Legacy On Ice

Highland junior Lukas Bublik shines in hockey. He has to. His grandfather is always watching.
Bublik is a member of 17U travel hockey team, the prestigious Utah Junior Grizzlies of the AA division, and owes a lot of his success to his family tree. Bublik comes from a hockey family. His grandfather, who is from the Czech Republic, wanted to see his hockey legacy continue through his grandson.
“I do honor my grandfather when playing, and I do so by just playing with all I’ve got no matter the situation because that’s what he would always tell me growing up,” Bublik said.
Bublik was introduced into hockey around the age of six and has fallen in love with the game ever since. He started by going to free skates at various rinks around the valley and soon joined a local rec league hockey team. He’s worked his way to the Utah Junior Grizzlies, a giant step up from those rec days.
Joining the Junior Grizzlies is a hard feat to accomplish as players must go through many steps to get to that level.
“First, it’s rec. league hockey, then you have like three or four rounds of tryouts depending on what the coaches think and then they’ll email or call you back to let you know if you made the team or not,” Bublik said.
Going through all the stages to get to the Junior Grizzlies is extremely time consuming and it is taxing on a person’s body. Hockey is an extremely physical sport with violent checks, collisions, and pucks to the face every single game.
Bublik travels around the country going to different hockey events, tournaments, and games. He goes from state to state showcasing his hockey talents.
“My favorite places would have to be Seattle and Dallas. I liked Seattle because it was really pretty,” Bublik said. “Dallas would be my favorite because it was nice throughout the entire city.”
With all the travelling that is incorporated with the hockey, Bublik tends to miss a fair amount of school per month. Catching up can be hard when his schedule is already full of hockey.
“I miss probably four, or five school days per month and it can get hard to make-up those assignments depending on what we’re doing in class,” Bublik said.
Bublik plays defense, a dynamic position with the constant need for quick decision making, physical play, and the responsibility to stop the opposing team’s explosive offense. Being a defender requires a huge amount of skill and athleticism.
“I just want to keep everyone to the outside and play the body, while I’m defending. I just want to be as physical as possible out on the ice,” Bublik said.
Bublik’s strong 6-foot-1 frame also helps him be as effective as possible defending the opposing players.
After hockey, Bublik wants to play in college or try his luck at an overseas school in Austria.
“I applied for the Red Bull Hockey Academy in Austria. That school would open up potential for learning new skills and seeing new ways to play,” Bublik said. “The school would also help open me up to different people to help me out in the hockey scene for something like Europe’s Pro Hockey League.”
Bublik would also want to test his luck at a Division I NCAA school here in the United States.
“I think playing D1 hockey would be a dream and goal of mine. With enough work and dedication, I think I have a solid chance of doing it,” Bublik said.
Bublik’s dream school is Penn State which produces an elite amount of hockey talent each year.
With the new implementation of the Utah Hockey club, a new professional NHL team in Utah Bublik thinks that will put an even bigger spotlight on hockey as its popularity grows in the Beehive state.
No matter where he ends up, he will always carry his grandfather’s legacy onto the ice with him.