Dan Spang (born August 16, 1983) is a former American-Italian professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

defenseman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the la ...

. He last played for

Löwen Frankfurt The Löwen Frankfurt are a professional ice hockey team based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. They currently play in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The club is the successor of the Frankfurt Lions, formed in 1991, which experienced its greatest succ ...

in the German

DEL2 DEL2 (also known as DEL II) is the second tier ice hockey league in Germany, below the '' Deutsche Eishockey Liga'' (DEL) and ahead of the '' Oberliga''. Founded in 2013 to replace the defunct '' 2nd Bundesliga'', DEL2 is administered by ESBG, u ...

. Spang was selected by the

San Jose Sharks The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference, and are owned by San Jose Sports & Entertainm ...

in the 2nd round (52nd overall) of the

2002 NHL Entry Draft __NOTOC__ The 2002 NHL Entry Draft was the 40th NHL Entry Draft. It was held on June 22 and 23, 2002 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Two hundred and ninety-one players were drafted in total: 35 from the Ontario Hockey League (OHL); ...

Playing career

Spang won a Massachusetts state championship in 2000 at Winchester High School. He was drafted by the

in the second round, 52nd overall, of the

. During his collegiate career, he was a co-winner of Boston University’s Most Improved Player Award following the 2003–04 season. Spang led

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

defensemen in goals (nine), assists (22) and points (31) in 40 games as a senior. Won a

Hockey East The Hockey East Association, also known as Hockey East, is a college ice hockey conference which operates entirely in New England. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. Hockey East came into existence in 1984 for ...

regular season and tournament championship at

in 2005–06 he was an Alternate Captain for the

Worcester Sharks The Worcester Sharks were a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) that played from 2006 to 2015. Affiliated with the National Hockey League's San Jose Sharks and located in Worcester, Massachusetts, Worcester, Massachu ...

as a rookie in 2006–07 and remained with the club for the following 2007-08 season. The 2008-09 season saw him play for AHL franchises

Quad City Flames The Quad City Flames were an American professional ice hockey team that played in the American Hockey League from 2007 to 2009. They were owned by QC Sports Ventures Inc., an ownership group based out of the Quad Cities. The Flames played at the i ...

Syracuse Crunch The Syracuse Crunch are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL). They play in Syracuse, New York, at the Upstate Medical University Arena. They are the primary development affiliate of the National Hockey League's Tampa ...

as well as for ECHL’s

Las Vegas Wranglers The Las Vegas Wranglers were a professional ice hockey team based in Las Vegas Valley. The Wranglers were members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League). The Wranglers were founded a ...

. On July 21, 2009, he signed a contract for

Nürnberg Ice Tigers The Nürnberg Ice Tigers are a professional ice hockey club located in Nuremberg, Germany. They play in the country's premier league, the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. History The roots of the team can be traced back to SG Nürnberg, an ice hockey cl ...

of the

Deutsche Eishockey Liga The Deutsche Eishockey Liga (for sponsorship reasons called "PENNY Deutsche Eishockey Liga") (; English: ''German Ice Hockey League'') or DEL, is a German professional ice hockey league and the highest division in German ice hockey. Founded in ...

, where he spent the entire 2009-10 season. He then signed with the

Dallas Stars The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and were founde ...

organization to play for them in the 2010–11 season. However, he was assigned to the affiliates

Texas Stars The Texas Stars are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) based in Cedar Park, Texas, near Austin, with home games at the H-E-B Center. They are owned by the National Hockey League's (NHL) Dallas Stars and are the t ...

of the AHL. Although Spang signed with the

Växjö Lakers Hockey Växjö ( ) is a city and the seat of Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden. It had 70,489 inhabitants (2019) out of a municipal population of 95,995 (2021). It is the administrative, cultural, and industrial centre of Kronoberg County ...

of the Swedish

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 ...

(SEL) on May 4, 2011, he extended his contract with the Dallas Stars organization on June 16, 2011. Between 2012 and 2015, Spang played for three different teams of the Finnish elite league

Liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding leagu ...

HPK Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho (HPK) is a professional ice hockey team in the Liiga, the top men's ice hockey league in Finland. Their home ice is the Ritari-areena in Hämeenlinna. HPK was established in 1929. The parent club of the team is HPK Edu ...

SaiPa SAIPA ( fa, سایپا, ''SAIPA'') is an Iranian automaker headquartered in Tehran. The SAIPAC (an acronym for the French ''Société anonyme iranienne de production des automobiles Citroën'') was established in 1965 as with 75% Iranian ownersh ...

and Kärpät. In between, during the 2012–13 season, he had a stint with Swedish SHL side

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 s ...

. Spang opened the 2015–16 season in the

KHL The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL; russian: Континентальная хоккейная лига (КХЛ), Kontinental'naya khokkeynaya liga) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises member clubs ba ...

on the roster of

Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod (russian: Торпедо Нижний Новгород) is a professional ice hockey club in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. It is a member of the Bobrov Division in the Kontinental Hockey League. The team's home arena is Trade ...

. After eleven games played, he moved on to Czech club

HC Kometa Brno HC Kometa Brno ("Comet" in English) is a professional ice hockey team based in Brno, Czech Republic. They play in the Czech Extraliga. Kometa is the most successful ice hockey club in the Czech Republic with 13 Czechoslovak (and Czech) league ch ...

. In December, he was signed by

HC Lugano Hockey Club Lugano, often abbreviated to HC Lugano or HCL, is a professional ice hockey club based in Lugano, Switzerland. The team competes in the National League (NL) and has won seven Swiss championships. History The founding of HC Lugano took ...

of Switzerland on loan to strengthen the club's roster at the Spengler-Cup. In late January 2016, he signed with the

Hamburg Freezers The Hamburg Freezers were a German professional men's ice hockey club from Hamburg, Germany that played in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The club announced its withdrawal from the DEL and ceased operations on 24 May 2016 when Anschutz Entertainment ...

of the German top-tier league,

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 th ...

, for the remainder of the 2015–16 campaign. After two seasons with the

Nottingham Panthers The Nottingham Panthers are a British professional ice hockey club based in Nottingham, England. They are members of the Elite Ice Hockey League. Their main team sponsor is the Nottingham Building Society. The Nottingham Panthers have won four ...

, Spang returned to Germany in 2018 with

side

before retiring.

Career statistics

Awards and honors

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spang, Dan 1983 births Living people American men's ice hockey defensemen Boston University Terriers men's ice hockey players Cleveland Barons (2001–2006) players Ice hockey players from Massachusetts Las Vegas Wranglers players Nürnberg Ice Tigers players People from Winchester, Massachusetts Quad City Flames players San Jose Sharks draft picks Sportspeople from Middlesex County, Massachusetts Syracuse Crunch players Texas Stars players Worcester Sharks players Hamburg Freezers players Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod players Oulun Kärpät players HV71 players SaiPa players HPK players HC Kometa Brno players Nottingham Panthers players Löwen Frankfurt players Winchester High School (Massachusetts) alumni AHCA Division I men's ice hockey All-Americans American expatriate ice hockey players in Finland American expatriate ice hockey players in Sweden American expatriate ice hockey players in Germany American expatriate ice hockey players in Russia American expatriate ice hockey players in the Czech Republic American expatriate ice hockey players in England American expatriate ice hockey players in Switzerland American people of Italian descent