As reported in the Fayetteville Observer
Fayetteville, NC
By Thomas Pope
Assistant sports editor
The Fayetteville FireAntz have agreed to contract terms with forward Rob Sich, the Player of the Year last season in the Southern Professional Hockey League.
"We're excited that he'll be back," team president Kevin MacNaught said Friday. "Obviously, he's the first one we wanted to come to terms with, and we know he's excited about coming back."
Sich has played 3 1/2 seasons with the FireAntz, joining them midway through the 2006-07 campaign via a dispersal draft when the Florida Seals folded. He was the league MVP that year as well, and helped lead the FireAntz to the SPHL championship.
Sich has scored 327 points in the regular season and postseason for Fayetteville, and last year set an SPHL record with 63 goals during the 56-game regular season. He also tied an SPHL record with five goals against Pensacola on March 6.
Sich, 26, is a native of LaSalle, Ontario, and has played in 302 games as a professional.
"He's matured quite a bit over the last couple of years," MacNaught said, "and his performance last year was unbeatable. Any time you can sign the Most Valuable Player and get him back, that's a good thing."
Sich will be one of the three veterans on the roster that are allowed by SPHL rules. The others whom the FireAntz protected in an offseason expansion draft were defensemen Craig Geerlinks and Lawne Snyder, and forward Mark Versteeg-Lytwyn. A second forward, Emery Olauson, wasn't protected and is a free agent with veteran status.
The SPHL concluded its Board of Governors meeting Wednesday in Las Vegas.
In 2011, it will adopt the same playoff format as this past season, with the top six teams in the eight-team league earning berths in the playoffs. The first and sixth seeds will meet in a best-of-five first-round series, with the winner advancing to the President's Cup Finals. The other four teams will play a best-of-three first-round series, with the two survivors squaring off in a best-of-three second-round bracket.
