Eyeopener Staff
Rams don’t come from high school.
In the peak of recruiting season, the men’s volleyball and hockey teams are actively recruiting for different reasons.
Volleyball is looking for that one final player to push them to the top of the Ontario standings. Hockey is looking for players who can get a win.
Men’s hockey head coach Mick Mitrovic has recruited nine new players, focusing on offensively-gifted players to score goals in his free-skating system.
Mitrovic said one player, Alex Butkis, came from the Ontario Hockey League and has the potential to make a career in the American Hockey League, the league of NHL farm teams. Butkis is 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, and will play on the top line with Rams star Chris Sutton. Butkis, 20, is applying to Arts and Contemporary Studies. Mitrovic said he expects Butkis’s application to go smoothly.
“He’s now looking to do two things: graduate and regenerate his hockey career. He’s got all the tools,” Mitrovic said. Stuart D’eal will also be joining the team as a puck-rushing defenceman. D’eal, 20, comes from the Sudbury Wolves of the OHL. He applied to Arts and Contemporary Studies.
“He’s an all around player, with an emphasis on offence. He’s going to be a great complement to (current Rams defenceman) Grant Buckley,” Mitrovic said. “I need someone who can quarterback the powerplay, and Stuart can do that.”
Men’s volleyball coach Mirek Porosa has three confirmed recruits. The shortest is 195 centimetres, or 6-foot-5. All have played for club teams before coming to Ryerson, where Porosa has guaranteed them spots.
“Based on their talent, size and experience, they’ve already made the team,” he said. “You can’t recruit players of this calibre and then say they don’t make the team.”
Porosa is recruiting players to build depth for the future, and if his starters get injured or tired during the season. One recruit is Ukrainian Oleg Kovalchuk, a 196-centimetre power hitter who moved to Toronto last year.
“He’s got tremendous skills,” Porosa said. Kovalchuk has applied to both Urban and Regional Planning and Public Administration.
His acceptance will rely on his passing an English proficiency test, an obstacle that doesn’t worry Porosa. “The marks are there, they should make it,” Porosa said. “The future looks bright for the Rams.”
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