Acadia Alumnus Russ Moyer is back across the pond for another year of hockey. This season Russ will be suiting up for Karlskrona HK of the Allsvenskan hockey league in Sweden. The Allsvenskan league is the second highest level of hockey in Sweden and consists of 14 teams playing a 52 game regular season.
The former Acadia University defenceman, known for his offensive prowess, was an Axemen from 2003-2007, winning an AUS championship with the Axemen in 2006. Following his time with Acadia, Moyer played in the IHL, AHL, and CHL with North American teams before moving overseas to play in Denmark and in the Swedish Division 1 league, before playing last season in the Allsvenskan with current rival Oskarshamn.
Here is an interview Russ did this month after a preseason game.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is designed to raise awareness of ALS, also knows as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Coach Burns has nominated former Axemen and current Kingston Frontenacs Head Coach Paul McFarland, current Axemen caption Liam Heelis, and CBC’s Don Cherry! Read more »
Published on August 12, 2014 in Newfoundland’s paper The Telegram
St. John’s native and AUS all-star will attend AHL team’s training camp
Chris Owens is ready for the next step in his hockey career. The 24-year-old St. John’s native who helped the Acadia Axemen win the AUS championship in his final year of university hockey, has been invited to the American Hockey League’s St. John’s IceCaps training camp, scheduled for Sept. 28-29 at Mile One Centre.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Owens said Monday. “I grew up here, so it’s cool to get a shot with a professional team at home.”
Owens said top-notch conditioning is a priority with him and he’s been working out all summer to be in the best shape possible.
“You need to be ready to compete,” said the 5-10, 190 pound defenceman who was a first-team conference all-star last season
Busy times
He’s also helping out at four Newfoundland and Labrador hockey schools, including the Danny Cleary Hockey School at Jack Byrne Arena and the Atlantic Ice Warriors Hockey School in Clarenville, both running this month.
Owens says he brings “a pretty good offensive upside and strong defensive game” to the table for those teams interested in his services.
“I’m smart with the puck and I make a pretty good first pass,” he added.
Owens had 31 points (nine goals, 22 assists) in 28 games with the Axemen last season and averaged almost a point per game in his four years at Acadia with 104 points (30 goals, 74 assists) in 109 games.Read more »
Regina, Saskatchewan – As the Regina Pats move ever closer to the 2014-15 season, three members of last year’s squad look to take the next steps in their hockey careers. Dyson Stevenson, Boston Leier and Jesse Zgraggen were the Pats’ three overage players in the 2013-14 season. All three continue their hockey careers in the upcoming year, all following different paths. Stevenson plays his first season of professional hockey with the AHL’s Portland Pirates, Leier heads to Acadia University to suit up for the Axemen in the CIS and Zgraggen ventures across the Atlantic to play for Ambri-Piotta in the Swiss Elite League.
For Boston Leier, the decision to head east and play for Acadia while attending school came from a desire to find new challenges and a different environment.
“Me and a friend of mine went on a recruiting trip out there and it’s a pretty exciting place,” said Leier. “Everyone there is a pretty tight knit family and it just seemed like the kind of place I wanted to be. I really wanted to experience something different. It’s not every day something like that comes up and I wanted to take advantage of it while I could.”
Of course it didn’t hurt that Leier’s coach for the 2013-14 season, Malcolm Cameron, is an alumni of the Axemen.
“Malcolm talked about (Acadia) very highly and he was a good influence on (choosing Acadia) too. Obviously I made my own decisions though. I know the athletic director out there pretty well, he’s a good family friend of ours. He said he thought it was a very good fit for me.”
As with anything in life, moving to a new stage of a hockey career presents new challenges. All three players, face different hurdles to overcome on and off the ice with their new teams and leagues.Read more »
Acadia Hockey & Atlantic Hockey Group Partner to Present Specialized Camp
The participants of the POE Under 14 specialized Acadia hockey camp in partnership with the Atlantic Hockey Group
This past weekend, August 8-10th, the Acadia University Axemen men’s hockey team partnered with the Atlantic Hockey Group to present a specialized POE Prep Hockey Camp, for the Under 14, 2002 birth dates at the Acadia Arena in Wolfville.
The weekend was a great success with over 25 participants learning from Axemen coaches, players, and Atlantic Hockey Group instructors. The kids had the opportunity to experience the expertise of Acadia University’s world class Kinesiology department as well as the strength and conditioning leadership of Elliott Richardson. Goaltenders had specialized learning from Axemen Assistant Coach, & former QMJHL and Acadia goalie Michael Chiasson.
Acadia Axemen Coach Darren Burns had the following to say about the camp, “It was a tremendous weekend of hockey and a great experience for the kids. It was not an easy weekend as the kids had three practices and four games in three days.”
The newly formed partnership with the Atlantic Hockey Group allows the Acadia hockey camp program to utilize the Atlantic Group’s professionalism, experienced and well respected coaches along with Acadia’s university players to bring in the top aspiring players in Atlantic Canada at this age level.
Burns concluded, “It is important on so many levels for kids in our Atlantic region to play with and against each other. It will only help them improve their game. It was a great success and we will begin planning futures events like this one right away.”
The Acadia Axemen hockey program would like to wish our congratulations to Maggie Burbidge of Falmouth, who has been named to the Under 18 Nova Scotia Female Hockey team for 2014-15.
Maggie Burbidge
Maggie, who is currently just 13 years old until mid-January, has played her minor hockey with the Acadia Axemen minor hockey program. She was named to the team in a posted letter from the Hockey Nova Scotia’s High Performance Development Committee on the Hockey Nova Scotia website.
Last season, Burbidge was a member of the Acadia Peewee AAA hockey team, and attended school at Newbridge Academy in Lower Sackville, where she was enrolled in the advanced hockey program.
Topping the year off, Maggie was selected to the East Coast Selects Q team, composed of girls from the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and the eastern U.S., from Maine to New York State, competing in the World Selects Invitational tournament in Finland. Maggie is the daughter of Jeff & Alana Burbidge.
Acadia Axemen head coach Darren Burns had the following to say, “It has been an absolute pleasure to watch what Maggie has done so far in her young career. She is a tremendous role model for the players in the valley on, and off the ice.”
Burns who coached Burbidge last year with her Peewee AAA team added, “We are extremely proud of her accomplishments and Acadia Hockey looks forward to following her for years to come.”
Brette Pettet
Also named to the team was Kentville native Brette Pettet, who finished last season on the Team Atlantic Canada under 18 team, while playing the rest of the season with Minnesota Prep School, Shattuck St. Mary’s. Brette is just 15 years of age, and was a big part of Shattuck St. Mary’s U.S. national U-16 Tier 1 girls’ hockey championship win in 2013. At the time, she was the only Grade 8 student on a team made up mostly of Grade 9 to 11s.
Congratulations to both Maggie and Brette on this outstanding achievement.
Former Acadia coach helped guide tiny nation Latvia to successful Olympics
Halifax native Tom Coolen, an assistant coach with Latvia, draws up a play on the bench during a third-period timeout in his team’s Olympic hockey quarter-final against Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia on Wednesday. (MARK HUMPHREY / CP)
Tom Coolen has climbed from the AUS to the NHL.
The former Acadia Axemen hockey coach was named one of four assistants to Buffalo Sabres’ head coach Ted Nolan earlier this week.
The Sabres announced Aug. 4 he would join Nolan’s staff in Buffalo, along with Bryan Trottier, Danny Flynn and goaltending coach Arturs Irb.
Coolen, 60, was born and raised in Halifax and is best known around Nova Scotia for building an AUS dynasty at Acadia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He guided the Axemen to their first-ever national hockey championship in 1993 and you could even go so far as to say he helped raise the profile of the entire conference on the CIS landscape.
Acadia University athletics have rich history and a longstanding winning tradition in each respective program. High quality facilities as well as tremendous local fan support help make an Acadia afternoon on the turf, or evening in the rink unbeatable. The man at the helm of Acadia’s athletic prowess is athletic director, Kevin Dickie.
Dickie started as athletic director at the University of New Brunswick in 2005, before returning to Acadia in 2011. Dickie had prior coached a very successful Axemen hockey team for three years beginning in 1997. He led the team to three consecutive AUS (Atlantic University Sport) hockey conference final appearances and to the CIS championship game in 1998. “Acadia’s National reputation drew me to Acadia originally, and the chance to coach one of the best hockey programs in Canada,” Kevin says. “What drew us back to Wolfville was the community and the leadership on Acadia’s campus.”
With big upgrades coming to the athletics complex this summer, Dickie said, “The upgrade in our facilities, thanks to the McCain Family, will do three things; help us be a national program as facilities are that important. It will also help us attract future partnerships to improve other areas of our facility, as well as enhance campus life for both our students and community.”Read more »
Acadia Axemen alumnus goaltender Kristofer Westblom will be playing overseas this season (2014-15) for Les Rapaces de Gap of the Magnus League in France.
Westblom spent last season with the Central Hockey League’s Brampton Beast after spending the past 2 seasons with the Dayton Gems and Fort Worth Brahmas, also of the CHL.
Westblom spent 3 seasons playing for the Axemen from 2008-11, including 62 regualr season games, amassing a 34-27 record. Westblom (class of 2011) was the 2010-11 Atlantic Conference recipient of the Godfrey Award. The Godfrey Award, named after Dr. Bill Godfrey, is given annually to the player who best represents the spirit of intercollegiate hockey by his leadership both on and off the ice and by his conduct throughout the season.
Kris was named to the AUS first team all stars in the 2009-10 season, and was also named to the AUS All-Rookie team in 2008-09.
Prior to playing for Acadia University, Kristofer was a standout goalie in the Western Hockey Junior League for the Kelowna Rockets. He was drafted in the 2005 NHL Amateur draft, in the third round, 65th overall by the Minnesota Wild.
The Quad City Mallards today announced they have re-signed forward Justin Fox and have signed goaltender Evan Mosher.
Mosher, a 23-year old rookie, is fresh off a standout junior season at Acadia University in Wolfsville, Nova Scotia. Mosher was named to the 2013-14 All-Canadian second team after going 17-5-0 in 22 games to finish tied for first in in the nation in wins in addition to finishing fifth in goals against average (2.12), seventh in minutes played (1358:42) and tenth in save percentage (.919). The Conception Bay, Newfoundland, product backstopped the Axemen to the Atlantic University Sport conference playoff title and a berth in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport University Cup national tournament.
“Evan is a very good young goaltender who had a great year in college hockey last season,” said Ruskowski. “He’s an exciting prospect and has had a lot of success both in junior and at Acadia and has the potential to make the next step.”
The 6’ 0”, 186-pound Mosher went 32-19-0 In 52 career games at Acadia while posting a 2.64 goals against average and a .902 save percentage along with a pair of shutouts.
Mosher moved on to Acadia after tending goal for all or part of five seasons with the Prince Edward Island Rocket of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. In 117 career QMJHL games, Mosher went 50-57-0 while turning in a 3.17 goals against average, a .907 save percentage and three shutouts. In 2010-11, Mosher completed his junior career in style by leading the “Q” in minutes played (3266:38) and total saves (1694) and finishing second in save percentage (.918), eighth in goals against average (2.19), tied for eighth in shutouts (2) and ninth in wins while going 25-22-3 in 57 games.
Acadia Alumnus Russ Moyer is back across the pond for another year of hockey. This season Russ will be suiting up for Karlskrona HK of the Allsvenskan hockey league in Sweden. The Allsvenskan league is the second highest level of hockey in Sweden and consists of 14 teams playing a 52 game regular season.
