Photo credit: Kelsey Lee-Violet Turtle Photography

Alabama Huntsville defender, and Hendersonville, Tennessee native Lucas Bahn, and first line center Tyrone Bronte both have something in common about how they found the game of hockey. Despite living on opposite sides of the world growing up, both started off playing roller hockey. Bahn played at a rink about ten minutes from his childhood home, and grew up playing the game supported by an incredibly supportive family. Originally, Bahn was set to head to the University of New Hampshire, but he ended up coming to Alabama Huntsville.

Former Alabama Huntsville Head Coach Mike Corbett, who brought Bahn to Huntsville did a superb job of summing up what Lucas and his family bring to Alabama Huntsville.

“His mom and dad were supporters from day one, they are A1 people, Lucas wanted to be a part of our program, Lucas had the opportunity to be a part of another program and he didn’t want to.”

Further expanding on his comments about Lucas’ family, Corbett said that, “his parents are rockstars.”

To his family Lucas is thankful for all of them, saying “my family means everything to me, they’ve helped me in more ways than they could ever know.”

Lucas can do everything well for this team, and is their most consistent defender. Other than score a goal this season, Bahn has been a part of most of the key minutes that the Chargers have had in each game.

Lucas explained why he chose to stay at UAH after the reinstatement of the program this summer, saying “I decided to stay because I really enjoyed my first year.. and its close to home for me. I knew Westy (Head Coach Lance West) was coming back. I thought I would have a good opportunity to play a lot “

As his current Associate Head Coach Karlis Zirnis says of what Bahn brings, and his coachability that it is, “very easy to coach Lucas. Lucas is a very dynamic skater and uses his agility to his advantage. Lucas is a very smart player and takes coaching very well. Also Lucas is very good teammate with helping out anyway he can.” Bahn credits Zirnis for helping him become a better two way defender. This year, Bahn is making more cerebral plays on the defensive end, and is a part of why the Chargers have improved in playing team defense.

His stats and improvement from his first year to now show that. He already has more assists this year than last year, in 14 less games. In addition, a lot of what he brings is beyond the box score. His mentorship has helped players like Josh Martin integrate into the group faster, as the two have played well together, and both have a natural chemistry with one another on the ice. When Lucas plays with Dayne Finnson, he is the primary setup man for that pair, as Finnson’s slap shot is one of the harder ones on the team. On the power play, Lucas is the quarterback, and is a big reason behind the improvement in UAH’s power play from last year to this season.

Every game, Bahn typically wins multiple battles on effort alone, and several more due to his high hockey intelligence. Bahn is an incredibly cerebral player, and is often the reason why a goal is saved or created when he is on the ice. His mentorship of the freshmen that this team has is already paying off, with players like Josh Corrow seeing a more consistent amount of minutes as the year has progressed. As this program looks to build up from the foundation of this season, Bahn will have a role in adding to the foundation he is building this year. If offered the chance when his time comes, he would consider staying an extra year to use the extra year of eligibility offered to all winter sport student-athletes due to the pandemic-marred season that is happening. When you look at the growth of the program from game one against Robert Morris to where they are now in terms of playing more consistent each night, Bahn’s influence is a big part of that development.

Donate: To help us cover more games and tell more stories not found elsewhere about all of college sports, especially under represented athletes everywhere across the college sports landscape like unique untold stories across college hockey. Please click the below link and consider donating what you can. If you do, I will list you in every story about we write as a supporter of crowd-funded  journalism that can truly be free for all at this link:paypal.me/Seamorepsorts

Your donation will help expand what content we can offer and how many stories we can tell.