{"id":19981,"date":"2018-02-28T16:05:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T21:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19981"},"modified":"2018-02-28T16:05:26","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T21:05:26","slug":"tigers-forwards-sign-with-uoit-ridgebacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/tigers-forwards-sign-with-uoit-ridgebacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers forwards sign with UOIT Ridgebacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two major components of the Aurora Tigers success have found their new home for next season.<br \/>\nBoth captain Jake Bricknell and fellow forward Austin Eastman signed on Monday with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, committing to skate for the Ridgebacks in the 2018-19 season.<br \/>\n\u201cBoth these guys can play,\u201d said Ridgebacks head coach Curtis Hodgins. \u201cJake has the coveted right-hand shot that we\u2019re still looking for here to help our offence and be able to help our power play. Austin has terrific skill and can flat out fly. I think both are going to be very good U SPORTS players and great Ridgebacks for us.\u201d<br \/>\nBricknell, who began the highly-successful 2017-18 season wearing the \u2018C\u2019 for the Tigers, came to Aurora after a league championship with the Cobourg Cougars the previous year.<br \/>\nOnly one point shy of 100 to end the regular season, his leadership has helped the Tigers to a conference-best record.<br \/>\nAccording to Bricknell, his 35 goals, which were good for second-best in the entire OJHL, came thanks to the commitment of the Tigers staff.<br \/>\n\u201cThey provided me with the right tools and opportunities that I\u2019ve been seeking in my junior career to further my game that I\u2019ve known I\u2019ve always had in me.\u201d<br \/>\nEastman, a native of Lindsay, ON, said the location of the school was a strong component of his signing.<br \/>\n\u201cLanding in UOIT was big for me because it stays closer to home, which makes things easier,\u201d said Eastman, who also said he was impressed upon touring the campus.<br \/>\n\u201cWhile I was there, it just gave me a home-like feel, and being that it\u2019s a smaller school everybody knows who is who, and it has a lot to offer when it comes to academic help to make my time more proactive.\u201d<br \/>\nEastman joined the team midway through the 2017-18 season, having spent time with the major junior Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL. Since his debut as a Tiger, his 0.59 points-per-game trails only fellow forward Joseph Mizzi, accumulating 44 points in just 26 games.<br \/>\nThe pair join fellow Tigers alumnus Kyle Locke, having skated for Aurora from 2014-16, who will be entering his junior year as a Ridgeback next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two major components of the Aurora Tigers success have found their new home for next season.<br \/>\nBoth captain Jake Bricknell and fellow forward Austin Eastman signed on Monday with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-03-01-08.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}