Waltham’s Pat Lawn to be recognized at Bentley men’s hockey senior night 

Pat Lawn grew up a mile down the road from Bentley University in Warrendale, driving past the campus on his way to school every day. He attended Falcons games growing up alongside his father, watching them compete with the best of the best in college hockey.

Years later, the 24-year-old multi-year Atlantic Hockey All-Academic team member will be recognized for his contributions to the program during the Falcons senior night festivities Friday night at Bentley Arena ahead of a 7 p.m. game against foe Sacred Heart. 

“It definitely hit me during our break at Christmas time,” Lawn said. “It really set in a bit like ‘holy crap, I’ve been playing this sport since I was three years old’ and it’s all going to come to a screeching halt at some point. I’m just trying to soak in all the little moments.”

Bentley coach Andy Jones took over the program in 2023. While the third-year leader didn’t recruit Lawn, Jones described him as “steady, stable, consistent and low maintenance.”

“Pat brings a level of consistency that makes our team better,” Jones said. “It’s important to have a local presence because he can provide some institutional, local knowledge. We have an international team, so it’s nice to have a grounding presence.” 

Bentley (15-8-5, 13-3-4, AHA) will face Sacred Heart again on Saturday and travel to RIT next Friday before closing out the regular season with a weekend series against Air Force. If the current standings hold, the first-place Falcons will host every game they play in the conference tournament, which runs March 3-21. They won the league crown last year before falling to Boston College in the first game of the regional NCAA Tournament. 

Lawn, a defender, attended Waltham public schools through seventh grade and graduated from The Rivers School in Weston in 2020. After a year with the Connecticut Jr. Rangers (National Collegiate Development Conference, United States Premier Hockey League) and another with West Kelowna (British Columbia Hockey League), Lawn returned home to start his collegiate hockey career.

Lawn grew up going to Bentley games when the Falcons played at John A. Ryan Arena in Watertown. His father, Michael, served on the police detail for many games. But college hockey wasn’t Lawn’s early goal. 

“I kind of always just played the sport for the fun of it and never really thought about [playing in] college,” he said.

After a couple of standout tournaments his sophomore year at Rivers, Bentley reached out to recruit him. Seeing the first game in a sold-out Bentley Arena, which opened in 2018, sealed the deal. 

Lawn featured in the lineup for most games his first two years at Bentley, tallying two goals and six assists across 57 games. The 6-foot, 181-pounder appeared in just eight games last year due to injury and some healthy scratches.

As a senior this year, Lawn had two goals and an assist across 19 appearances. 

“He’s able and willing on the penalty kill,” Jones said, “and a little bit of a stabilizing presence.” 

Lawn will graduate with a degree in professional sales and will work in a sales role at ServiceNow in the company’s West Palm Beach, Florida office. 

Lawn said. “As sad as it’ll be to leave Waltham after all these years, it’ll be nice to experience something new,” Lawn said. “Especially with all this cold weather recently. I’m fired up.”