Release from 05.05.2025

Salzburg extends with Bourke and Thaler

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EC Red Bull Salzburg announced the contract extensions with forwards Troy Bourke and Lucas Thaler. The 31-year-old Canadian once again performed strongly last season and has consistently been one of the best forwards in the champions' team for the past two years. Lucas Thaler recently even set a new personal best.

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Troy Bourke's debut season in the Salzburg jersey in 2022/23 was not under a good star. After five games in the regular season of the win2day ICE Hockey League, the Canadian suffered a serious injury and was only able to return to action in the playoffs. However, the goal-getter showed all his skills in the following campaign and repeated his strong performance in the most recent championship season. The 31-year-old finished 2024/25 with 19 goals and 32 assists in 56 games, making him Salzburg's fourth-best points scorer.

Since his debut in the Red Bulls' pro team, Lucas Thaler has developed from season to season and also impressively underlined his ambitions as a top forward during Salzburg's most recent title win. When he moved to Salzburg from the Swedish U20 league in spring 2021 at the age of 19, he was recognised as having great potential. And indeed, the Villach native developed quickly, playing most of his games in the win2day ICE Hockey League the following season in addition to a few AHL appearances, and now, three years later, he is one of Salzburg's top scorers despite being just 23 years old. Although he was only able to play 32 games in the regular season of last season due to illness, he set a new personal best with 18 goals and 15 assists (in 45 games including playoffs), the fourth most goals of all Red Bulls.