Jason Firth (born March 29, 1971) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

retired professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

player. He is the leader in career assists and points for the

United Hockey League The United Hockey League (UHL), originally known as the Colonial Hockey League from 1991 to 1997 and last known as the International Hockey League from 2007 to 2010, was a low-level minor professional ice hockey league, with teams in the Unite ...

Junior career

Firth played Tier II

junior hockey Junior ice hockey is amateur-level ice hockey for 16 to 20 year-old players. National Junior teams compete annually for the IIHF World Junior Championship. The United States men's national junior ice hockey team are the defending champions from t ...

for the Ottawa Jr. Senators of the

Central Junior Hockey League The Central Canada Hockey League (CCHL; French: ''Ligue de hockey du Canada centrale'', LHCC) is a Junior A ice hockey league in North America composed of 12 teams – all around the National Capital Region. The CCHL is one of the nine Junior A ...

; in his single season for the team in 1988, he scored 126 points to lead the team. Drafted by the

Kitchener Rangers The Kitchener Rangers are a major junior ice hockey team based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. They are members of the Midwest Division of the Western Conference of the Ontario Hockey League. The Rangers have won the J. Ross Robertson Cup as OHL ...

of the

Ontario Hockey League The Ontario Hockey League (OHL; ) is one of the three major junior ice hockey leagues which constitute the Canadian Hockey League, alongside the Western Hockey League and the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. The league is for players ag ...

, he finished third in team scoring with 67 points in 1989, helping the Rangers to a first-place finish after several mediocre seasons. In 1990, he was again third in team scoring with 100 points. The Rangers lost in the league finals to the

Oshawa Generals The Oshawa Generals are a junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League. They are based in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The team is named for General Motors, an early sponsor (commercial), sponsor which has its Canadian headquarters in Oshawa. ...

, and normally would not have gone on to play in the

Memorial Cup The Memorial Cup () is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), a consortium of three Junior ice hockey, major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tou ...

tournament, but Cup host and OHL team Hamilton Dukes had the league's worst record and was replaced in the Memorial Cup by the Rangers. Firth scored 22 points in 17 playoff games as the Rangers surged to the Cup finals, eventually losing in double overtime in the final match to the Generals, 4–3. His performance led to him being awarded the

George Parsons Trophy The George Parsons Trophy is awarded annually to the player judged to be the most sportsmanlike at the Memorial Cup tournament. It was first awarded in 1974. The trophy is named for George Parsons, a former Ontario Hockey Association player w ...

for sportsmanship in the Memorial Cup. Firth's third season in Kitchener saw him lead the team with 112 points, and finish sixth in league scoring, after which he was selected in the tenth round of the 1991 NHL Entry Draft by the

Detroit Red Wings The Detroit Red Wings (colloquially referred to as the Wings) are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. The Red Wings compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the East ...

. He played his final junior season as an overager for the

North Bay Centennials The North Bay Centennials were a junior ice hockey team in the Ontario Hockey League, who played from 1982–2002. The team was based in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. History The North Bay Centennials or "Cents" as they were popularly known, were na ...

. Despite injuries that cost him 13 games, Firth finished second in team scoring with 97 points, and added 25 points in the playoffs as the Centennials reached the OHL Finals.

Professional career

Firth made his professional debut for the Red Wings'

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league in North America that serves as the primary developmental league of the National Hockey League (NHL). The league comprises 32 teams, with 26 in the United States and 6 in Cana ...

farm team, the

Adirondack Red Wings The Adirondack Red Wings were a minor professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. They played in Glens Falls, New York, United States at the Glens Falls Civic Center. The team was affiliated with the Detroit Red Wings of the Nati ...

, in the spring of

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

, playing two games without scoring. His junior success notwithstanding, the Red Wings declined to sign Firth to a contract for the

1993 season The General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its calendar advanced 24 hours to th ...

, and he signed as a free agent with the

Ottawa Senators The Ottawa Senators (), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. The Senators compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Di ...

. He never played in Ottawa, instead playing in the mid- to low-minor leagues for over a decade thereafter. Firth retired after the 2005 season. He finished his professional career with 449 goals and 921 assists for 1370 points; as of 2015, he is the tenth leading scorer in minor league hockey history. In the

, Firth scored 357 goals and 732 assists for 1089 points, the highest career totals ever recorded in the UHL for both assists and points.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Firth, Jason 1971 births Living people Adirondack Red Wings players Bakersfield Condors (1998–2015) players Canadian expatriate ice hockey players in the United States Canadian ice hockey centres Detroit Red Wings draft picks Ice hockey people from Nova Scotia Kitchener Rangers players Port Huron Beacons players Prince Edward Island Senators players Sportspeople from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Syracuse Crunch players Thunder Bay Thunder Cats (CoHL) players