{"id":20955,"date":"2018-06-24T00:46:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20955"},"modified":"2018-06-24T00:46:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:46:00","slug":"auroras-vierling-signs-with-ohl-firebirds-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-vierling-signs-with-ohl-firebirds-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Vierling signs with OHL Firebirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not yet old enough to drive himself to practice, Evan Vierling is already thinking big in his plans for his future hockey career.
\nThe Aurora native, who turns sixteen later this month, officially signed a player agreement package with the OHL\u2019s Flint Firebirds on Thursday, committing to the team that took him second overall in the 2018 OHL Draft, behind only York-Simcoe Express teammate Quinton Byfield.
\nVierling said it was \u201cvery exciting\u201d to finally put pen to paper with the Firebirds.
\n\u201cI\u2019m so thankful to have this opportunity to play in such a special league and a great city. To see the amount of fans that came out for an orientation camp in April was unbelievable. The coaches were amazing and I know they\u2019re going to push me to become the best player I can possibly be. This means everything to my family and I.\u201d
\nDescribed by the official OHL Scouting Report as a \u201csmooth skating centre that has very good offensive instincts,\u201d Vierling recorded 63 points in just 33 games last season as a member of the Minor Midget York-Simcoe Express before being selected second overall by the Firebirds this past spring.
\nScouted heavily by major junior teams prior to the draft, it was Flint head scout Dave McParlan that took a special liking to Vierling, calling the centreman \u201ca complete package.\u201d
\nHe can score, he has explosive speed\u2026reminds me a lot of Jonathon Toews. He\u2019s smart, and dangerous when he gets around the net.\u201d
\nVierling will arrive in Flint for training camp in late August, and will wear number 41 for the Firebirds.
\nStill at only fifteen years of age, the potential for Vierling is strong if history is any indication: for 14 straight years beginning in 1999, the player taken second in the OHL draft went on to play in the NHL. Also, since 2010, four of the last six players selected second overall in the OHL Draft became first-round draft picks in the NHL.
\nAn exciting career still ahead of him, the young Vierling\u2019s trophy case is already packed: he helped the Express to three straight OMHA Championships in his four-year tenure as an assistant captain.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not yet old enough to drive himself to practice, Evan Vierling is already thinking big in his plans for his future hockey career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/2018-06-21-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5rZ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 23:35:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955","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=20955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}