a lasalle native now living in windsor, iaquinta likely could have made the jump a lot sooner, but said it was hard to walk away from lakeshore after so much success.
“i definitely thought about it way back when,” iaquinta said. “it’s something i wanted to do, but lakeshore was so good to me and it was such a good time that it was never, ‘i have to get out of here’ kind of thing.
“this summer, i put some thought into it and thought this was something i might want to do and i was fortunate to get the opportunity. i’m ready for a new challenge and the other part is it’s now or never. i’m getting older and talked to my family and said let’s give it a shot now.”
the vipers return three of their top four scorers from a year ago in nicholas graniero, kyle greene and adriano tonin. connor chartrand, brendan gouin, jaksen ward, stefan djordjevic and jak thiessen also return.
julian gignac and zach vaillaincourt, who both played in lakeshore, move over along with
matteo vilardi, who was a windsor spitfires’ under-18 draft pick, and joseph gingras. both played for the windsor aaa u18 last season.
“our forwards look pretty good and the pieces we’ve added, we’re excited about, too,” iaquinta said.
findlay, who was fifth in team scoring last year, and brady hamlin, who played junior a with leamington last season, will anchor a young defence. that group features windsor’s kieren mcnally, who played midget in mississauga last year and was an ohl pick by sarnia, and brody jones, who played for windsor’s under-18 team last year and was an ohl pick by oshawa. bryce belleau, who played junior c in essex last season, and noah caswell, who was under-18 draft pick by the spitfires, round out a young, but promising unit.