Rick Lanz
Canadian ice hockey player
Richard Roman Lanz (born September 16, 1961) is a Czech-born Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman who spent 10 seasons in the National Hockey League and is best known for his time with the Vancouver Canucks. He was born in Czechoslovakia, but his family defected to Canada following the invasion by the Soviet Union in 1968.
Playing career
Lanz was selected 7th overall in the 1980 NHL entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks following an excellent junior career with the Oshawa Generals in which he was named the club's top defenceman in three consecutive seasons. He also received the opportunity to represent Canada at 1980 World Junior Championships.
He immediately broke into the Canucks roster in 1980–81 at the age of just 19 and had a fine rookie year, posting 29 points in 76 games. Unfortunately, the 1981–82 season would prove to be a setback, as he tore knee ligaments 39 games in, forcing him to miss the rest of the regular season and the entire playoffs. The situation would prove doubly disappointing as he was forced to miss the Canucks' surprising march to the Stanley Cup Finals that spring.
In 1982–83 Lanz returned to the ice and hit his stride as an NHL player, recording 10 goals and 48 points, good for 6th on the club. He was also selected to represent Canada at the 1983 World Championships, where he helped the team win a bronze medal. He would follow this up with his finest NHL season in 1983–84, as he posted 18 goals and 57 points (both narrowly missing club records for defencemen) and was named the team's top defenceman.
“Rick Lanz” enters the record as canadian ice hockey player. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rick, Lanz and Canadian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Rick Lanz” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rick, Lanz and Canadian provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3431571. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1968, 1980 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rick Lanz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.