Royals Add International Flavor with Defenseman Florian Iberer and Forward Alexander Gogolev

Reading, PA – The Reading Royals of the ECHL, affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League, today announced that the team has agreed to terms with defenseman Florian Iberer and forward Alexander Gogolev.

The Royals have announced sixteen players as signed to ECHL Standard Players Contracts for the 2016-17 season. In addition to Iberer and Gogolev, Reading has announced the signing of forwards Justin Crandall, Robbie Czarnik, Olivier Labelle, Mike Pelech, Ryan Penny, Mike Pereira, Joe Rehkamp, Ian Watters and Matt Wilkins and defensemen Miles Liberati, Nick Luukko, Derik Johnson, Todd Perry and Mike Marcou.

Iberer (6’1/203) (33), who hails from Graz, Austria, will be entering his seventeenth season of pro. Last year, Iberer registered twenty-eight points (8g-20a) and twelve penalty minutes in fifty-two games with the Vienna Capitals of the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga (EBEL) in Austria. He also played six tournament games (0g-1a) and five playoff games (0g-1a) with the Capitals. This year (2016-17), Iberer played three Champions League tournament games (0g-1a) for ComArch Cracovia (Krakow, Poland).

Iberer has played the majority of his career in Austria, where he has racked up 181 career points (45g-136a) in 544 total pro games. He has also had considerable occasion to represent his homeland in a number of International hockey contexts, including playing on the 2014 Austrian Olympic team in Sochi, Russia. His best season in Austria may have been 2012-13 when he and his Klagenfurter AC teammates claimed the EBEL championship. The year before, 2011-12, Iberer had an explosive run in Germany when he led all defensemen in the 2.Bundesliga with fifteen goals (15g-16a=31pts) in forty-seven games with Dresdner Eislowen, which earned a post-season selection as the league’s best defenseman. Earlier in his career, Iberer did play two-and-half seasons of North American pro (14g-64a=78pts, 100 PIMs in 153 games), beginning with the Elmira Jackals—then of the United Hockey League (2005-06)—and spending a full season with the Alaska Aces in his lone run in the ECHL (2g-13a=15pts, 46 PIMs in 49 games) in 2006-07. Not including his 60 games of International play as a pro (4g-6a-10pts, 18 PIMs), Iberer has logged a total of 769 regular season pro games in Europe and North America (77g-222a=299pts, 335 PIMs).

Gogolev (5’10/177) (24), who hails from Moscow, Russia, will be making his North American pro debut. For the past three seasons, he has played professionally in Russia in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and Supreme Hockey League (VHL). This past season, he registered a total of sixteen points (7g-9a) and twenty-two penalty minutes in thirty-five total games with Dynamo Balashikha and Khimik Voskresensk in the VHL. Gogolev, who was a second round pick of Spartak Moskva in the 2009 KHL Entry Draft, played 27 games in the KHL (1g-2a=3pts, 4 PIMs) in his first season of pro (2013-14). This is not Gogolev’s first trip to North America. He played two seasons of major junior in the Western Hockey League, starting in 2011-12 when he was second in scoring for the Calgary Hitmen (25g-32a=57pts, 34 PIMs in 69 games) and earned the Canadian Hockey League Player of the Week Award for January 20, 2012. In his second year in the WHL (2012-13), Gogolev led the Victoria Royals in scoring with sixty-five points (20g-45a) in forty-nine games. Prior to coming to North American major junior, Gogolev played a couple of seasons of junior hockey (MHL) in Russia, earning a spot in the MHL all-star game during the 2010-11 season when he was second on MHK Spartak Moskva in scoring with forty-two points (19g-23a) in forty-three games.

Season Sixteen of “Hometown Hockey” kicks off for the Royals on Saturday, October 15, (7:00 pm) when the Elmira Jackals visit Santander Arena. Season Tickets and individual game tickets for the Royals’ 2016-17 ECHL season are currently available. Call 610-898-7825 for more information or log onto www.royalshockey.com.