The Guildford Flames ice hockey club’s assistant coach, 2^nd all time top point getter, and head coach of the Guildford under 18 side, Milos Melicherik, will return to the club to resume his 3 separate roles.

The former Slovakian Jr. International led the team in playoff scoring this past spring when he recorded 2 goals and 5 assists while helping his side all the way to overtime of the championship final. Icing in just 31 league outings, the 5’11”, 180lb forward hauled in an additional 18 goals and 50 points. The 35 year old arrived in 2003 and topped the team point list for 6 consecutive seasons. He enters the coming campaign just shy of 200 goals and is a near lock to become only the 2^nd Flames player to reach the 600 point milestone. During his first season in Flames colours, Melicherik led the way to the Playoff championship. Since then, his trophy haul includes a pair of English Premier League titles and an equal number of Premier Cups, including the most recent success in 2009-2010.

After a development career that included caps with the Slovakian World Jr. international squad in 1994, he iced the first 6 years of his full time pro career in Slovakia with Dukla Trencin. He recorded his best offensive Extraleague season during the 1999-2000 set when he had 19 goals and 46 points. The next year he made his first move by joining Havirov Panthers in the Czech Extraleague. He spent the following season in Germany which preceded a final session back with Trencin ahead of his UK arrival.

Flames Head Coach Paul Dixon reflected on the Slovak’s contribution last season:

“Milos has been outstanding since the day he got here, and his numbers speak for themselves, but of all the things he has done, last season’s effort probably has to be viewed with the most respect because of the responsibility he had off the ice. He began the season out of the line up in mostly coaching duties both with us and with the Jr’s. He did not play a game for the opening 2 weekends and then we threw him in against Slough where he scored the overtime winner to get us the first points of the league season. All year long he was in and out of the line up and every time, no matter how long the layoff, he would just step in and spark us to a better standard of play. That is a remarkable achievement when you are relying only on practice time to stay game sharp. He had an enormous role in the capture of the Premier Cup and then he went on to lead us in scoring during the playoffs. Nothing deterred him from producing. His overall performance under the weight of responsibility, and the difficulty of not knowing when he would be called into action, illustrated just what a quality player he is, and we are excited to invite him back for yet another season.”

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