Casey Bailey
Here’s one of many stupid ways stories come into existence: You run through your neighborhood at a ridiculously early hour one morning, and that’s a whole other stupid story, but anyhow you see a car getting towed and you think, bummer for that car owner, and hey, that reminds me of Glen Bailey, a really good dude in Anchorage who owns a towing business, although the owners of cars he tows maybe don’t think he’s that rad, but whatever, Glen has a kid, Casey, who briefly played in the NHL, and I wonder what Casey is up to these days and I gotta look that up when I get back home. Then you promptly forget to do it for about a week until you are in a liquor store on Thanksgiving Eve and see a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream. I know – it’s not a beautiful mind, but it’s all I have to work with.
End of digression.
Turns out Casey Bailey is playing ice hockey in Germany and getting along quite nicely.
He’s a Rooster – his club in the DEL (Deutsche Eishockey Liga, or Deutsche Elite League as we tend to bastardize it in English) is the Iserlohn Roosters – and he’s got stats worth crowing about. In 17 games this season, Bailey owns 8-6—14 totals and a plus-7 rating and is getting a heavy dose of ice time (averaging 22:32 per match. Last season, Bailey racked 20-24—44 totals in 37 games for Iserlohn to finish third on the circuit in points, tied for third in goals and tied for seventh in points.
Bailey played six games for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2014-15 season and scored one goal, then played seven games for the Ottawa Senators in the 2016-17 season. He has played 211 games in the American Hockey League and played overseas in the KHL and Swedish league before jumping to the DEL last season.
Back to my stupid brain. Thinking of Bailey for some reason made me think of Hunter Fejes of Anchorage and where he is on the hockey globe these days.
Hunter Fejes
Turns out Hunter plays for a Czech-based team in the Austrian league, and yes, that is sort of confusing, and more so when you discover the Austrian league includes eight teams based in Austria, two in Italy, one in the Czech Republic, one in Hungary, one is Slovenia and one in Slovakia. Uh, OK. Anyhow, Fejes, the former Colorado College winger who played 89 AHL games, is on his third tour in the Austrian league. He’s also played one season in Sweden.
Hunter this season plays for a team called Tesla Orli Znojmo – why, yes, that does look like I suffered a mini-stroke while typing it — and he has delivered 4-6—10 totals and a plus-2 rating in 18 games. In 75 career games in the league, he owns 27-30—57 totals.
One last thing: The Austrian league is officially known as the bet-at-home Hockey League. Seriously. It has a title sponsorship with a European online betting outfit.