Jason Firth (born March 29, 1971) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) 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 ...

retired professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

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 hockey is a level of competitive ice hockey generally for players between 16 and 21 years of age. Junior hockey leagues in the United States and Canada are considered amateur (with some exceptions) and operate within regions of each cou ...

for the Ottawa Jr. Senators of the Central Junior Hockey League; 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; french: Ligue de hockey de l'Ontario (LHO)) is one of the three major junior ice hockey leagues which constitute the Canadian Hockey League. The league is for players aged 16–19. There are exceptions for overa ...

, 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, 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, a consortium of three major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tournament played between t ...

tournament, but Cup host and OHL team

Hamilton Dukes The Dukes of Hamilton were a junior ice hockey team that represented Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in the Ontario Hockey League for two seasons from 1989 to 1991. History In October 1988, with the Toronto Marlboros losing hundreds of thousands of d ...

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 who ...

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 The 1991 NHL Entry Draft was the 29th NHL Entry Draft. It was held on June 22 at the Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, New York. A total of 264 players were drafted. The worst team in the previous 1990–91 season, the Quebec Nordiques, was give ...

by the Detroit Red Wings. 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. History The North Bay Centennials or "Cents" as they were popularly known, were named afte ...

. 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 based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

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 Nation ...

, in the spring of 1992, playing two games without scoring. His junior success notwithstanding, the Red Wings declined to sign Firth to a contract for the 1993 season, and he signed as a free agent with the

Ottawa Senators The Ottawa Senators (french: Sénateurs d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a membe ...

. 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 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