Mike Radja (born March 7, 1985) is an American 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 ...

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

who is currently a free agent. Radja previously played for

Anyang Halla HL Anyang () is a professional ice hockey team based in Anyang (South Korea), Anyang in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It is one of the founding and current members of the Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH). Formed in 1994, it is the oldest profess ...

of the

Asia League Ice Hockey Asia League Ice Hockey (; ) or ALIH (AL) is an association which operates a professional ice hockey league based in East Asia, with teams from Japan, South Korea, and formerly China and Russia. The league is headquartered in Japan. At the end of ...

. In Europe, he played for

HC TPS TPS or Turun Palloseura is an ice hockey team and 10-time champion of SM-liiga and 1-time champion of SM-sarja. They play in Turku, Finland, at Gatorade Center. In terms of championships, TPS is the second all-time most successful team in SM- ...

in the

Liiga The Liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. The league comprises 16 teams from all around Finland with relegation and promotion between the Mesti ...

Augsburger Panther The Augsburger Panther are a professional ice hockey team in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, DEL. The team is based in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. They play their home games at the Curt Frenzel Stadion. Founded in 1878, the team's name was Augsburge ...

in the

Deutsche Eishockey Liga The Deutsche Eishockey Liga (for sponsorship reasons called Penny (supermarket), PENNY Deutsche Eishockey Liga) (; English: ''German Ice Hockey League'') or DEL, is a professional ice hockey league in Germany and the highest division in German i ...

and the

Belfast Giants The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League, Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL). T ...

in the

Elite Ice Hockey League The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), sometimes referred to internationally as the British Elite League, is an ice hockey league in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2003 following the demise of the Ice Hockey Superleague, it is the highest level ...

Playing career

Radja was raised in

Yorkville, Illinois Yorkville is a city within the Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago Metropolitan Area and is the county seat of Kendall County, Illinois, Kendall County, Illinois, United States. It is a western suburb of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. The population ...

and graduated from

Yorkville High School Yorkville High School, or YHS, is a State school#United States, public high school located in Yorkville, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, in the United States. It serves grades 9-12 for the Yorkville Community Unit School District 115. The ...

in 2003. Radja played two seasons of junior hockey for the

Waterloo Black Hawks The Waterloo Black Hawks are a Tier I junior ice hockey team playing in the Western Conference of the United States Hockey League (USHL) under Head Coach Matt Smaby. The Black Hawks' home ice is the Young Arena in Waterloo, Iowa. History ...

of the

USHL The United States Hockey League (USHL) is the top junior ice hockey league sanctioned by USA Hockey. The league consists of 16 active teams located in the Midwestern United States and Great Plains, for players between the ages of 16 and 21. Th ...

. While at Waterloo Radja played with his future University of New Hampshire teammate Kevin Regan. Radja scored a key goal in the game which clinched the Black Hawks' victory in the 2004

Clark Cup The United States Hockey League began in 1961 as a semi-professional ice hockey league. Starting with the 1979–80 season, the league became a strictly Amateur league, and began awarding its champion the Clark Cup Trophy. All champions of the USH ...

. He attended the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant coll ...

from 2004 to 2008. In December 2006 he suffered a knee injury which caused him to miss a month of play. He made a quick recovery, however. In 2008 he was suspended for two games after an incident in which he was briefly detained by police while visiting T. J. Oshie after a game against

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

. That season proved to be a successful one for Radja, he was selected for the

Hockey East The Hockey East Association, also known as Hockey East, is a college ice hockey conference which operates entirely in New England. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. Hockey East came into existence in 1984 for ...

All Star team and was the National College Hockey Player of the month in February 2008. After leaving UNH, he briefly played for the

Syracuse Crunch The Syracuse Crunch are a professional ice hockey team based in Syracuse, New York. They are the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate of the National Hockey League's Tampa Bay Lightning. They play in they home games at the Upstate Medical Univer ...

of the AHL at the end of 2007–08 season. The next year he played in eight games with the

Fresno Falcons The Fresno Falcons are an adult travel inline hockey team and were a minor league hockey team. The ice hockey Falcons were charter members of several long standing leagues in the western United States including the Pacific Southwest Hockey Leagu ...

of the

ECHL The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a minor professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams across the United States and Canada. Competitively, it is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL). The ...

before spending most of the season with the

Rockford IceHogs The Rockford IceHogs are a professional ice hockey team based in Rockford, Illinois. They are members of the American Hockey League (AHL), having begun play in the League starting in the 2007–08 season. The team plays their home games at the ...

of the AHL. In the 2009–10 season Radja played in twenty five games in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

with

TPS TPS or Tps may refer to: In arts and entertainment *Télévision Par Satellite, a French satellite television company *Third-person shooter, a game genre * Torsonic Polarity Syndrome, in ''South Park'' animation * Trailer Park Sex, a band from ...

of the

SM-liiga The Liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. The league comprises 16 teams from all around Finland with relegation and promotion between the Mest ...

before returning to North America to play for the Syracuse Crunch and

Bridgeport Sound Tigers The Bridgeport Islanders are a professional ice hockey team based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. They are the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate of the National Hockey League's New York Islanders, who own the franchise. The team started in 200 ...

in the AHL. The next year Radja returned to Europe to play for the Augsburger Panther of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. On January 13, 2012 Radja signed with the Houston Aeros of the

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 ...

. After four seasons abroad, Radja opted to continue his professional career back in North America, signing a one-year ECHL contract in a return with the Elmira Jackals on August 4, 2016.

Career statistics

Awards and honors

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Radja, Mike 1985 births American men's ice hockey forwards HL Anyang players Augsburger Panther players Belfast Giants players Binghamton Senators players Bridgeport Sound Tigers players 21st-century American sportsmen Elmira Jackals (ECHL) players Fresno Falcons players High1 players Houston Aeros (1994–2013) players Ice hockey players from Illinois Living people New Hampshire Wildcats men's ice hockey players Nippon Paper Cranes players People from Yorkville, Illinois Peoria Rivermen (AHL) players Rockford IceHogs (AHL) players Syracuse Crunch players HC TPS players University of New Hampshire alumni Waterloo Black Hawks players AHCA Division I men's ice hockey All-Americans American expatriate ice hockey players in Finland American expatriate ice hockey players in Germany American expatriate ice hockey players in Japan American expatriate ice hockey players in South Korea American expatriate ice hockey players in Northern Ireland