Regular season returns from Christmas break this weekend
By Ron Valentine
Is there a 100-point player in the Ontario Junior Hockey League this season?
Trevor Hoskin of the Cobourg Cougars hit 100 exactly last season, with 42 goals and 58 assists. The 2024 Canadian Junior Hockey League and OJHL MVP was selected by the Calgary Flames in this year’s NHL Draft.
This season, Hoskin has 15 points in 18 games at NCAA Division I Niagara.
Tyler Fukakusa of the Toronto Jr. Canadiens, scored 35 goals and added 70 assists for 105 points in 53 games in the 2022-23 OJHL regular season.
Now a sophomore at NCAA Division I RIT in Rochester, NY, he was voted OJHL MVP, Most Gentlemanly Player and First Team All-Star in 2022-23.
In 2017-18, the Toronto Patriots’ Andrew Petrucci posted a 100-point season (52 goals/48 assists). The OJHL MVP that season played five seasons at RIT.
The current points leader, Colton Smith of the Leamington Flyers, has 62, including 36 goals, from 36 games.
In second spot is the Trenton Golden Hawks’ David Fournier with 29 goals and 59 points from his 34 games and in third place is Parker Forlin of the Niagara Falls Canucks with 29 goals and 27 assists for 56 points accrued in 32 contests.
The three players are very close in terms of points per game with Forlin at 1.75, Fournier at 1.74 and Smith at 1.72. If there is to be a 100-point scorer for the current campaign it certainly looks like it could come from one of these three players.
All three will have to slightly improve their points per game to reach the century mark.
If they were to maintain their current points per game average Fournier would end on 96, Smith would be at 95 and Forlin 93. Other players with an outside shot at reaching 100 points are the Golden Hawks’ Taeo Artichuk and the St. Michael’s Buzzers’ David Elmy.
COLTON SMITH will be heading to Clarkson University for the 2025-26 season. He was the first OJHL player to make an NCAA commitment under new rules that allow Canadian Hockey League graduates on U.S. college rosters. The son of Los Angeles Kings Assistant Coach DJ played in the CHL’s Ontario Hockey League for the London Knights and Windsor Spitfires for three seasons, accumulating 93 regular season points.
DAVID FOURNIER, a native of Blainville, QC is in his third season with the Golden Hawks with 144 regular season points to date. In the 2023-24 playoffs, David had 25 points in 20 games. He was drafted in 2020 by his hometown Blainville-Boisbriand Armada of the QMJHL.
PARKER FORLIN, who was a late addition to Canada East at this month’s Jr. A World Challenge, is 18. He calls Niagara Falls, ON his hometown. After playing for the Jr. B Thorold Blackhawks and St. Catharines Falcons, he put up 54 points last season for The Falls in his rookie campaign in the OJHL and he was named the league’s Scholastic Player of the Year. Forlin was picked by the Barrie Colts in the fourth round, 73rd overall, in the 2022 OHL U16 draft.
The OJHL returns from the holiday break this weekend with three games on the schedule.
Follow Ron Valentine on X @ronandlynda
