgary, Canada. It brings the Devils playing squad so far for the forthcoming campaign up to 18, with seven newcomers joining 11 players returning from last season's Continental Cup winning Josh Batch and Jarrod Gourley along with forward Tyler Busch have left the Welsh 2025-26 season will start in September, though Cardiff begin their pre-season campaign against French side Gap Raptors on 16 full schedule for the 2025-26 EIHL season will be published on Friday, 11 July. How many players are there on an EIHL roster? The overall number of players a team can use in one season is 25 players - excluding injured reserve replacements and 'two-way players'.Clubs can register as many 'two-way players' as they wish but they must be homegrown, under the age of 25 and contracted primarily to an EIH (English Ice Hockey) or SIH (Scottish Ice Hockey) based team competing in a league lower than the EIHL.A gameday roster can have a maximum of 20 players - 18 skaters and 2 goalies - with no more than 15 non-homegrown players. All teams must have at least one British goaltender registered to their overall roster. Cardiff Devils roster for 2025-26 New signingsBrandon Estes (Defenceman)Brodie Kay (Defenceman)Tyson Helgesen (Defenceman)Connor Caponi (Forward) Cedric Lacroix (Forward) Christian Stoever (Netminder)ReturningEvan Mosey (Defenceman)Gleason Fournier (Defenceman)Ryan Barrow (Forward)Kohen Olischefski (Forward)Josh MacDonald (Forward)Joey Martin (Forward)Sam Duggan (Forward)Mark Richardson (Defenceman)Ben Davies (Forward)Ben Bowns (Netminder)Cole Sanford (Forward)Brett Perlini (Forward)
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Ex-Panther Signs With Scottish Club
Canadian defenseman Brady Keeper, 29, has signed a one-year contract with the Glasgow Clan, the Scottish-based EIHL club announced on Tuesday. 'Happy to be getting the opportunity to play and I can't wait to get the games going,' Keeper is quoted in the club's announcement. 'Super excited to see the rink packed and loud.' Advertisement A one-time NHLer, injuries have forced Keeper to miss two of the last four seasons completely, limiting him to just 59 competitive games in that time frame. 'Brady is a rugged defensive defenseman who skates well and is highly competitive,' said Glasgow coach Corey Neilson. 'He enjoys confrontation, blocking shots and winning. He's had some unlucky seasons of late with injuries and is excited to get back to playing at a high level.' Born in Cross Lake, Man., Keeper played junior hockey for the OCN Blizzard of the MJHL and played two years of college hockey for the University of Maine Black Bears. Undrafted, Keeper signed as a free agent with the Florida Panthers in the spring of 2019 and played one of his three NHL games right away. He spent the following two seasons in the Florida organization, playing in a playoff game in the 2020 Eastern Conference bubble in Toronto and another regular-season game in 2021. Anton Lundmark 'Shocked' By Panthers' Contract Offer Anton Lundmark 'Shocked' By Panthers' Contract Offer Two years ago, Anton Lundmark was playing in a semi-professional regional league in the third tier of Swedish hockey. This season, at age 23, he made his SHL debut with Timrå IK, where he scored five goals, had four assists and zero (!) penalty minutes in 53 regular-season and playoff games. Advertisement Keeper signed as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks but broke two bones in his leg during the pre-season and missed the entire 2021-22 season. He spent the following two seasons with the AHL affiliates of the Canucks and Montreal Canadiens but did not play another NHL game. Last summer, Keeper signed with HK Poprad of the Slovak Extraliga but he did not appear in any games for the club. In November, the club reportedly stated, 'He has a valid contract in Europe with HK Poprad for this season, although he is currently not receiving a salary due to non-fulfillment of the contract. If family reasons finally allow him to come, he is welcome in the team.' Last season, Glasgow finished seventh in the 10-team EIHL. The club seems determined to improve its standing this season, having already signed Finnish goaltender Sami Aittokallio, a former Colorado Avalanche prospect. The team also has British national team players Robert Lachowicz and Cade Neilson. Photo © David Kirouac-Imagn Images: Brady Keeper playing for the Montreal Canadiens in the 2023 pre-season. Finnish Ex-Avalanche Goalie Signs In Scotland Finnish Ex-Avalanche Goalie Signs In Scotland Finnish goaltender Sami Aittokallio, 32, has signed a one-year contract with the Glasgow Clan, the Scottish-based EIHL club announced on Thursday.
BBC News
13-06-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
'Really special' - Devils celebrate GOAT Martin
"It's difficult to describe the impact Joey Martin has had on this organisation on and off the ice."For managing director Todd Kelman, Cardiff Devils' number 88 is, "our best player over the last decade". For most fans, forward Martin is simply the GOAT - the greatest of all Saturday (17:00 BST) at the Vindico Arena, the 36-year-old from Ontario joins a select group of players the club has hounored in recent seasons; Great Britain internationals Mark Richardson, Matthew Myers, Josh Batch and Ben is the first non-British player to be awarded a testimonial game in the past eleven years of the current ownership."I'm extremely grateful, it's really special, it's made me reflect on all the years I've been here."I always feel very fortunate that I landed at this club and have so many great memories that I can look back on," said Martin. Martin first joined the Devils in 2014 and after a brief spell away during Covid returned in his first five-season spell with Cardiff, he won the league's Forward of the Year three times, Player of the Year twice and made the league's All-Star team every the 2024-25 season - his ninth at the Welsh club - he became the highest scoring import player in Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) history and was Devils' Players' Player of the Year."As the league has improved, he has still always been one of the top players," added Kelman on announcing Martin would be back for a 10th campaign in a Devils jersey. "We are very lucky to have had him all these years." 'My love for the game started in the driveway' Martin was born and bred in the small city of Thorold, ten miles west of Niagara Falls on the United States border."Like most Canadian kids my love for the game started in the driveway and the street playing with my brothers and friends and then in the winters on the frozen lakes and ponds," recalls started his junior hockey with local club Thorold Blackhawks, then as a teenager he joined Aurora Tigers in the Ontario Provincial Junior Hockey League, winning the 2007 Canadian National Junior Championship, the Royal Bank hockey followed whilst studying physical education at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, sometimes in front of 17,000 after captaining Omaha Mavericks in his final student season, in 2011 Martin went professional with Ohio-based Toledo Walleye."Going from school to the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) was a bit of an adjustment. Sometimes you play four games in five nights, a lot of road trips on the bus, it's a bit of a grind," added ECHL sits third in the North America hierarchy, below the American Hockey League (AHL) and the dream destination for all hockey players, the globally-dominant NHL."I had a few different call ups [to the AHL] with Houston Aeros, Texas Stars and Bridgeport Sound Tigers."After three years of that, getting called up and sent down, I was over that whole lifestyle and that's why I ended up pursuing options over here [the UK]." 'I thought, oh no!' In late July 2014 Martin received a call from an old Toledo teammate, Doug Clarkson, who had signed for a British club under new ownership – the Cardiff Devils. They were looking for a centre-mid forward and wanted to know if Martin was the time Martin knew very little about professional hockey in the UK."I thought that people generally came here and did their master's degree at the end of their career," he remembers."I knew it was more of a North American style, it was physical, they had enforcers, so I thought it'd be similar to the East Coast Hockey League but other than that I wasn't familiar with Cardiff, the club or the history."I kind of made a quick decision and I'm very happy with that decision now!"Martin also had no idea that his new hockey home, Devils' ice rink, was just a timber prefab, clad with bright blue tarpaulin."I remember coming on the bus and seeing this big, beautiful glass building and I said, 'Wow! That's a beautiful arena.' And they said, 'No, that's the international swimming pool, the arena's round the corner'."And then we kept driving and I saw the Big Blue Tent and I thought, 'Oh, no!'"But we had a team that just embraced it, we actually loved playing in the tent. It was a hostile environment for other teams, it was definitely an advantage for us." That first season for Martin saw the Devils unexpectedly reach the Challenge Cup Final, where they faced the sizeable challenge of taking on Sheffield Steelers in their own Sheffield was, though, a huge migration of Welsh fans from Cardiff, one that lives long in the memories of those that were there."I remember stepping on the ice for the warm-up and seeing half that arena filled with our fans. I remember thinking this is pretty special," said Martin."That's when you really saw how much it meant to the club, to the fans."Goals from player-coach Andrew Lord and centreman Chris Culligan gave Cardiff a 2-1 victory to lift their first trophy in eight years."Winning that game was awesome, just to see the look on everybody's faces and the joy especially with the season before being a tough one when they hadn't made the play-offs," Martin added."The expectations weren't for us to even be there, let alone win it. It was a really special moment."Over the next four seasons Cardiff Devils experienced a golden period winning the league twice, the 2017 Challenge Cup and two Play-Off hockey in the UK was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Martin went to Norway, playing in front of reduced crowds for Stavanger Oilers though eventually their 2021 season was curtailed before the Elite Hockey Ligaen then joined Graz99ers in Austria who were more than aware of Martin's qualities after he had been a crucial part of Cardiff's two group victories against them in the 2019 Champions Hockey halfway through the season Martin decided it was time to return to Cardiff."I really enjoyed my time in Graz, but I just felt that I wanted to come back to a club where the expectations were to win, and I wanted to be back in that kind of culture."And it just felt like the time to come back home." 'It's been an awesome ride - I never want it to end' Somewhat unexpectedly for Martin, the first two seasons after his return were trophyless for in January 2025 the Devils won their first European title - the IIHF Continental Cup. "That was the third year in a row of us being in that competition and I felt in the years prior we had a good chance to win it but let it slip," Martin said."I think we were just laser focused this year and it was a huge deal not just for us players, all the fans and all the people in the organisation."Following that win the Devils' chase for the league title fell away to finish in fourth place having also lost the Challenge Cup final to Belfast Giants in feels the extra games played competing in the Continental Cup, and the squad being blighted by injuries thoughout the season, caught up with them."We were playing three lines it felt like for months, and that's hard to do when you're playing three games a week, back-to-back games on the weekend and injuries keep piling up," he said."We held on for as long as we could but it just came to the point where the wheels fell off. It was tough to be a part of."We're not the only team that goes through this, but we were hit pretty hard by injuries this year."It was a campaign so nearly polished off with the shine of a second peice of in the final game of the season Cardiff lost the Play-Off final in double over-time to Nottingham - a tumultuous final that will not be forgotten soon by Panthers fans and neutrals who witnessed the for the Martin and his Devils team-mates losing that epic final, where they came back from 3-0 down to force over-time, will simply rankle forever."We were stunned for a few days to be honest, it's still hard to reflect on because we were so close to winning a trophy that I think this group deserved," reflects Martin."I think losing that Play-Off final ignited something in me that I just wanted to sign back to get another chance to win another trophy."I'm very proud of what we've done here over the years, a lot of success, a lot of good times, a lot of hard work, but I feel that we're not done yet."We need to have some more trophies; we need to create some more memories and hopefully we can do that."If you look at where the game has taken me, I feel fortunate, it's been an awesome ride. I never want it to end."
