The Bristol Honda Pitbulls are thrilled to announce the signing of Canadian Nik Coric, who takes the open import spot on the roster.
Coric, 26, was born in Newmarket, Ontario and can count two-time NHL Hart Trophy winner Connor McDavid as one of his former teammates. The Canadian spent his junior career in the OJHL, splitting his time between Newmarket Hurricanes, Wellington Dukes and Whitby Fury, playing with current Vancouver Canuck Travis Dermott.
After attending university in Canada, playing for York University in USports from 2017 up until Covid, Coric signed for Amals SK in Sweden, the same division as Owen Sobchak. In 45 games for Amals, Coric scored 42 goals and added a further 66 assists, including 12+9 in the postseason.
The club is waiting on the final stages of Nik’s international clearance and hope to have him available next weekend.
Nik Coric is looking forward to bringing some more offensive firepower to the UK. He said “I’ve always felt like playing in the UK was something I wanted to do so I’m really glad to have this opportunity. I’ve not heard too much about Bristol, but I’ve looked into the city a little bit and I’m excited to get going. I would say I’m a playmaker with a strong hockey IQ. Hopefully, I can bring some more offensive power to the team and help us push up the standings.”
Jamie Elson is delighted to bring Nik into the organisation. He said, “We are thrilled to be adding Nik to the team at this point and taking us back up to two imports in our line-up. Nik is going to be an exciting addition and a player with offensive flair. He skates well and has a great skill set. He’s an intelligent player with a great hockey IQ and see’s the ice really well. He is going to be an offensive threat every shift and will be a guy that will make the players around him better.
“I’ve watched a lot of video on Nik and really liked his game and was excited by what he will add. He is going to be hard working, and make us more dangerous on the puck, and he will be big on the Powerplay too which is huge. He’s had a great junior career in Canada putting up consistent numbers, and then moved to the CIS and represented York University. Last season he played in Sweden Division 2, the same league as Owen Sobchak, although they didn’t cross paths as they were in different conferences. Nik put up 108 points in 45 games which is some return. He hasn’t had a team this year but has still been on the ice skating back home. He’s only 26 so I feel will fit into our room well. We hope he will be on ice with us in Bristol soon.”
Our line-up has had some ins and outs, but we are looking to get settled now and have a really big push. We wanted to make sure we were giving ourselves the best possible chance to succeed when it matters here as the season moves on, and felt some changes were needed and we really like the group we have assembled now. We have been through some ups and downs these past few weeks with guys missing through injuries and sickness. But once Nik arrives and we start to move forward with this line up I believe we have a group the fans can get excited about.
“Credit to Richie and Mike. When opportunities have come up to add players and make changes to help make us better, they have supported it 100% and done everything possible to make it happen. We will be working hard now to get into the playoff spots and start to challenge.”
