MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com-PRINCETON, N.J. - The ECHL announced that in the first three weeks of the season there have been 45 call ups to the American Hockey League involving 43 players. 


A call-up is defined as a player who is reassigned by a National Hockey League team, recalled by an AHL team or loaned by an ECHL team to an AHL team, and an individual player can experience multiple call-ups. 


The ECHL has also had goaltenders Justin Pogge of Bakersfield and Braden Holtby of South Carolina recalled to the National Hockey League where they were the backup goaltenders for the Anaheim Ducks and the Washington Capitals, respectively. 
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Every ECHL team has an affiliation with an NHL team and the league has affiliations with 28 of the 30 NHL teams, marking the 13th consecutive season that the league has had affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL. The ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 29 teams in the American Hockey League and for the past 20 years there has been an ECHL player on the Calder Cup Champion. 


The ECHL had more than 500 call ups to the AHL involving more than 300 players in 2008-09. The ECHL call ups and the number of players involved were 10 times as many as all other professional leagues combined. It marked the fourth consecutive season that there were more than 400 call ups from the ECHL to the AHL and that more than 41 percent of the players who played in the ECHL also played in the AHL. 


Since 2002-03 the ECHL has had over 3,000 call-ups to the AHL involving more than 1,700 players which is more than the total call-ups for all other professional leagues combined during those seven seasons. 


The ECHL is the primary development league for the AHL and the NHL. The ECHL and the AHL are the only two minor professional hockey leagues that are recognized in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association. The CBA states that any player on an NHL entry-level contract designated for assignment to a minor league must report if assigned to a team in the ECHL or the AHL. A player on an NHL entry-level contract assigned to a minor professional league other than the ECHL or the AHL is not required to report and can request reassignment to a team in the ECHL or the AHL. 


There have already been seven former ECHL players who have made their debut in the NHL this season bringing the total number of players who have played in the NHL after the ECHL to 414. There were a record 52 former ECHL players who played their first game in 2008-09 and 158 players have reached the NHL since 2005-06.

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