updated Dec. 23, 09:30 ET
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … As the men’s hockey tournament gets underway today at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, 114 American Hockey League graduates are set to represent their countries in Turin, Italy.
Participants include 24 former American Hockey League All-Stars, among them 2005 Calder Cup champions Antero Niittymaki (Finland) and Dennis Seidenberg (Germany) and NHL All-Stars Martin St. Louis (Canada), Zdeno Chara (Slovakia), Pavol Demitra (Slovakia), Patrik Elias (Czech Republic), Tomas Vokoun (Czech Republic) and Mattias Norstrom (Sweden). Other former AHL All-Stars taking part in the tournament include Vaclav Prospal (Czech Republic), Rick DiPietro (USA), Jay Bouwmeester (Canada) and Tomas Surovy (Slovakia).
Current AHL players participating in Turin include 2006 AHL All-Star goaltender Vitaly Kolesnik of the Lowell Lock Monsters (Kazakhstan) and Albany River Rats defenseman Krisjanis Redlihs (Latvia). Slovakia’s Surovy (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) and Milan Jurcina (Providence) and Germany’s Michael Hackert (Grand Rapids) also played in the AHL earlier this season.
Olympians Olaf Kolzig (Germany), John Grahame (USA), Sergei Gonchar (Russia), Antti Laaksonen (Finland), Milan Hnilicka (Czech Republic), Tony Tuzzolino (Italy) and Bob Nardella (Italy) are also former Calder Cup champions.
The Slovakian team boasts the most AHL graduates with 15, followed by the United States and the Czech Republic (14 each), Russia (11), Finland (10), Canada (9) and Germany (9). The complete list of alumni follows this release.
AHL experience can be found behind the benches as well, as former AHL All-Star, Calder Cup champion and coach of the year Peter Laviolette serves as head coach for the United States, assisted by AHL alumni Mike Sullivan and Keith Allain. Former AHL head coach Pat Quinn leads the Canadians, with assistance from AHL grads Jacques Martin and Marc Habscheid.
Other notable AHL alumni at the 2006 Olympics will include Martin Brodeur (Canada), Brian Gionta (USA), Doug Weight (USA), Alexei Kovalev (Russia), Evgeni Nabokov (Russia), Marek Svatos (Slovakia), Martin Rucinsky (Czech Republic), Nik Antropov (Kazakhstan), Tomas Holmstrom (Sweden) and David Aebischer (Switzerland).
AHL Alumni on 2006 Olympic Rosters (as of 2/14/06)
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Canada (9)
*Jay Bouwmeester, D Martin Brodeur, G Shane Doan, F Kris Draper, F Adam Foote, D Roberto Luongo, G Robyn Regehr, D *Martin St. Louis, F Ryan Smyth, F Czech Republic (14) Finland (10) Germany (9) |
Italy (7)
Mario Chitaroni, F Jason Cirone, F Tony Iob, F Jason Muzzatti, G Bob Nardella, D John Parco, F Tony Tuzzolino, F Kazakhstan (5) Latvia (7) Russia (11) Slovakia (15) |
Sweden (8)
Christian Backman, D Kenny Jonsson, D Mika Hannula, F Tomas Holmstrom, F *Mattias Norstrom, D Samuel Pahlsson, F Mikael Samuelsson, F Mikael Tellqvist, G Switzerland (7) United States (14) |
*indicates former AHL All-Star
