He heard cheers as a Toledo fan favourite Wednesday, but there was a time the love directed Cody Lampl’s way came from the stands at Mile One Centre in St. John’s.
The 33-year-old defenceman participated in the ceremonial opening faceoff ahead of Game 3 of the ECHL Kelly Cup final between the Toledo Walleye and Newfoundland Growlers on Wednesday night at Toledo’s Huntington Center. But while he was there as the guest of the homestanding Walleye, for whom he played two seasons, Lampl also had a connection to the city that’s home to the Growlers
Between separate one-year stints with Toledo (2012-13 and 2014-15), Lampl spent the 2013-14 season with the American Hockey League’s St. John’s IceCaps.
He didn’t play much for the IceCaps, appearing in just 38 games and not recording a single point, but Lampl was the kind of depth player teams love to have, capable when he did suit up, good on the bench and great in the dressing room.
And he’s a character, with his plethora of tattoos, a beard that was already of deep-into-the playoff quality in September and an interesting, inspired take on life, fostered by his growing up in Ketchum, Idaho, site of the Sun Valley ski resort.
He’s a rough-and-tumble hockey player, but Lampl has also spent time working as a line cook and his main paper as a history major at Colorado College was on the subject of chair lifts at Sun Valley, the first ever installed at a ski resort.
After finishing up with the Walleye in 2015, Lampl headed overseas to play in Germany, where he doesn’t use up an import slot — his grandparents were German, so he’s got a passport for that country. He just finished up his season in the DEL, the German Elite League, where he helped the Mannheim Eagles to a league championship along with Kilbride native Luke Adam, who recently signed as a free agent with Dusseldorf.
Lampl’s been popular wherever he’s played and his appearance for Wednesday’s game — the first-ever Walleye home game in a Kelly Cup final — is proof of that. So was the fact that he shared the opening faceoff spotlight with Rick Judson, the Toledo native and former Detroit Red Wings draft pick and who spent eight-plus seasons playing for the ECHL’s Toledo Storm, helping that team to a league championship in1993, when he was named the playoff MVP.
The ECHL chose not to suspend Toledo defenceman Kevin Tansey for his hit to the head of Newfoundland Growlers' forward Josh Kestner in Sunday's Game 2 of the final at Mile One Centre.
Kestner was left temporarily unconscious on the ice after the hit, delivered late in the second period of what eventually became a 2-1 overtime win for Newfoundland that gave the Growlers a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Tansey received a five-minute major and a match penalty on the play, and the Growlers scored their first goal of the game on the resulting power play.
Kestner, who travelled with his teammates to Toledo, but did not play Wednesday, has 14 points, including eight goals, in 18 post-season games. Tansey entered Wednesday with two goals, 10 assists and a playoff plus/minus rating of plus 12, best among all ECHL players.
Kestner was replaced in the Growlers’ lineup by Todd Skirving.
All the games of the Kelly Cup final being played in Toledo are being carried on Rogers and Eastlink TV in Newfoundland, with the video stream out of Toledo and the plan, at least going into Wednesday, of having the audio being provided by the Growlers’ broadcast team of Chris Ballard and Brian Rogers.
Game 4 and Game 5 of the series are scheduled for Friday and Saturday at the Huntington Center.
Twitter: @telybrendan
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