Four OHL draft picks among the Niagara players on the ice Monday at the Gale Centre, along with a defenceman back from a season in the north with the coach who has just joined the Canucks staff
The Niagara Falls Canucks open training camp Monday afternoon, and at least nine players signed with the team grew up within a half-hour drive of the rink. Several more from the Niagara Region will be on the ice competing for the roster spots that remain.
Between 45 and 50 players are expected at the Gale Centre, with releases to follow Wednesday’s session and three exhibition games at home next weekend.
The roster will carry up to 25 signed players, along with as many as 14 affiliated players.
“When we applied to move up to junior-A in 2023, the whole argument was that a Niagara kid shouldn’t have to leave home to play at this level,” said Brandon Boone, the Canucks’ co-owner and general manager. “Look at who’s walking into our room on Monday. That’s the argument, answered.”
The Canucks remain the only Hockey Canada-sanctioned junior-A team in the Niagara Region. The St. Catharines Falcons, Welland Jr. Canadians, Fort Erie Meteors, Pelham Panthers and Port Colborne Sailors play junior-B in the Greater Ontario Hockey League, and the Niagara RiverHawks and Grimsby Peach Kings play junior-C.
There is a further distinction. The Ontario Junior Hockey League champion advances to the Centennial Cup, the national junior-A championship, the same way the Ontario Hockey League champion advances to the Memorial Cup. Teams at junior-B in Ontario play for the Sutherland Cup, a provincial title. Only two levels of junior hockey in this province finish their season chasing a national championship, and the Canucks play at one of them.
Four picks
Four of the locals arrive with OHL draft credentials.
Defenceman David Greene, 18, of St. Catharines, went in the second round, 31st overall, to the Erie Otters in the 2025 OHL Under-18 Priority Selection and has already played a game for Erie. The five-foot-11, 205-pounder is the heaviest of the four.
Forward Will Fyfe, 18, of Niagara Falls, went 46th overall to the Niagara IceDogs in the same draft and is the tallest at six-foot-two, 190 pounds.
Forward Justin Flora, 17, of St. Catharines, was taken 172nd overall by the IceDogs in the OHL Priority Selection and had 43 points in 41 games with the Welland Jr. Canadians last season. The youngest is Jacob Greene, David’s 16-year-old brother, drafted 181st overall by the Brantford Bulldogs this spring after a 52-point season in 30 games with the Niagara North Stars U16 AAA. Both are listed at five-foot-eight and 160 pounds.
And five more from home
Ethan Abraham, 17, of Virgil, is a five-foot-10, 190-pound forward and defenceman who came up through the Niagara-on-the-Lake Wolves and holds both Canadian and American citizenship.
The other four are returning to Niagara. Defenceman Lucas Nelson, 17, of Welland, five-foot-11 and 170 pounds, spent the past two seasons with the Wisconsin Rapids Riverkings. Forward Marshall Petersen, 19, of Niagara Falls, five-foot-10 and 172 pounds, passed through New Hampshire and New Jersey. Forward Alex Bedic, 17, also of Niagara Falls and listed at six-foot-one and 185 pounds, played last season with the Iroquois Falls Storm, an eight-hour drive north.
Defenceman Dylan Orr made a longer trip still. The six-foot-two, 175-pound 20-year-old from Niagara Falls left the Canucks in October to join the Sioux Lookout Bombers of the Superior International Junior Hockey League, where the head coach was Carson Johnstone, a Niagara Falls product who has since been hired as a Canucks assistant. Both are back in the same building this week.
“I’m always proud to bring local players home,” Boone said. “They’ve played in different leagues, in some cases different provinces and countries. Now they get to play in front of the people who watched them grow up.”
The returners
David Greene and Orr are not the only players back from last season’s roster.
Forward Eric Bründl-Pandzich, 19, returns for a second season. The six-foot-three, 205-pound Vienna native came up through the St. Pölten Tigers and played in Austria’s top junior league before arriving in Niagara Falls, where he skated in all 52 games last year.
Also back are defenceman Nicolas Glanville, 19, six-foot-two and 196 pounds, of St. Thomas, and two Toronto forwards, Tim Marcotte, 20, five-foot-10 and 181 pounds, and CJ Irwin, 20, six-foot-one and 172 pounds.
From farther afield
Two more have signed from outside Canada.
Michael Lewandowski, 17, of Grand Island, New York, is a six-foot-one, 175-pound centre and left winger born in Buffalo who holds dual Brazilian and American citizenship. Elite Prospects lists him as a playmaker and a power forward.
Cross-border rosters are nothing unusual in this league. The Buffalo Jr. Sabres are an OJHL member team, and they visit the Gale Centre a week from Sunday.
Rafek Dianov, 19, of Moscow, is a five-foot-11, 187-pound forward the IceDogs took in the 13th round, 243rd overall, of the 2023 OHL Priority Selection. He scored in his OHL debut against the Brantford Bulldogs while serving as an affiliate player, and spent last season in Iroquois Falls alongside Bedic.
A rule book that looks more like the OHL’s
The OJHL unveiled a new brand identity on August 8.
Both the OJHL and the GOHL are adopting modified versions of the OHL rule book this season, but they have split on the most visible change. The OJHL will permit half-visors for players 18 and older, as the international game does. The GOHL will not.
The OJHL also unveiled a new brand on August 8, adopting the line “Made for More.”
The league reported more than 135 commitments in 2024-25, including 54 to NCAA Division I and 29 to the OHL, and had 39 affiliate players appear in 152 OHL games. It says 38 of its alumni are currently on NHL rosters, more than any other league in the Canadian Junior Hockey League.
Behind the bench
Co-owner and head coach Frank Pietrangelo, who won a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991, has two new assistants.
Johnstone spent four seasons as head coach at Sioux Lookout, taking over the expansion team in 2022 and, in 2023-24, being named the league’s coach of the year and leading the Bombers to the Bill Salonen Cup and on to the Centennial Cup. He is the son of Chris Johnstone, a former OHL head coach with the Niagara Falls Thunder and a former Canucks assistant. He will now coach the team his father once did.
Scott Lisko joins after years coaching AAA in the region with the Niagara North Stars and the Southern Tier Admirals, where he has been U18 head coach. Fyfe is among his former players.
Off the ice from the first day
House of Greatness is the Canucks’ official high-performance partner.
The Canucks have named House of Greatness, the training facility in St. Catharines, their official high-performance partner, and the partnership begins before the first puck drops.
Nate Mitton, the facility’s director of performance and a strength and conditioning coach with the NHL’s Florida Panthers, will address camp attendees and run a dynamic warm-up at the Gale Centre on Monday at 2:30 p.m., two hours before the first session. Players then report to House of Greatness on Tuesday and Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. for an off-ice warm-up and workout before heading to the rink.
“Our players will do their strength work under a man who does the same job in the National Hockey League,” Boone said. “And they start on day one, not in November.”
Getting to work
Camp sessions run from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, August 17 through Wednesday, August 19, with a practice for those still on the roster Thursday, August 20.
The Canucks then host three exhibition games at the Gale Centre: Friday, August 21 against the Mississauga Chargers at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, August 22 against the Georgetown Raiders at 6:30 p.m.; and Sunday, August 23 against the Buffalo Jr. Sabres at 3:30 p.m.
Niagara Falls then opens the season for the entire league. The league schedule begins Thursday, September 3, with a single game — the Canucks at the Oakville Blades, 7 p.m. The home opener follows the next night, Friday, September 4, at 7 p.m. at the Gale Centre, against the Caledon Admirals.
The Gale Centre also hosts the OJHL’s Governor’s Showcase, presented by MilkUP, from October 5 to 7, when all 24 teams play two games apiece in front of scouts from the NHL, CHL, NCAA and U SPORTS. The league runs that event and sells the tickets itself: admission is a $20 day pass at the Main Rink entry, and the two Canucks games there are not covered by a season ticket.
“We open the league’s season,” Pietrangelo said. “One game on the schedule that night, and it’s ours. That’s not a bad way to start.”
Tickets for the three exhibition games are sold at the Gale Centre box office, which opens an hour before each game. Admission is $15 for adults and $10 for seniors and students, cash only. Children five and under are free.
Season tickets cover all 27 regular season home games and are $350 for adults, a saving of $55, and $220 for seniors and students, a saving of $50. Children five and under are free all season.
