Center Township resident and hockey goaltender Jake Hildebrand works out with NHL player J.T. Miller during an off-season. Hildebrand will be returning to Germany for his second season of pro hockey there in August. Butler Eagle File Photo

CENTER TWP — Despite having success as a goaltender in the East Coast Hockey League, Jake Hildebrand could sense his hockey career was coming to an end.

The Center Township resident turns 29 next month and he had played for five different ECHL teams from 2015 through 2021.

“I felt like I was pigeon-holed there. I wasn’t really going anywhere,” he said of his career.

Hildebrand was slated to play for the league’s Kalamazoo Wings again in 2020-21, but that organization did not put a team on the ice that season. He wound up suiting up for the Florida Everblades, where he posted a 23-10-5 record, 2.40 goals-against average, a .923 save percentage and a pair of shutouts.

That performance earned him a call from the Lowen Frankfurt Lions of the DEL2 league in Germany.

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