Mike Liambas

Playing career

Mike Liambas started his junior hockey in the Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League with the St. Michael's Buzzers before moving up to the Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters in 2006–07. Hip surgery in December 2008 kept him out for most of the 2008–09 season; he played only five games before the operation and didn't return until the playoffs. After the Otters were knocked out, he inked a pro deal with the IHL's Bloomington PrairieThunder on March 31, 2009, scoring once in eight games to close the season. He then came back to the OHL for a fourth year with Erie as an overage player in 2009–10.

On October 30, 2009, during a game against the Kitchener Rangers, Liambas hit 16-year-old defenceman Ben Fanelli in the head. Fanelli's head slammed into a metal partition in the glass, shattering his helmet and knocking it off. He lay unconscious, twitching and foaming at the mouth, before being rushed to the hospital in critical condition with fractures to his skull and orbital bone. Liambas tried to visit him but was turned away. Fanelli was released from Hamilton General Hospital on November 6, and after recovering from the brain injury, he returned to the Rangers two years later.

Four days after the hit, on November 4, OHL commissioner David Branch suspended Liambas for the rest of the regular season and playoffs, effectively ending his junior career. Branch pointed to the speed and distance Liambas covered to deliver the check, plus the severity of Fanelli's injuries, saying the league needed to take strong steps to send a message about showing more respect to opponents.