Wacey Rabbit

Wacey Rabbit (born November 16, 1986) is a Native Canadian professional ice hockey centre who is currently playing for the Jacksonville Icemen of the ECHL.

Wacey Rabbit
Born (1986-11-16) November 16, 1986
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Height 5 ft 9 in (175 cm)
Weight 185 lb (84 kg; 13 st 3 lb)
Position Centre
Shoots Left
ECHL team
Former teams		 Jacksonville Icemen
Providence Bruins
Milwaukee Admirals
KHL Medveščak
San Antonio Rampage
Lørenskog IK
Nippon Paper Cranes
HC Pustertal Wölfe
HC Dukla Jihlava
ASC Corona Brașov
NHL Draft 154th overall, 2005
Boston Bruins
Playing career 2006–present

Playing career

Rabbit played major junior in the Western Hockey League (WHL). During his draft year in 2004–05, he recorded 67 points and was then selected in the 5th round, 154th overall, by the Boston Bruins in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. Rabbit turned pro in 2006–07 season with Boston's American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Providence Bruins. However, after he was demoted to the ECHL in January, Vancouver Giants general manager Scott Bonner requested from the Boston Bruins that they send Rabbit back down to the juniors.

Rabbit was then traded from the Saskatoon Blades for Kenton Dulle and a second-round pick in the 2008 WHL Bantam Draft.[1]

Returning to the WHL, Rabbit helped the 2007 Memorial Cup hosts, the Vancouver Giants, to the WHL Finals against the Medicine Hat Tigers with 20 points in 22 games, but they were defeated in seven games. In the subsequent Memorial Cup, the Giants met the Tigers again in the final game and won the CHL title.

In 2007–08, Rabbit returned to Providence and recorded 26 points in 66 games. The following season, he improved to 34 points in 74 games. During the years 2008-2009', Rabbit began to progress statistically. Although netting 4 penalty minutes and 16 goals in '08-09, he still felt as though he was incapable of making it with the Boston Bruins.

At this point, Rabbit's contract was up, so he was given the option of walking away. Although he wanted to continue playing for the Boston Bruins, he didn't feel suited, considering Boston was a pretty talented team. After leaving the Bruins, Rabbit was offered a good opportunity, with a well paying salary; playing for Nashville.[2]

In the 2009 off-season after the Bruins declined to extend a contract to Wacey, he was signed on by the Nashville Predators AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals on October 2, 2009.[3] In the 2009–10 season, Rabbit appeared in 76 games with the Admirals, however failed to establish himself and posted a professional career low 18 points.

Without an NHL offer, Rabbit left North America and secured a try-out as a free agent with Croatian team KHL Medveščak of the Erste Bank Hockey League on August 30, 2010.[4] After only a week on trial on September 7, 2010, Rabbit was signed by Medveščak to a one-year contract with an optional second year.[5]

Wacey played with the Florida Panthers AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage during the 2011–12 season helping them qualify for the Calder cup playoffs and beat the Chicago Wolves in the 1st round 3–2 and met with the Oklahoma City Barons by whom they were defeated 4 games to 1.

On June 21, 2012, Rabbit returned to Europe, signing a contract with Norwegian club, Lørenskog IK of the GET-ligaen.[6] After three standout seasons in Norway, Rabbit left as a free agent to sign a one-year contract with Japanese club, Nippon Paper Cranes of the Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH) on July 28, 2015.[7]

After a further season in Italy with HC Pustertal Wölfe of the Alps Hockey League, Rabbit returned to play in North America for the first time in five years, in accepting an ECHL contract to play with new entrant the Jacksonville Icemen on August 31, 2017.[8] Rabbit played in just 2 games to open the 2017–18 season with the Icemen before opting to return to Europe in agreeing to a one-year deal with Czech club, HC Dukla Jihlava on November 21, 2017.

At the conclusion of the season, Rabbit returned to North America as a free agent and later re-united with the Jacksonville Icemen, agreeing to a one-year deal on August 14, 2018.[9]

Career statistics
Regular season Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
2001–02 Saskatoon Blades WHL 3 0 1 1 0 — — — — —
2002–03 Saskatoon Blades WHL 62 21 24 45 33 5 1 3 4 6
2003–04 Saskatoon Blades WHL 60 9 8 17 51 — — — — —
2004–05 Saskatoon Blades WHL 70 22 45 67 70 4 1 2 3 0
2005–06 Saskatoon Blades WHL 64 28 28 56 45 10 5 3 8 4
2006–07 Providence Bruins AHL 22 1 2 3 25 — — — — —
2006–07 Vancouver Giants WHL 30 11 25 36 34 22 11 9 20 16
2007–08 Providence Bruins AHL 66 9 17 26 51 4 2 0 2 2
2008–09 Providence Bruins AHL 74 16 18 34 74 14 1 5 6 8
2009–10 Milwaukee Admirals AHL 76 8 10 18 53 5 0 0 0 0
2010–11 KHL Medveščak EBEL 53 12 27 39 111 2 0 0 0 0
2011–12 Cincinnati Cyclones ECHL 3 0 4 4 2 — — — — —
2011–12 San Antonio Rampage AHL 71 2 12 14 51 10 0 0 0 2
2012–13 Lørenskog IK GET 44 19 34 53 48 12 5 6 11 6
2013–14 Lørenskog IK GET 38 16 29 45 30 2 0 0 0 4
2014–15 Lørenskog IK GET 36 11 22 33 47 5 0 2 2 29
2015–16 Nippon Paper Cranes AL 48 7 34 41 16 5 1 2 3 4
2016–17 HC Pustertal Wölfe AlpsHL 35 19 15 34 38 2 0 1 1 2
2017–18 Jacksonville Icemen ECHL 2 0 1 1 0 — — — — —
2017–18 HC Dukla Jihlava ELH 17 2 3 5 10 — — — — —
2018–19 Jacksonville Icemen ECHL 70 29 31 60 54 6 0 1 1 2
2019–20 ASC Corona Brașov Erste 19 10 12 22 8 — — — — —
2019–20 Jacksonville Icemen ECHL 33 8 15 23 8 — — — — —
AHL totals 309 36 59 95 254 33 3 5 8 12

Awards and honours
Award Year
Junior
WHL Doug Wickenheiser Memorial Trophy 2005–06
CHL Memorial Cup 2006–07
gollark: ... probably not.
gollark: We need 256-char names and the ability to use the entire Unicode character space¡!!!¡
gollark: I wonder why TJ09 imposes these naming rules.
gollark: LOL with 10 spaces between each letter?
gollark: Name them VIK-001, VIK-002, VIK-003…

References
  1. "Giants add Rabbit". Spokesman Review. January 9, 2007. Retrieved November 11, 2008.
  2. Schmidt, Scott. "The Macleod Gazette". ProQuest 521272367. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  3. "Wacey Rabbit plays key role for his AHL club". nativehockeynews.com. November 1, 2009. Archived from the original on March 12, 2012. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
  4. "Canadian in Zagreb's Bear den" (in Croatian). KHL Medveščak. August 30, 2010. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
  5. "Rabbit is a Bear, Fox no more" (in German). KHL Medveščak. September 7, 2010. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
  6. "Transfers now complete". rb.no. June 21, 2012. Retrieved June 21, 2012.
  7. "Paper Cranes sign three new foreign players" (in Japanese). Nippon Paper Cranes. July 28, 2015. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  8. "Wacey Rabbit is on board". Jacksonville IceMen. August 31, 2017. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  9. "Rabbit re-joins Icemen". ECHL. August 14, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Colin Fraser		 WHL Doug Wickenheiser Memorial Trophy
2006		 Succeeded by
Kyle Moir
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