After 10 years of professional hockey, Blair Riley is hanging up his skates.
After 10 years of professional hockey, Blair Riley is hanging up his skates.
The 34 year old Canadian forward was already signed for the 2020-21 season but has opted to move into his post-hockey career, taking a full-time position with a project management firm in his hometown of Kamloops, British Columbia.
Riley joined the Devils after 3 years in Belfast where he captained the Giants to back to back Challenge Cup titles as well as the 2018-19 Elite League Championship.
Before moving to Europe, he played 330 games in the American Hockey League where he scored 35 goals and 45 assists for 78 points. He also racked up 574 penalty minutes over his 7 seasons in the AHL. Prior to turning pro, Riley spent 4 years at Ferris State University where he led the Bulldogs in goals and points in his senior year.
Riley’s three titles as a professional all came during his time in Belfast and he looked like he was going to be a repeat Elite League Champion this season with the Devils before the season was cut short due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking about Riley’s time in Cardiff, Devils Managing Director Todd Kelman said:
“Blair is the definition of an old school hockey player. He hits, fights, scores goals, plays through injury, leads by example. He’s just a great pro and a great person.
“When he was in Belfast, I thought he was one of the most impactful players in the league and a huge reason for their success. After a couple of weeks with us, I realised he was even better than I thought he was.
“It is too bad that this pandemic has cut his career short, but I am very happy that we got to have him with us for one season, and what a season it was. He might have been our best player in the CHL to start last season and he scored some of the biggest goals of the season for us.
“I would have loved to have him back for 2020-21 but with so much uncertainly this summer, he started looking around and found a great job in his hometown.
“He is a guy that is going to be a success in whatever he does, he has a list of intangibles too long to write about that will make him a valuable member of any team in any business. He set himself up to move into a post-hockey career and so I am sure the transition will be a smooth one and we all wish him well in his new career.”
Riley finished the 2019-20 season with 22 goals and 20 assists for 42 points in 55 games as a Devil. He was also selected to represent Canada at the prestigious Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland over the Christmas period where he was part of Team Canada’s gold medal winning squad.
