Brownstown Bombers
The Brownstown Bombers was an ice hockey team in the Continental Elite Hockey League from 2001- 2004. The Bombers played out of the Ice Box Sports Center in Brownstown, Michigan. and were owned by Johno Norian.
During the 2001-02 season, the team was known as the Downriver Lumberjacks.
Tom Boileau served as the head coach from 2002-2004. His son, Jason Clements-Boileau served as top assistant and replaced his father as head coach in the middle of the 2004 season. In 2002-03, his other assistants were Gerry McGlynn and Mike Henderson. In 2003-04, McGlynn was not retained and Henderson was moved to Director of Scouting & Player Development. Bob Hassan was brought on as an assistant.
The Bombers made the CEHL playoffs in the 2001-02 season, but were eliminated by the eventual champion the Toledo Storm. That would be the only time the Bombers made the postseason as the team finished fifth in 2003 and sixth in 2004. In the 2003-2004 season, the team did boast the league's leading scorer, Dave Stewart, who posted 50 goals with 52 assists. He joined the Bombers in November from the Metro Fighting Moose and quickly made his way to the top line with Lukas Vepy and Frank Furdero, who was later replaced by Chris Marasco after Furdero hit the CEHL age limit of 22 on Feb. 1, 2004.
Some of the Bombers most memorable moments in the 2003-04 season was being the first team to beat the Metro Fighting Moose at home, overcoming the Moose in a shootout in early January. Another moment came when Henderson sent six of the Bombers to attend a pro scouting camp held by Bob Gergerich;NHLPA,Director of IHC Hockey.
One of their most active promoters was a high school student Matt Bishop who was the Director of Media relations. Bishop later went on to become a sports reporter for The State News, Michigan State University's student newspaper.
The Bombers games were regularly shown on Comcast Cable in the Downriver area during the 2003-04 season. Former CEHL media relations director Larry Nader and Bombers hockey operations director Mark McKenzie served as the announce team for the first half of the season before Matt Bishop and Kurt Luckow took over for the second half.
Although the Bombers did not have much success on the ice, the track record of the team in terms of promoting players to higher levels was outstanding.
Both defenseman Adam Drescher and goaltender Kevin Bonikowski moved on to play for Wayne State University while forward Steve Filak went on to play in two games for the Toledo Storm of the ECHL. Derek Wilson played for the Bombers during the 2001-2002 season then went on to play 4 years at Eastern Michigan University. Many other players went on to play for various minor-pro and Division III college teams.