What were you doing in the summer of 2013? Were you creating your first player in the SHL? Then this article might be about you!

The Calgary Dragons drafted 3 players yesterday in the S55 SHL Draft. One is myself but the other two are interesting as they both started out their SHL careers 40 seasons ago in S15! I don't know either of them personally so I thought I would do a quick look into their past.

First up the Dragons selected RD - Chris Goodname (@kikish18) 9th overall.


Art by kikish18 - his old sig shop click here



His first player has a few names in Bojobox due to some special characters but it seems like he settled on Kriss Labsvards (Krišs Labsvārds). Kriss was a Latvian defenseman who played his SMJHL career in Montreal and in his rookie season he had 31 points in 40 games!

He went on to be drafted in the 2nd round 18th overall by the Calgary Dragons and would spend his entire career there.

Games Played: 1061 (All with Calgary)
Goals: 131
Assists: 317
Points: 448
Shots Blocked: 1002
Minutes Played: 18365
Challenge Cups: 3 (S27, S29, S32)

This guy had an amazing career with the Dragons! We can see that Calgary doesn't forget about it's past and they were really going after Chris Goodname hard. It's nice to see that and I know he was very happy to be back in Calgary. So congratulation to kikish18 on the 1st round selection, you really deserve it and I hope the Dragons can get another 1000+ games out of the new Chris!



Next up the Dragons selected G - Keisuke Suzuki (@rieksts) 57th overall.



His first player was Reinis Lillais a defenseman who followed the same path as his Latvian friend Kriss above. He started his career in Montreal and had 11 points in 40 games. He then went on to be drafted by the Las Vegas Kings.
But a trade or other transaction must have happened and it saw Lillais join the Calgary Dragons before ever playing a game for Las Vegas. (S15 was the last season for Vegas they moved to Seattle in S16 and are currently named the Tampa Bay Barracuda). He ended up playing his entire career for the Calgary Dragons.

Games Played: 406 (All with Calgary)
Goals: 5
Assists: 55
Points: 60
Shots Blocked: 253
Minutes Played: 5731

As we can see rieksts didn't last as long on his first player but he still had a nice career playing 8 full seasons for the Dragons. He retired and recreated as Intars Ogle for S24 and has been around the league on and off since. It's great getting to meet members from all over the world on the SHL and hopefully these two enjoy FHM and stay with the Dragons their entire careers again. So thanks to Calgary for drafting me in with these two old Dragons. It's clear I was lucky to be picked up the the Dragons, thank you again Calgary!