Luke Pither (born April 26, 1989) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) 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 ...

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 ...

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

. He is currently signed with

Saugeen Shores Winterhawks The Saugeen Shores Winterhawks are a senior hockey team in the WOAA Senior Hockey League based in Saugeen Shores, Ontario, Canada. History With the construction of the Saugeen Shores Community Complex in 2000, there was considerable pressure to ...

of the

WOAA Senior AA Hockey League The WOAA Senior AA Hockey League is a Canadian senior ice hockey league governed by the Western Ontario Athletic Association. The league operates in Southwestern Ontario. History Format The league uses Hockey Canada playing rules but is not ope ...

Playing career

After five seasons of playing junior hockey in the

Ontario Hockey League The Ontario Hockey League (OHL; french: Ligue de hockey de l'Ontario (LHO)) is one of the three major junior ice hockey leagues which constitute the Canadian Hockey League. The league is for players aged 16–19. There are exceptions for overag ...

, Pither signed a three-year entry level contract with the

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games in Wells ...

on March 4, 2010. On January 13, 2013, it was announced Pither was traded by the Flyers to the

Carolina Hurricanes The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference, ...

in exchange for goalie

Brian Boucher Brian Boucher ( ; born January 2, 1977) is an American former professional ice hockey goaltender who is a game and studio analyst on national ESPN and ABC games and also Philadelphia Flyers games on NBC Sports Philadelphia. He played 13 seasons ...

and

Mark Alt Mark Alt (born October 18, 1991) is an American professional ice hockey defenseman who is currently under contract with Straubing Tigers of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL). Playing career Alt was a two sport star at Cretin-Derham Hall High Sch ...

. On July 29, 2013, Pither moved abroad and signed a one-year contract as a free agent in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

with

KalPa Kalevan Pallo (KalPa) is a professional ice hockey team which competes in the Finnish Liiga. They play in Kuopio, Finland at the Niiralan monttu, Olvi Areena. Team history Established in 1929 as ''Sortavalan Palloseura'' in Sortavala, the club r ...

who competed in the

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 ...

. In the 2013–14 season, Pither was hampered by injury and played in just 20 games, contributing with 5 goals. Pither opted to change European leagues, in agreeing to a one-year contract with Austrian club EC KAC of the

EBEL Ebel is a Swiss luxury watch company that was founded in 1911 at La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. History Ebel was established in 1911 by Eugène Blum and his wife, Alice (née Lévy). The brand name originates from th ...

on May 22, 2014. After two seasons in Europe, Pither returned to North America and with the 2015–16 season underway, signed a contract with the

Brampton Beast The Brampton Beast were a professional ice hockey team based in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The team originally played in the Central Hockey League for one year during the 2013–14 season prior to the league's folding before joining the ECHL f ...

of the ECHL on October 28, 2015. He played two seasons with the Beast, with short stints spread throughout the AHL, before agreeing to return abroad in signing a one-year deal with Swedish outfit,

Almtuna IS Almtuna IS is a Swedish ice hockey club based in Uppsala and is currently playing in HockeyAllsvenskan, the second highest league of ice hockey in Sweden. The team maintained its place in the Allsvenskan despite suffering relegation in the 2018� ...

, of the

HockeyAllsvenskan HockeyAllsvenskan (previously Allsvenskan and SuperAllsvenskan) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league, and the second-highest league in the Sweden, Swedish ice hockey system (after the Swedish Hockey League, SHL). Since the 2009–10 ...

on June 7, 2017. In January 2018, Pither moved to the UK's

EIHL The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), sometimes referred to as the British Elite League or, for sponsorship reasons, the Viaplay Elite League, is an ice hockey league in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2003 following the demise of the Ice Hockey ...

to sign for 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 ...

, remaining with the team until 2019. After a season in Germany's

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 ...

with

EHC Freiburg EHC Freiburg, is a professional ice hockey team based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. They play in the DEL 2, the second-highest level of ice hockey in Germany. History The club was created as EHC Freiburg in 1984. In 2003, they became cham ...

, Pither returned to Canada to sign with former club, the Brampton Beast of the ECHL on October 16, 2020. With the Beast later suspending operations for the season due to the ongoing

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 identif ...

, Pither was subsequently released as a free agent. Pither later had a short spell in the

Alps Hockey League The Alps Hockey League (AlpsHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in Central Europe. The league is made up of teams from Austria, Italy and Slovenia. The league was established as a result of a merger between Serie A and the Inter-Natio ...

(AlpsHL) with

HC Pustertal Wölfe HC Pustertal Wölfe – Val Pusteria Wolves are an Italian professional ice hockey team from Bruneck, currently playing, as of the 2021–22 season, in the ICE Hockey League (ICEHL). They formerly played in the Alps Hockey League and Serie A. T ...

before returning to the DEL2 for the 2021-22 season with Bayreuth Tigers.

Career statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pither, Luke Living people 1989 births Adirondack Phantoms players Barrie Colts players Belleville Bulls players Brampton Beast players Canadian ice hockey centres Charlotte Checkers (2010–) players Guelph Storm players KalPa players Kingston Frontenacs players EC KAC players EHC Freiburg players Nottingham Panthers players HC Pustertal Wölfe players St. John's IceCaps players Ice hockey people from Oshawa Syracuse Crunch players Trenton Titans players Utica Comets players Wheeling Nailers players Canadian expatriate ice hockey players in Germany EHC Bayreuth players