Posting back to back years with a record of 11-11 in OUA regular season play, including a home and home sweep of the powerhouse Carleton Ravens, safe to suggest that the Laurentian Voyageurs men’s basketball team is trending in the right direction.

Long-time Sudburian Brad Hann, however, knows the end goal – has experienced it – or very close to it.

During his five year career at Laurentian (1990-1995), three of which Hann enjoyed alongside older brother Norm, the now 54 year-old who remains active in the basketball coaching community helped his team reach the nationals final eight on three separate occasions.

For as much as that kind of success may not have been front of mind as young Bradley and siblings (the Hann boys have two younger sisters, Stacey and Shannon, both of whom were equally enamoured with sports) frolicked around the courts and rinks and gymnasiums of Coniston in their youth, the lineage in this family is an impressive one.

Their grandfather, Norm Hann, inducted into the Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame in 1970, is widely recognized as one of the most elite baseball players to ever grace the diamonds in Sudbury and area, an all-star at a time when the sport was at its zenith in these parts.

A two-sport star at the University of Waterloo (football and basketball), Jim Hann (father to the four siblings noted above) went on to coach a good number of high-school teams at Lasalle Secondary to city and NOSSA titles during his career as a teacher in Sudbury.

Yet for as much as genetics smiled generously upon the Hann clan, Brad never really pondered any hoop stardom in his future. “It’s not even something that I thought about, honestly, maybe just because we started so young,” said Hann, inducted into the Laurentian Voyageurs Hall of Fame in 2007.

“As you move through elementary school, to high-school, you get an idea that you are pretty good compared to your peers – but for me, it was always about playing. It was never about was I good or not good. I just really enjoyed playing. Self-evaluation came a little later on.”

Brad Hann and his brother came by that love of the sport quite naturally, nurtured both through the family but also the environment in which they grew up. “We had really good support at the elementary school in Coniston,” Hann recalled. “The principal, Mister (Don) Sarmatiuk, would open the gym at 6:00 a.m.”

“It was there for us all the time – and dad would drop us off (as he drove to work at Lasalle), or we would walk.”

For as much as growth and success would ensue at Lasalle – “my high-school experience both on and off the floor was excellent” – university basketball was a different animal completely. “It was such a big jump from high-school,” said Hann. “You’re playing against men, men who have been in the weight-room for four or five years – and I was really skinny coming out of high-school.”

What he lacked in physicality, he would make up for with inner strength. There is a streak of competitiveness that runs through this family that simply cannot be denied.

“Honestly, I think what I was gifted with was the ability to play 100% max, all in the time, in games, in practices,” Hann observed. “I had a motor that never stopped. My skills might not have been U Sport ready at that time, but my effort level was – and that allowed me to compete.”

“That was my strength.”

It was also an asset that catered to the coaching style Hann would become accustomed to both at Lasalle (with his father, Jim) as well as at Laurentian, with head coach Peter Campbell.

“The demands that were put on you from our coach (Campbell) were high – and it was the same way with my dad,” said Hann. “They were kind of cut from the same cloth in terms of the expectations they placed on their players.”

“I really think we thrived in that environment and maximized our potential. We were not the most skilled players, but we achieved a lot.”

That truism permeated that era of Voyageurs basketball, both individually and collectively. Over the course of the five years that Brad Hann would play, L.U. posted a regular season record of 50-16.

A three time second team all-star, the highly driven point guard capped off his final year by being recognized as an All-Canadian, also awarded what is now the Ken Shields Award, presented annually to a student athlete who excels in basketball, academics and community involvement.

“Being able to get to those national championships three years in the five years I was there, that was something we were extremely proud of.”

For almost every year over the course of the past two decades, Hann has been involved in coaching at some level: often university but also with an 8-9 year span of club basketball mentorship. That said, the 1995-1996 season, by which time he had made his way to Queen’s University to pursue his masters, coaching was not in the cards.

“It was still too hard to coach for another team when I had just finished such an awesome experience at Laurentian University,” he said with a smile. For as much as Hann enjoyed a degree of success well above the norm while guiding the Cambrian Golden Shield for a half dozen years, the crossover to assistant coach has been, generally speaking, a good one.

“It’s a nice position to be in,” he stated. “As an assistant, you have a different relationship with the players. The effort I brought as a player, I think I still bring that intensity as a coach – but I have to balance it with the fact that I am assistant coach.”

“I think the girls that I coach respect that intensity.”