Christopher Mark Stanley was born June 18th, 1979, in Parry Sound to parents Fran and Simon Stanley. He has one sister, Leanne Stanley.
Chris was born and raised in Parry Sound. He was first introduced to the game by his father (who played minor hockey in Parry Sound with Bobby Orr) while still in diapers. He started on the ice at the age of 2 and joined Parry Sound Minor Hockey at age 4, donning the yellow and black of the Campbell Sports Novice house league team. After just one season in house league, Chris joined the Novice Rep team at just 5 and played the next 10 years on Rep teams in Parry Sound.
At 15, he tried out for and made the town’s new junior “A” hockey team that played in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League (NOJHL) in 1994. After half a season of limited minutes, he chose to drop back to minor hockey and affiliate to the junior team for the remainder of the season. He played a year up with the local Midget Rep team, where he helped the team win an All-Ontario Championship in the spring of 1995.
Following his success with the Midget Rep team and his time in junior hockey, Chris was invited to the Under 17 Team Ontario camps, where he made it to the final round of cuts but unfortunately, didn’t make the final roster. But during these camps, he was scouted and asked to join the Wellington Dukes of the Metro Junior Hockey League. After a successful rookie season, he was selected to join the Eastern All-Star Team and named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Year.
Chris had always wanted to earn himself a Hockey Scholarship to the NCAA. He had, in fact, verbally agreed to attend the University of Michigan after one more year of junior hockey, so despite being a top prospect for the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) draft, he told teams not to draft him because he would be going to university. The Belleville Bulls took a gamble on Chris in the 10th round of the OHL draft, with intentions to change his mind, which they did.
Chris had a successful rookie season in the OHL and vaulted himself up the NHL draft rankings. In the summer of 1997, Chris was selected 90th overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the NHL entry draft.
Chris played over 250 games for the Belleville Bulls in the OHL over his 4 years in the league and attended two NHL Training camps with the Vancouver Canucks and another one with the Detroit Red Wings. Personal achievements aside, the highlight of his time in the OHL came in 1999 when he helped the Belleville Bulls to their first and only OHL championship and a berth in the 1999 Memorial Cup.
After his junior career, Chris wanted to further his playing career while getting an education, so he decided to attend Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This
turned out to be a big step for Chris’s career. Playing under Olympic Silver Medalist Fabian Joseph (1992 &1994), Chris found another level to his game. He earned several personal accolades while playing at Dalhousie, including Rookie of the Year, 2-time Dalhousie Male Athlete of the Year, AUS (Atlantic University Sport) Male Athlete of the Year and highlighted by CIS (Canadian University Sport) Male Hockey Player of the Year in his final season.
Despite the personal success, Chris’s proudest moment was captaining his senior year team to win a Bronze Medal at the National Championship. With a diploma in hand, Chris decided to continue his pursuit of his hockey dream. He was offered a Professional Tryout (PTO) during the 2004 NHL lockout with the American Hockey League’s (AHL) Lowell Lock Monsters but was released and joined the Las Vegas Wranglers of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL). After two seasons in the desert, Chris decided to venture across the pond and start his European career. His first stop was in Heilbronn, Germany playing in the German Oberliga. Chris had a very successful season, finishing top 3 in scoring and helping the team achieve promotion to the second division. The following season, Chris played in Asiago, Italy in the Italian Serie A league. The following season, he had a short tenure in Austria before returning to Germany where he spent the remainder of his career. Chris played the next 4 seasons in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga 2 (DEL 2) in Germany in Riessersee and Bremerhaven. He averaged over a point per game and was the captain of the Fischtown Pinguins (Bremerhaven) for 2 seasons.
In 2012-2013, Chris dropped down to the German Oberliga to help a smaller club try and attain promotion. It was a successful season as Chris captained his team to an Oberliga Meisterschaft (Upper League Championship) and helped them earn promotion to the DEL 2. The following year he was tasked again with the same duties in Frankfurt and was again successful in helping his 3rd German Oberliga team attain promotion.
The following season, in 2014, Chris was asked to join the Frankfurt coaching staff while he awaited his German Citizenship. He was the assistant coach in the DEL 2 and a player/coach for the German Oberliga team. He coached the following season solely for the DEL 2 team and did not play.
After obtaining his German Citizenship, Chris was again asked to play as a player/assistant coach in Sonthofen, Germany. He played there for 2 seasons before getting his first head coaching position in the German Oberliga. This did not keep him off the ice for long though. Chris was asked to join the team he was coaching, to play the second half of the season and help Lindau have their most successful season to date in the league. He again hung up his skates to go back behind the bench for the following season. It wasn’t the last time he would play though as he was again asked to come out of retirement as a player/coach with the Rostock Piranhas. Chris played until the birth of his son Hanno in 2021 before finally retiring for the last time.
In 2023, Chris and his family (wife Megan, daughter Haven and son Hanno) moved back to Parry Sound where Chris has worked to give back to the game that gave him so much and showed him the world. Chris does player development work with both local clubs (Parry Sound and Muskoka Rock) as well as his private hockey schools with CS 79 Hockey. “I hope to be able to help someone achieve their childhood dreams like I did.”
