Lance Ward (born June 2, 1978) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

former professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

defenceman. He holds the current Elitserien record for most penalty minutes during one season.

Playing career

Born in

Lloydminster Lloydminster is a city in Canada which has the unusual geographic distinction of straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administra ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Ward was originally drafted 10th overall by the

New Jersey Devils The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The Devils compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The club w ...

in the 1996 NHL Entry Draft, but he re-entered the draft and was selected 63rd overall by the

Florida Panthers The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Panthers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team initially played it ...

in the 1998 NHL Entry Draft. Ward has played 209 career NHL games, scoring 4 goals and 12 assists for 16 points, and 391 penalty minutes. During the

2004–05 NHL lockout The 2004–05 NHL lockout was a labor lockout that resulted in the cancellation of the National Hockey League (NHL) season, which would have been its 88th season of play. The main dispute was the league's desire to implement a salary cap to ...

Ward did not play. Ward signed a one-year contract on June 5, 2006, with the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Elitserien Elitserien (literally, "the Elite League") is the name of several Swedish nationwide sport leagues. In many sports, Elitserien is the highest league, with the second highest named Allsvenskan. Elitserien leagues at present: * Elitserien (badmint ...

club

HV71 HV71 (), often referred to as just HV, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Jönköping, playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the first tier of Swedish ice hockey. The team played in the 2008–09 Champions Hockey League ...

from

Jönköping Jönköping (, ) is a Urban areas in Sweden, city in southern Sweden with 112,766 inhabitants (2022). Jönköping is situated on the southern shore of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern, in the province of Småland. The city is the seat o ...

. On February 20, 2007, in a game against Färjestads BK, Ward broke both HV71's club record and the Elitserien record for most penalty minutes in one season when he checked one player into the boards and seconds later speared another in front of the crease. The sequence ended with Ward being penalized with 7 minutes plus game misconduct (adding another 20 minutes). During the off-season 2007–08, Ward turned down a contract extension from HV71 to instead sign a two-year deal with the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n club

Graz 99ers The Moser Medical Graz99ers are an Austrian professional ice hockey team from Graz, Styria. The club was founded in 1999 after the previous club, EHC Graz, folded prior to the 1998–99 season due to financial difficulties. The Graz99ers started ...

. In June, 2007, Graz revoked the contract and stated they will not pay Ward the amount settled in the signing. Ward returned to Sweden and re-signed with HV71 for another year. After winning the Elitserien playoff finals with HV71 in 2008, Ward signed with the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

DEL Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...

team

Frankfurt Lions The Frankfurt Lions were a German professional men's ice hockey club from Frankfurt, Germany that played in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The club ceased operations in 2010 due to financial difficulty. History * The hockey team was founded as a ...

. After one season with Frankfurt, he signed a two-year contract to return to HV71 in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

Post career

Lance Ward was hired on as a full-time staff member within the Lloydminster public school hockey division in 2015. With Ward's new position, he has also been named the director of its hockey academy.

Awards

* Swedish Champion with

in 2008. * Swedish Champion with

in 2010.

Records

* Elitserien record for penalty minutes (273) 2007 * Elitserien record for penalty minutes (212) 2008

Career statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Lance 1978 births Living people Beast of New Haven players Binghamton Senators players Canadian ice hockey defencemen Cincinnati Mighty Ducks players Florida Panthers draft picks Florida Panthers players Frankfurt Lions players HV71 players Ice hockey people from Lloydminster Louisville Panthers players Mighty Ducks of Anaheim players NHL first-round draft picks New Jersey Devils draft picks Red Deer Rebels players Ice hockey people from Alberta