Sting Make Two Selections In 2024-25 CHL Import Draft
The Sarnia Sting welcomed Ruslan Karimov, a Russian prospect and Swedish prospect Jack Bodin to the Hockey Club Wednesday morning through the 2024 Canadian Hockey League (CHL) Import Draft.
Introduced in 1992, the CHL Import Draft was created to allow CHL clubs to select eligible players residing outside of Canada and the United States. In this year’s Import Draft the Sting held the 43rd overall selection.
General Manager Dylan Seca used the Sting’s first-round pick to select 17-year-old left shooting winger Ruslan Karimov from the Kazan Irbis team in the Molodyozhnaya Hokkeinaya Liga (MHL).
Through the 2023-2024 regular season and 25 games played for team Almetievsk, the 6’0”, 192-pound native of Almetievsk, Russia tallied 13 goals and 9 assists for a total of 22 points.
On selecting the Forward, Seca commented:
“Ruslan is an exciting offensive-minded player, plays with a lot of power. Competitive, gets to the net and almost plays bigger than he’s listed. For us what we love about him- we know he’s a goal scorer in tight, loves the game of hockey and is excited to get into North America and play North American style. Most importantly he’s someone we believe will be an NHL draft pick and someone with NHL upside in the next year or two. We’re working on paperwork now and we expect to see him here in early August.”
With the 72nd pick in the second round of the CHL Import Draft the Sting selected Jack Bodin, an 18-year-old right shooting defencemen of the Örebro HK J20 from the J20 Nationell.
The 6’3”, 214-pound Kumla, Sweden native tallied 6 goals and 6 assists during the 2023-2024 regular season. Bodin has also represented Sweden in multiple international tournaments including the 2022-2023 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge where he was named Captain.
On selecting Bodin, Seca shares,
“Jack is a right-hand defencemen, someone who we saw play earlier in the year in a tournament in Plymouth, Michigan. He’s 6’3, knows his role, physical- but there is a lot of offensive potential with him. He moves really well and being a right-handed shot, there’s just honestly so many tools to like. We do like our young D-core but getting someone with some size and some international experience we think will be really important for our hockey team for the next couple of years. He’s also someone who is very excited to join our club and we can’t wait to see him at the end of the summer as well.”
The Sting look forward to opening Development Camp in late August as part of preparations for the 2024-25 OHL season, set to start on Friday, September 27th when the Sting host the Windsor Spitfires at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena at 7:05pm.
