It’s a busy week around the Ontario Hockey League as training camps are in full swing and teams prepare for exhibition openers this weekend.
In Guelph, local product Nic Sicoly is not among the players in camp with the Storm this week.
With 26 forwards in training camp, the Storm will look for another opportunity for the 19-year-old, according to General Manager/Coach George Burnett.
“He was extremely mature about it and understood that we had signed a lot of young forwards and we came to an understanding,” Burnett told GuelphToday earlier this week.
Sicoly played two full seasons with the Storm, including 66 games in 2016-17 where he recorded two goals and 11 points. In 134 career games with the Storm, Sicoly scored 10 goals and 24 points.
Drafted by the Storm in 2014, Sicoly joined the team after scoring 18 goals and 53 points in 50 games with the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Soo Thunderbirds in 2014-15.
In Windsor, the status of potential overage netminder Mario Culina is up in the air.
Prior to the opening of training camp, Windsor Star reporter Jim Parker reported that Culina could be joining the Ryerson Rams and playing Ontario University Athletics hockey.
Windsor was expected to start the season with returnee Michael DiPietro as the incumbent starter and Brock Baier competing with Lucas Patton competing for the backup spot.
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A great story out of the London Knights training camp this week as 18-year-old Jacob Buch is battling for a spot on the Knights roster for this season.
That may not sound any different than any other teenager in any other OHL training camp but Buch is looking to earn that spot after missing a full season due to Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
After being drafted by the Knights in the fifth round of the 2014 OHL Priority Selection and had signed with the club in the summer of 2014.
Midway through the 2014-15 season, Buch began having back issues before further complications and testing led to the diagnosis. He would eventually miss the entire 2015-16 season.
He split the 2016-17 season with the Thorold Blackhawks and Elmira Sugar Kings of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League.