The Nottingham Lions have snapped up 21 year-old American import Luke Branin for the 2012/13 season.

The right-winger and play-maker has been training with the Lions for the past few weeks whilst waiting for his paperwork to be finalised. His clearance finally arrived on Friday afternoon, allowing him to make his debut in the Lions’ home season opener against Hull Stingrays this coming Sunday.

Luke Branin in action during Thursday’s training session.

Branin comes straight out of the Atlantic Junior Hockey League having played for the Philadelphia Junior Flyers and Philadelphia Little Flyers in the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons respectively. He also iced for Team Maryland Under-18′s (Class AAA) in 2009/10.

The German-born American caught up with nottinghamlions.co.uk this week and explained why the Lions are the team for him and why he is looking forward to his first taste of senior hockey;

“My mom is English and grew up here in Nottingham, I still have a lot of family over here and was given the opportunity to come over to play hockey so I jumped at it.”

“I talked with Coach Bradbury over the summer, I liked his mentality and what he was saying – it was very much ‘come in here, put in the effort and help the team win’.”

“I want to come in and help the team succeed in anyway I can – I think we have a good solid team with depth and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t win the league and get promoted.”

Head Coach Matt Bradbury with new signing Luke Branin.

You can watch Luke’s Lions debut against Hull, this Sunday at the National Ice Centre – 7.15pm face-off.