Reading, PA – Reading, PA – The Reading Royals of the ECHL, affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL, today announced that the team has signed forward Ian Watters to an ECHL Standard Players Contract. Consistent with team policy, terms of the SPC were not released.
The Royals now have sixteen players under ECHL agreements for the 2014-15 season. In addition to Watters, the others are: forwards Brandon Blandina, Kyle Bodie, Ryan Cruthers, Brock Higgs, Adam Hughesman, Olivier Labelle, David Marshall, Domenic Monardo, Cam Reid, Kevin Walrod and Sean Wiles and defensemen Dan Ford, Jordan Heywood, Mike Marcou and Bryant Molle.
Video comments of Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Larry Courville on the agreement reached with Watters can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWD56CDub88.
Watters (6’0/191) (22), who hails from Pickering, Ontario, had his second year of pro cut short last season when he was injured in his seventh game with the Royals. Prior to sustaining his season-ending injury, Watters picked up one assist for Reading. In his rookie season, 2012-13, Watters began the year with the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL where he played one game before being released. He landed with the Augusta RiverHawks of the Southern Professional Hockey League, where he recorded seventeen points (8g-9a) and forty-seven penalty minutes in twenty-five games, before being signed by the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL in mid-January. In thirty-seven games with Idaho, he scored nine goals, assisted on fourteen others (twenty-three points) and was assessed with twenty-eight penalty minutes.
Prior to turning pro, Watters spent three full seasons with the Brampton Battalion in the Ontario Hockey League, scoring forty-five goals and assisting on fifty-two others (ninety-seven points) over a span of 159 games. In 2010-11, he was second on the Battalion with twenty goals in sixty-eight games. In his overage year, 2011-12, Watters, who served as an alternate captain for the Battalion, recorded thirty points (16g-14a) despite only playing in thirty-four games in a season that was disrupted by injury. Prior to joining Brampton, Watters played one season with the Ajax Attack in the Ontario Junior Hockey League. That year, he led the Attack with thirty-one goals (and seventy-nine points) in forty-six games and was selected as the OJHL Rookie of the Year in the Ruddock Division.
The Royals open the 2014-15 season on Saturday, October 18, at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, West Virginia, where the team will face the Wheeling Nailers. The home portion of the schedule will kick off the following Saturday (October 25, 2014 @ 7:05 pm) when the Elmira Jackals travel to Santander Arena. Royals’ season tickets are currently available. Call 610-898-7825 for more information or log onto www.royalshockey.com.