After waiving rookie forwards Ryan Fuller and Joey Moggach, the Bucks have announced two additions to their roster, signing winger Rick Kozak and center Joey Olson.
To keep things simple with jerseys and all that jazz, Kozak and Olson are taking over the numbers left behind by Moggach and Fuller, with Kozak wearing No. 22 and Olson in No. 9.
Kozak probably rings a bell with most of you, as the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Manitoba native played with the Mississippi RiverKings last season (and also played part of the 2006-07 campaign with the franchise, then based in Memphis) and racked up a few penalty minutes during one of his visits to Laredo.
The guy is surprisingly polite for someone who plays the way he does and seems to be fitting in with the team pretty well already. Coach Ruskowski was glad to be able to get him from the Elite Ice Hockey League, where he had been playing with the Hull Stingrays and apparently not enjoying himself too much.
Olson is about as opposite of Kozak as you can get; he's listed as 5-foot-7 but is definitely not that tall and hasn't even reached 20 penalty minutes in season since juniors. He did, however, score 15 goals and hand out 15 assists while playing with the Johnston Chiefs of the East Coast Hockey League last season.
He's from Peoria, Illinois, meaning Matt Summers is no longer the only U.S.-born player on the squad. Apparently equipment manager Matt Brayfield, who is also from Peoria (though a few years younger than Olson), helped Coach Ruskowski find the speedy center.
Both players will be in the lineup for this weekend's three-in-three, featuring a home game against the Corpus Christi IceRays tonight, a game against the IceRays in Corpus tomorrow and a matchup with the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees at Dodge Arena on Saturday, giving them a great chance to make an impression on Coach Ruskowski.
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