Royals Agree to Terms with Forward Ethan Cox

Fourth Year Pro Won His Second Kelly Cup Championship as Alternate Captain with Reading Last Season

Reading, PA – The Reading Royals of the ECHL, affiliate of the Washington Capitals of the NHL and Hershey Bears of the AHL, today announced that the organization has agreed to terms with forward Ethan Cox. Cox (5’10/193) (25), who will be entering his fourth season of pro, joins forward Yannick Tifu as the second player announced as signed by the Royals for the 2013-14 season. Last season, Cox, who hails from Richmond, British Columbia, played a total of eighty-seven games for the Royals—sixty-five in the regular season and all twenty-two playoff games it took for Reading to capture the 2013 Kelly Cup. This marked the second Kelly Cup Championship in the last three seasons for Cox, who won it all with the Alaska Aces in 2011. This past regular season, Cox, who served as one of the team’s alternate captains, recorded twenty-nine points (8g-21a) and played to a plus-14 (+14), earning the team’s Defensive Player of the Year award at the Fan’s Choice Awards Banquet. In the post-season, Cox registered seven points (2g-5a), played to a plus-11 (+11) and continued his critical, if somewhat unheralded, leadership role that proved integral to the team’s championship run. One of numerous important moments for Cox in the post-season came when he sprang T.J. Syner for a breakaway overtime game winner in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals against the Florida Everblades. Four of Cox’s seven playoff points (1g-3a) came in the first four games of the Kelly Cup Finals against the Stockton Thunder—a streak which included scoring the first goal of the game in the Royals’ 6-5 overtime win in Game One and recording assists on the game winners in Games Two and Three of the KCF. This will be the third stint in Reading for Cox, who was originally acquired by the Royals in a trade-deadline deal with the Alaska Aces in March of 2012. In the final game of the regular season that year (a 6-4 win over the Trenton Titans on March 31, 2012)—his game eighth as a Royal, Cox not only scored his first goal for Reading, but also scored two more to rack up his second hattrick as a pro—his other coming earlier that year with the Alaska. In 188 career pro regular season games over the past 3 years, which includes six AHL games, Cox has recorded 95 points (39g-56a) and 120 penalty minutes. Cox, who earned the ECHL’s Plus-Performer of the Month Award in March of 2011 when he played to a plus-nineteen (+19) in fifteen games for the Alaska Aces, has played to a collective plus-46 (+46) during the regular season in his pro career. In 40 career ECHL post-season contests, Cox has 13 points (5g-8a) and twenty penalty minutes. On the rare occasions when he was not in the line-up this past season, Cox served with considerable aplomb as the team’s radio and television color commentator. He went on to take the radio reigns as the primary host of the ‘Cox and K-Mac’ version of Royals’ Radio Recon—the team’s weekly coach’s show—which played to rave reviews. Prior to turning pro, Cox had a stellar four-year career at Colgate University, where he was twice selected as the Raiders’ Defensive Player of the Year. In his senior season, Cox was honored by the NCAA during the Frozen Four Tournament at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, when he was bestowed with the 2010 BNY Mellon Wealth Management Hockey Humanitarian Award, which recognizes extraordinarily conscientious NCAA hockey players. Cox was a three-time nominee for the Humanitarian Award. In 150 career games at Colgate, he recorded forty-one points (17g-24a) and seventy penalty minutes. Season Tickets for the 2013-14 Reading Royals ECHL season are currently available. Call 610-898-7825 for more information or log onto www.royalshockey.com.