Blackhawks sign junior standout Aliu
Winger posted career-best 61 points last season with OHL's London Knights
Last Updated: Monday, August 25, 2008 | 12:57 PM ET
CBC Sports
Akim Aliu played for the OHL's Sudbury Wolves from 2005-2007. (Gino Donato/Sudbury Star/Canadian Press)Akim Aliu will attend Chicago Blackhawks training camp next month armed with a new contract.
The NHL club announced Monday it has signed the right-winger to a three-year contract after Aliu finished third in scoring with the Ontario Hockey League's London Knights last season.
Aliu, 19, is coming off a career-best campaign of 61 points (28 goals, 33 assists) in 60 games.
Chicago's third choice (56th overall) in the 2007 NHL entry draft, Aliu made his professional debut last year, playing two games with the Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League.
He is best known for a highly publicized incident in September 2005 while playing for the OHL's Windsor Spitfires.
Aliu made headlines across North America when he would not cram his naked body into a hot, smelly toilet along with several other fellow Spitfires rookies as part of an initiation ritual or team building exercise.
Aliu chose not to play along and a few weeks later was involved in a fight with then Spitfires captain Steve Downie at practice.
Born in Okene, Nigeria, Aliu was raised in Ukraine until he was seven before moving to Toronto in the mid-1990s.
Aliu notched 58 goals, 123 points and 316 penalty minutes in 160 career regular-season OHL tilts with Windsor (2005-06), the Sudbury Wolves (2005-07) and London.
