Julien Vauclair (born October 2, 1979) is a Swiss former 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 h ...

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

who spent most of his career with

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 ...

in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

(NL). He made his professional debut in 1996 with

HC Ajoie HC Ajoie is a Swiss professional ice hockey team that competes in the National League (NL), the highest league in Switzerland. The team was founded in 1973 and plays in the Raiffeisen Arena in Porrentruy, Switzerland. HC Ajoie has won three Swis ...

in Switzerland's second tier,

Swiss League The Swiss League is the second tier of the main professional ice hockey league in Switzerland, behind the National League. The winners of the league each season plays a best-of-seven series against the bottom team of the NL, and if they win, t ...

(SL). He spent three seasons within the

Ottawa Senators The Ottawa Senators (french: Sénateurs d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a membe ...

organization of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL). The Senators selected him 74th overall in the 1998 NHL Entry Draft.

Playing career

As a youth, Vauclair played in the 1992 and 1993

Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament The Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament (french: Tournoi international de hockey pee-wee de Québec) is an annual minor ice hockey event in Quebec City. The tournament was founded in 1960 to coincide with the Quebec Winter Carnival, ...

s with a team from Switzerland. Vauclair was drafted 74th overall by the

of the

(NHL) in the 1998 NHL Entry Draft and played one NHL game for the Senators in the

2003–04 NHL season The 2003–04 NHL season was the 87th regular season of the National Hockey League. The Stanley Cup champions were the Tampa Bay Lightning, who won the best of seven series four games to three against the Calgary Flames. For the fourth time in ...

. Vauclair has also played in the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

with the

Grand Rapids Griffins The Grand Rapids Griffins are a professional hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL) based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and play home games at Van Andel Arena. They are the AHL affiliate to the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey Leag ...

and the Binghamton Senators. Vauclair began his professional career with Lugano in 1998, and he returned to them in 2004 and has played for them since. On June 2, 2019, Vauclair agreed to a one-year contract extension with HC Lugano, stating that this would be his final season of professional hockey. On March 26, 2020, Vauclair officially announced his retirement from professional hockey. Vauclair played all of his 791 regular season games (273 points) in the National League with HC Lugano, as well as 154 playoffs games (34 points). He won 2 NL titles with the team and was named twice to the NL Media Swiss All-Star Team. In addition to that, his jersey with the number 3 was to be retired by HC Lugano in the 2020–21 season, however with the interruption of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, his jersey was later retired in a game against

on 16 September 2022.

International play

Vauclair has played internationally for Switzerland in three Olympics and nine World Championships, winning a silver medal in the 2013 World Championships. On January 6, 2014, Vauclair was named to Team Switzerland's official 2014 Winter Olympics roster.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

Awards

* 2004 AHL All-Star Game *

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

World Championships All-Star Team

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vauclair, Julien 1979 births Living people HC Ajoie players Binghamton Senators players Grand Rapids Griffins players Ice hockey players at the 2002 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2006 Winter Olympics HC Lugano players Olympic ice hockey players for Switzerland Ottawa Senators draft picks Ottawa Senators players People from Delémont Swiss-French people Swiss ice hockey defencemen Ice hockey players at the 2014 Winter Olympics Sportspeople from the canton of Jura