Springfield, Illinois – While a majority of our alumni are still waiting for their seasons to begin, we’ve seen a wave of big performances from former players in the NCAA and Europe so far! We’ll discuss our player spotlights and more in this week’s Alumni Report!
We start our Alumni Report today at Ferris State University where Ethan Stewart had a strong performance in the Bulldogs weekend series against Western Michigan. Stewart, a senior from Rockford, IL who was named a Captain before the season, scored two goals in Saturday night’s game as he now shares the team lead in goals. Stewart has recorded 18 points (8 goals, 10 assists) in 48 career games for the Bulldogs and is teammates with fellow alum Bradley Marek, who earned Rookie of the Week honors last week.
From Big Rapids, MI to Hamden, CT, our next alumni spotlight is on Quinnipiac forward TJ Friedmann. Friedmann tallied two goals on Saturday night in the Bobcat’s loss to Northeastern as he begins his senior campaign. The St. Louis, MO native is currently the lone Jr. Blues alum on the Quinnipiac roster and has recorded 9 goals and 6 assists in 90 career games. Friedmann will look to help build on the ECAC League Title that the Bobcats won in the 2020-21 season.
Our next stop takes us to Kiruna, Sweden as we check in on how Latvian forward Ricards Bernhards is doing in HockeyEttan, a professional league in Sweden formerly known as Division 1. Bernhards plays for Kiruna AIF and had a phenomenal weekend, notching a Hat Trick and an assist in their 8-2 victory over Ornskoldsvik on Saturday and then followed up that performance by scoring the game-winning goal in shootouts on Sunday in their 2-1 victory over Tegs. In 4 games this season Bernhards has 5 goals and 2 assists, and overall since turning pro he has appeared in 171 games and scored 56 goals and 70 assists between Latvia, HockeyEttan, and the MHL. He is a two-time Latvian Silver Medal winner and a one-time Latvian Bronze winner.
The final spotlight for this week’s Alumni Report is on HC Davos netminder Sandro Aeschlimann. The native of Zaziwil, Switzerland has been a consistent force in net for Davos for the past two seasons and has started the 2021-22 campaign off on the right foot. Aeschlimann rattled off two outstanding showings this past week against Lugano and Ajole. In Friday night’s game against Lugano he stopped 26 of 28 shots and on Saturday turned aside 44 of 45 shots from Ajole to improve his record to 3-1-0 with a 1.62 GAA and a .949 SV% with 1 shutout. Overall in six professional seasons in the NL in Switzerland he has compiled a 46-21-3 with a 2.63 GAA, .916 SV%, and 4 shutouts.
But these aren’t the only Alumni who represented the shield proudly this past weekend. Here’s a quick look at what other alum were up to!
Dryden McKay 1-1-0, 1 SO (Ties NCAA Record for Most Shutouts) Minnesota-Mankato NCAA
Brandon Puricelli 1 G, 1 A Lake Superior State NCAA
Mike Robinson 2-0-0, New Hampshire NCAA
Matthew Cassidy 1 A Ohio State NCAA
Kevin Klima 1 A HK Hradec Kralove Czech
Lukas Kucera 1 G, 1 A HC Stadion Vrchlabi Czech2
Josh Lammon 2 G Cardiff Devils EIHL
Martin Liljekvist 2 A Tegs SK HockeyEttan
Radim Matus 2 A Orli Znojmo ICEHL
Les Lancaster 1 G Ilves Liiga
Juraj Ovecka 1-1-0 HK Brezno Slovakia2
Mason McCormick 1 A Waterloo Black Hawks USHL
