When Grant Lewis was 7, he was well behind his contemporaries in ice hockey.

But the Upper St. Clair native had a good excuse: He had just tried out the sport for the first time.

"That's relatively late for the game. Most of my friends started much earlier -- especially my Canadian friends," Lewis said. "I started late, and when I first started, I was the worst player on the ice. I was definitely way behind. It took me a couple years to get caught up."

Lewis, a defenseman who played at Dartmouth University, signed a contract earlier this month with the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL. He will report to his first training camp in September.

He is expected to be assigned to the Thrashers' American Hockey League affiliate in Chicago for the coming season. Lewis was a second-round pick of Atlanta in the 2004 draft. If he had not been signed by Aug. 15, the Thrashers would have lost the rights of the player they took 40th overall three years earlier.

"I didn't talk to Atlanta much over the summer, so I was kind of in the dark and beginning to think it was not going to happen," Lewis said Sunday while driving down the California coast on his way home from a training session.

"But... it got worked out. They made a good offer. I'm excited because I like Atlanta, I like the organization. Atlanta is a good place for me to get started on my professional career."

Lewis, 6 feet 3, 190 pounds, is three credits away from a psychology degree from Dartmouth and was permitted to walk with his classmates in spring commencement exercises.

In four seasons with the Ivy League school, Lewis had 13 goals, 64 assists and 172 penalty minutes in 115 games for the Big Green.

His best season, statistically anyway, was actually his freshman season, when Lewis had a career-high 25 points, the second-highest total by a defenseman in school history.

His 22 assists were tied for the league among all defenseman in the Eastern College Athletic Conference and was second among all freshmen. Throughout his career, Lewis saw extensive time on the power play and penalty killing units.

"Dartmouth was an incredible four years," Lewis said. "Over the last four years, I've been able to become more of a solid two-way defenseman. Before college, I was a defensive defenseman. After the first couple years, I turned into more of an offensive threat, and really solidified my game I think on both sides of the puck and am now more of a two-way defenseman."

Lewis is an alumnus of the old Pittsburgh Forge, the Junior A team that played for a time on Neville Island. Lewis credits former Forge coach Kevin Constantine, who coached all or parts of seven seasons in the NHL with the Penguins, San Jose and New Jersey, for helping develop him.

Lewis still has a frame that can fill out, and he is doing all he can this summer toward that end, training in Los Angeles with Athletes' Performance, a training organization specializing in optimizing professional athletes' abilities. He has been training with Upper St. Clair's Dylan Reese -- his good friend and former draft pick of the New York Rangers -- and NHL players Chris Drury, Richard Park and George Parros, among others.

While theoretically, Lewis could earn an opening-night spot in Atlanta with a spectacular showing in camp, it is expected he will start out with the Chicago Wolves. If he plays well there, a midseason call-up is a distinct possibility.

"I don't want to expect too much, but I want to set my goals high," Lewis said. "Hopefully get a game or two this year, if not more.

"It depends on how I do. I think if do good enough, I'll be there someday.

"There's an awful lot of work ahead of me, but if I work hard at it, I think I'll be there."