The Campbell River Storm has gone international.
With the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League (VIJHL) now an independent league, the Storm is allowed two international player slots to help fill their roster. On the same day the VIJHL announced their split from Hockey Canada and BC Hockey (April 29), the Storm announced the signings of Levente Birta and Trofim Godochkin. Both players are forwards.
Godochkin is from Prague, Czechia. The 18-year-old has spent the past three seasons with Stanstead College’s hockey team. Stanstead College is an independent English-speaking school in Stanstead, Que. (roughly 158 kilometres southeast of Montreal). In 2023-24, Stanstead and Godochkin played in the Canadian Prep School Hockey Alliance (CPSHA), Canadian High School Hockey (CAHS), and the Two Nations Prep Hockey League (TNPHL).
Across all three competitions, Godochkin scored 24 points in 53 games. His first two seasons with the school were in the Réseau du sport Étudiant du Québec M18 D1 league, where Godochkin scored 63 points in 45 games.
Levente Birta, born in Budapest, Hungary, has spent the last four seasons in three countries. In the 2020-21 season, Birta was in Hungary, playing with the Sportország SC U18 team, scoring 14 points in 12 games. He also had one appearance for his nation’s u16 international team. He joined Sweden’s Lund Giants and played for their U16, U18 and U20 teams, appearing three times each for the older teams, but played 24 games for the u16. He scored 19 points, including 13 goals, for the U16 team and three points for the U18s. His form also caught the attention of Hungary’s U16 team again. He scored five goals and two assists in 11 games for the country.
He then crossed the Atlantic to play for the Northern Cyclones U16, an American team based in Hudson, N.H. He scored 69 points in 55 games in the team’s AAA campaign and 18 points in the Tier 1 Hockey Federation. He also appeared once for the Hungary U18 team.
Last season, he joined the New Jersey Rockets in the United States Premier Hockey League Premier Division, a Tier 3 junior league. In 27 games with the Rockets, he scored 21 points.
The players have yet to come to Campbell River.