Some Random Hockey Recruiting Bits Comment Count

Brian

So, for some reason I started googling Michigan's 2010 hockey recruits. Coverage of junior hockey in the US being what it is,—nonexistent—this is usually a fruitless exercise, but Clare did turn up a couple of interesting items. Like this, for instance:


Clare is in white and the "clear loser" of this fight according to the 1996-vintage website dropyourgloves.com, but, hey, you can fight in college anyway. Meanwhile, I missed this article on Clare published shortly after his late November commitment. He's the captain of the U17 team:

The butterflies vanished when he walked into the locker room before his first game and found a 'C' stitched on his jersey, everyone crowding his locker and pelting him with congratulatory slaps on the back.

If anyone doubted the 'C' belonged on his jersey, he did his best to change their minds on his very first shift.

"We were on the faceoff and a kid was giving me crap about something, and he was like 'What you gonna do about it?' and I said, 'You wanna go?'" the 6-2, 185-pound Clare recalled.

They dropped the gloves. Clare's much more than a punching lunk, though. I get the impression he's on track to be picked in the top three rounds of the NHL draft, though that's a pretty vague impression.

Fellow 2010 D commit Mac Bennett came in from some praise from USHR in September*:

5’11”. 170 lb. Hotchkiss defenseman and Michigan recruit Mac Bennett is a smooth skater who reads plays smartly, and excels in the transition game. He’s going to be an excellent college player. Smallish for a pro defenseman, but rates highly in every other are, so he will be drafted. 

I keep saying this, but I like saying it so here goes again: if the 2010 hockey recruiting class hits campus intact it will be ridiculous. Knock on wood.

*(USHR is a subscription service but one that frees its archives after three months.)

Comments

WCHBlog

January 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 PM ^

I actually saw him go with that kid on his first shift. He probably lost that one too, but it set the tone for the rest of the game that the U17s weren't going to get pushed around, and the 17s ended up winning that game pretty easily.

Glen Masons Hot Wife

January 2nd, 2009 at 8:40 PM ^

Well the U.S. boys will be coming home early at least. They were eliminated today. On the plus side, it looks like Palushaj and Rust had a good tourney, even putting up points against the non-doormat oponents.

Md23Rewls

January 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 PM ^

McCollum was awful and that was enough to kill the US. The good news is, I was reading HFboards after the Canada collapse and a few of the posters named Rust as the best US player in the game. And TSN named his goal vs. Germany as one of the top 10 plays of the preliminary round. I didn't notice as much from Palushaj as much, but I think Rust really impressed.

jaster

January 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 AM ^

After watching all 5 US games, I noticed....

Palushaj had a good tournament, 2 goals and 3 assists in 5 games. He was a little inconsistent, but he played well with Rust. When things were clicking, he was very noticeable. Rust, meanwhile, had a great tournament. 3 goals and 1 assist in 5 games along with being USA's best defensive forward. He never stopped skating and he played the corners very well. I think he'll have a real good 2nd half for Michigan.

McCollum was better than his stats indicate. In the Slovakia game, he had no chance on 2 of the first 3 goals (I missed the 4th goal) and the 5th was an empty netter. In most of the games he saw very little action and had long breaks in between shots. He certainly could have played better, but he wasn't as terrible as some people are saying and USA did not lose because of him. They lost because Jaroslav Janus played like vintage Dominik Hasek for 60 minutes and USA was Sloppy McSlopPants on defense.

USA gets one more game, on Sunday against the Czech Republic (whom they already defeated, 4-3), to try to win the coveted 5th place title. I'd guess USA will start Josh Unice in net.