ON AIR

Maumee, OH native Ben Schoen is entering his third season with the Youngstown Phantoms of the United States Hockey League. He recently signed with Penn State with the intention of playing for the Nittany Lions in the Big 10 next season.

Chagrin Falls, OH native Curtis Hall played for the Cleveland Barons and Youngstown Phantoms, making the U.S. World Junior team and getting drafted by the Boston Bruins before heading to Yale University.

COVID-related cancelations and conference re-alignments are among the topics we cover in our timely conversation with College Hockey News managing editor Adam Wodon. We also check in with Miami University head coach Chris Bergeron to talk about the state of the re-build in Oxford.

Team Ohio U18 + U16 Recap

Cover high school sports for 20+ years and you accumulate some stories. Chris Lillstrung shares some from his time at The News-Herald where he has watched all of the top players and teams on the East Side of Cleveland for more than two decades. The award-winning scribe talks about the biggest games he witnessed in person, the top rinks and concession stands in the area, and some of the more outrageous interactions he had with parents over the years.

Amateur hockey. Professional results. Erik Cagnina has developed a platform that allows game events to be tracked by a team volunteer in real-time and process them to generate reports, integrated with video, to help teams improve play and develop players. Athletic Performance Insight (www.athleticperformanceinsight.com) is a powerful tool that can help coaches at any level.

Cleveland native and NHL Network analyst Mike Rupp reflects on his 14 years in the NHL and a few of the crossroads that almost derailed his career before he was able to make his NHL debut, earn that second game, and eventually score the Stanley Cup clinching goal for the New Jersey Devils in Game 7 of the 2003 Stanley Cup Final. He also shares some thoughts on developing young players including the fact that you need time away from hockey!

Former NHL defenseman Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre recalls being a part of the Columbus Blue Jackets expansion team, playing professionally in Europe later in his career, the never-ending search for good Poutine, and how he transitioned into the media with FOX Sports Ohio. He also shares some thoughts on recent Columbus moves in the NHL Entry Draft and free agency.

Ty Eigner is a 1993 graduate of BGSU who spent the nine years as an assistant coach for the Falcons before being named head coach in April of 2019. Eigner has accumulated almost 25 years of coaching and administrative experience, playing three years at the professional level. In his first season at the helm of the Falcons, Eigner pushed Bowling Green to a 21-13-4 record, marking the team's sixth consecutive 20-win season. Eigner served as Bowling Green’s captain for the 1992-93 season, and was a member of the program’s last two NCAA tournament teams prior to the 2018-19 season.

Enrico Blasi was the head coach at Miami University for 20 seasons, forging "The Brotherhood" and making the Redhawks perennial NCAA contenders. Blasi took over the reins at his alma mater in 1999 as the youngest head coach in Division I hockey and earned 2010 College Hockey News National Coach of the Year honors, the 2006 Spencer Penrose Award from the American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) for National Coach of the Year, and five CCHA Coach of the Year Awards as the team qualified for the NCAA Tournament 10 times in a 15-year span, captured three regular season and two conference tournament crowns and appeared in two NCAA Frozen Fours.

Entrepreneurs Jarred and Brandon Smith both played at Gilmour Academy before moving on to play college hockey at Brown and Miami, respectively. While playing in the pros for a few seasons. While they were still playing, they started experimenting with making their own sports drink. That became their full-time job as they co-founded NOOMA (www.drinknooma.com) and developed all-natural sports drinks.

John Haferman is the Executive Director of Columbus Ice Hockey Club and the Director of Hockey for the City of Columbus Recreation and Parks Department and 2020 Finalist for the NHL's Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award. John has spent over 30 years serving the City of Columbus and growing the game of hockey via the 28 rec centers operated by the City. In 1999, he co-founded Columbus Ice Hockey Club to grow the game of hockey among the city's diverse population and exposing over 5,000 kids per year to skating and hockey. CIHC has been able to provide over $300,000 in scholarships to help keep hockey affordable to its members.

Hockey playing brothers Freddy and Charlie Gerard of Rocky River both rose through the ranks of the Cleveland Barons AAA program on their way to junior hockey in the USHL, and eventually, four-year NCAA Division I careers at Minnesota State and Ohio State, respectively. Now, as they embark on their pro careers, they are also developing their own apparel line, boom boom tuck. (www.boomboomtuck.com).

Team Ohio general manager and U18 head coach Patrick Metzger goes back into the history of the program and details its evolution from a showcase tournament team to split-season, and now a program that offers full-season AA youth teams. He talks about some of the great players who have come through the program over the years and re-lives the near misses at the national tournament that eventually led to a national championship in 2019.

Sylvania Northview head coach Steve Elliott provides a common thread through the storied program, having served as a long-time assistant under Jim Cooper, and then Mike Jones, before ascending to the head coaching position in 2016. Steve reflects on some of the big games he has been a part of in Northview history, the Wildcats' trademark physical brand of hockey, and shares some thoughts on ways the game could be improved for kids in Ohio.