Full Steam Ahead in Mentor
Ice Breakers moving forward on, off the ice amid pandemic
MENTOR, OH --- Although the NHL managed to pull off a truncated season this summer and fall the hockey world, at least in North America, has for the most part ground to a halt during the month of October – a time when it is usually just starting to fire on all cylinders.
The Tier III United States Premier Hockey League, with five franchises in the Ohio Hockey Digest coverage area, is underway and we all have our fingers crossed that high school hockey will start around Thanksgiving in some way, shape or form. Despite those positive developments many college, junior and pro teams and leagues have pushed back their start dates into 2021 or, in some cases, even started to cancel their seasons all together due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The NHL won’t start back up until January at the earliest and, after the league cancelled the Winter Classic and All-Star Game last week, worry is starting to creep in that we might be looking at a start date deeper in 2021.
And we still don’t know the fate of the American Hockey League season.
Amidst all this uncertainty, however, eight members of the Federal Prospects Hockey League – including the Mentor Ice Breakers – are pushing forward with plans to open their season in mid-December and give hockey fans in Ohio something to cheer for.
Ice Breakers head coach Sebastian Ragno says players should arrive the first week in December with the team’s Main Camp kicking off that weekend.
“The players should be reporting on the first or second (of December),” Ragno said. “We will start camp on either the third or the fourth depending where we will be for our first game.”
Mentor is scheduled to play their season opener on December 18. They still don’t know if that game will be played at home or on the road, but Mentor Civic Arena has been a hive of activity in recent weeks.
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FREE AGENT CAMP
Thirty-five players attended a free agent camp October 9-11 which included a scrimmage that was open to the public. A handful of players used that opportunity to make an impression on Ragno and secure an invitation to Main Camp. That list includes: forwards Sam Holeczy and Bek Tolepbergen (who scored four goals in the scrimmage), defensemen Ned Simpson (Jamestown University ACHA) and Owen Frizalone, and goaltender Breandan Colgan (West Chester University ACHA).
Holeczy was clearly one of the best players on the ice and Tolepbergen scored four times. All five players have accepted the invitations and are expected to be in attendance at Main Camp.
CONWAY TRADE
The Ice Breakers had a major asset on the roster for the first two years of the franchise in Painesville native Declan Conway. Not only did he produce on the ice, leading the team in goals (29) and points (52) in just 39 games last year, he gave the team a homegrown star to market.
On October 19 Ragno, saying he felt the need to “shake things up”, dealt Conway for a pair of players. Seeing the franchise all-time leading scorer traded away might sting a bit for Mentor fans. To make matters worse Conway was dealt to the top team in the league the last two years – the Carolina Thunderbirds.
Painesville's Declan Conway
The 24-year-old former Lake Catholic and John Carroll University sniper appreciated being able to start his pro career so close to home.
“It was perfect,” said Conway. “I was taking some time off from school and Mentor started a team and it gave me an opportunity to do something new.”
Although he will be leaving his family and friends in Lake County, going to the Thunderbirds represents a great opportunity.
“I definitely want to start a new chapter in my life and Carolina is a great place to do that,” he said. “they have a great team there and I’m excited to get started.”
Top-six forward Daniel Martin and rough-and-tumble defenseman Jason Stone came over from the Thunderbirds in the deal. Martin has a 59-point season in the FPHL to his credit with Danville in 2018-19 and potted 17 goals for the T-birds a year ago.
Stone made his pro debut in the FPHL with Battle Creek last year and brings some physicality to the table - something Ragno said was missing. He racked up 251 penalty minutes in just 36 games while playing junior hockey in Ontario in 2016-17.
ORTIZ SIGNING
Why would the team trade away their top scorer? Well, on the heels of the Conway trade, the team announced the signing of veteran forward Marcus Ortiz. Ortiz, 28, has experience at higher levels of pro hockey in the ECHL and Southern Professional Hockey League. He is expected to be an impact player and supplant Conway on the top line.
If he can replace or surpass Conway’s production, albeit from the opposite wing, then the two players added from Carolina in the trade serve to make the Ice Breakers that much deeper.
Marcus Ortiz with the SPHL's Knoxville Bears
LOCAL TALENT
Despite the team dealing away Conway, there is still some local talent on the roster to cheer for.
Forward Blake Naida (Benedictine/Cleveland Jr. Jacks AAA), Canton native Tyler Houmard and blue liner Dom Horvath (Toledo St. John’s) all saw action with the Ice Breakers last year and are expected at Main Camp.
Houmard moved all around the Ohio hockey ecosystem coming up. He played for the Cleveland Barons, Cleveland Jr. Jacks, Ohio AAA Blue Jackets, Wooster Oilers and Kent State University before getting into five games with the Ice Breakers last season.
Former Benedictine Bengal Blake Naida
He has played defense in the past, but looked great up front playing alongside Holeczy at the free agent camp where he scored three goals and set up two more.
Avon native Alex Mitsionis (Cleveland Jr. Jacks AAA/Wooster Oilers USPHL) was signed to a Standard Player Contract (SPC) earlier this summer after playing professionally in Sweden the last three years.
From elsewhere in the Ohio Hockey Digest coverage area is forward Isaiah Crawford, who played ACHA hockey at Mercyhurst.
CLOUSTON, PERKS JOIN RETURNING CAST
The same day as the Ortiz announcement came news that puck-moving defenseman Vaughn Clouston had been re-acquired from the Columbus (GA) River Dragons for financial considerations and forward Tim Perks was returning to Mentor from the expansion Motor City Rockers, who decided to delay their entry into the league until 2021-22.
Clouston and Perks will both be back for their third season in Mentor. They will join eight other veteran Ice Breakers who came back to town to skate at the free agent camp. That group gives Ragno a decent number of familiar faces to choose from when assembling his 2020-21 roster.
Vaughn Clouston with the Columbus River Dragons
Only eight players – forwards Ortiz, Mitsionis, Naida, Henry Berger, Kristers Bormanis and (player/coach) Josh Newberg, defenseman William Sandstrom and goaltender Jake Mullen – are under SPCs at this time. The rest will have to hold off challengers for their spots and that may be no small task this year.
The Federal League is expected to benefit from two teams in the ECHL and five in the SPHL opting out of the 2020-21 season, as well as the FPHL’s own Delaware and Motor City franchises taking a year off. That’s nine teams, which means there will be close to 200 players without a spot at higher levels of pro hockey. That could create a significant trickle-down effect and make additional talent available to franchises in the FPHL.
Ortiz is the first example of that, but he might not be the last.
“It’s starting to happen,” Ragno said of surplus talent becoming available from other leagues. “It will hit full effect once the ECHL makes any more announcements of teams dropping.”
Keeping an eye on the transactions from around the minor leagues in recent weeks, Ragno says he has seen a few SPHL goalies sign with FPHL teams, as well as some players that were expecting to have opportunities to play in Europe this year.
Hockey fans in Northeast Ohio will be the beneficiaries of that as the level of play should be raised league-wide and make for a more entertaining on-ice product.
DISPERSAL DRAFT
The FPHL held a dispersal draft for players under contract to the Motor City and Delaware franchises and the Ice Breakers used the opportunity to snag four players, including 22-year-old Russian sniper Anton Kalinin, who scored 25 goals in just 32 FPHL games last season.
Also picked off the Delaware roster was forward Thomas Munichiello. Munichiello played four seasons for NCAA Division III Babson College in Boston before notching 30 points (12-18-30) in 43 games as a rookie with the Thunder.
The Ice Breakers also picked up a pair of blue liners: J. C. Moritz and Nick Trefry.
Anton Kalinin with the Delaware Thunder
Moritz is a 6’4”, 205-pounder that played NCAA Division III hockey at Neumann College before spending a year playing professionally in Slovakia.
Trefry is another big defenseman, coming in at 6’3” and 230 pounds. He also played NCAA DIII (Northland College) before transferring to Indiana Tech and finishing out his college career with two seasons on their ACHA team.
The addition of four rostered players from other teams in the league adds to the depth of talent expected at Main Camp, which is scheduled to open the first week of December. Ragno is expecting 30-35 players to report.
ARENA UPGRADES
Upgrades to 38-year-old Mentor Civic Arena were made over the summer, including a new bleacher system. The building’s original metal bleachers from 1982 were replaced by more comfortable individual seating that also increased capacity to around 850.
The Founders Room and a second corporate loge bring the maximum capacity for an Ice Breakers game to just over 1,000 fans.
Mentor is still playing in the smallest building in the Federal League, which is not ideal when it comes to generating revenue, but with the new bleachers and the premium seating options the Ice Breakers are still able to provide a quality fan experience.
Although the official schedule is still being finalized, the team is collecting deposits for season ticket packages that offer discounts on an expected 23 home dates.
Go to www.mentoricebreakers.com or call (440) 391-3050 for more information on tickets and corporate sponsorship opportunities.
--- Scott Harrington for Ohio Hockey Digest
