The Valencia Flyers may not have made the playoffs this year but two members of the organization are more than happy to represent the Western States Hockey League in post-season play.

 

Defenseman Todd Graham and General Manager Scott Allegrini were selected to the WSHL all-star team that will head east to represent the league at the Junior “A” National Championship. The all-star squad is made up of players from all over the league and will join the Mid-West Division Champion Boulder Bison and the now eight-time Thorne Cup Champion Phoenix Polar Bears in Marlborough, Massachusetts at the end of the month.

 

Graham, the menacing 6’5 220 pound defenseman from Melbourne, Australia will help anchor a blue line made up of some of the most skilled defensemen in the league. In his first campaign with the Flyers, Graham played in all situations and led the team in hits on the season. He also chipped in offensively with a respectable three goals and 23 assists in 43 games played. He joins; Cassidy April (San Diego), Brett Blomgren (Fresno), Michael Bottcher (El Paso), Ryan Maul (Idaho), Kevin Morrison (San Antonio) and Brent Putney (Fresno) on the back-end.

 

The group of forwards is an essential “Who’s Who” of the top scorers in the WSHL. It is made up of the top 12 regular season scoring leaders and all 13 of the rostered forwards finished in the top 14 in scoring. The group is headlined by the scoring champ, Nick Gualano of El Paso and also includes; Thomas Freeman and Ryan Parkhouse (Fresno), Austin Balko (El Paso), Tom Whetsel (Tulsa), Nate Stanley (Idaho), Bobby Watson (Tulsa), Chris Schmidbauer (San Diego), Johnny and Tim Linehan (Long Beach), Donald Geary (El Paso), Stephen Rock (Idaho) and lastly Andrew Ketterer (El Paso).

 

The goaltending duo of Alex Corbin (San Diego) and JP Fecteau (Long Beach) were two of the most unheralded netminders all season and both were a huge reason for their individual teams’ success.

 

Joining the team in his same front office position is General Manager Scott Allegrini. In his first year as GMof the Flyers, Allegrini worked closely with another new face, Head Coach Bill Muckalt to rebuild a squad that saw tons of turnover from the previous season. Although they failed to make the playoffs, the Flyers beat some of the better teams in the league and were in the playoff hunt until the very end. Allegrini worked diligently in bringing in players from not only the United States, but from all over the world to Valencia, as evidenced by the aforementioned Graham. He will accompany the team to “Bean town” and work with co-coaches Cory Herman of El Paso and Eric Ballard of Fresno, both of whom guided their respective squads to regular season division titles.

                              

The action begins on March 25 and all games are webcast live on FastHockey.com