US World Junior team announced
According to USA hockey's fan page on facebook, the US World junior team was just announced and it features 2 guys from Michigan and 1 former Michigan recruit (you have 1 chance to guess who that is). Jon Merrill and Chris Brown will be representing the maize and blue. Jack Campbell will be one of the goalies along with Cornell's Andy Iles :(
Interesting facts-
- Michigan is the only CCHA school represented. I was surprised no one from Miami or Notre Dame made it (Palmieri did but he's in the AHL now)
- Michigan is tied for the 2nd most players on the team (2) with Denver and North Dakota. BC has the most with 3
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Conference breakdown goes:
WCHA - 7 players selected
Hockey East - 4
CCHA - 2
ECAC - 1 -
EDIT: Also, 14 of 22 players on the team are from the NCAA
The other leagues represented are:
AHL - 4
WHL - 2
OHL - 1
QMJHL - 1
Link? Link
December 23rd, 2010 at 12:03 PM ^
And thank goodness we're playing Tech first this year.
December 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 PM ^
They have their work cut out for them. Will be a tough road to a repeat.
Also of local (SEMich) interest is Mitch Callahan who is a Det Red Wings prospect, and a bit of a surprise to be on the team. Good luck to them all.
December 23rd, 2010 at 12:51 PM ^
Will be a great experience for them. And we'll probably get them back for the MSU series the first week of January!
December 23rd, 2010 at 1:04 PM ^
I'm surprised Rocco Grimaldi didn't make the team.
December 23rd, 2010 at 4:45 PM ^
I thought for sure that kid would make the roster....but I'll trust USA's evaluation team to bring us another gold medal.
December 23rd, 2010 at 5:06 PM ^
had nobody make the team, because their only underclassman of note (Reilly Smith) is Canadian. Smith did make the Canadian camp, but didn't make the team. The rest of their better players (many of which came to Miami a year or 2 after, not directly from high school anyway) are mostly seniors and juniors and thus no longer fit the age requirement.
I'm pretty surprised none of Notre Dame's young guns made it, as well (though Riley Sheahan was also invited to Canada's camp and didn't make the team). Anders Lee and T.J. Tynan are both putting up pretty great numbers at Notre Dame. It might have something to do with politics and a preference to select USNTDP alums (a whole argument I'm not really going to get into, just putting it out there as a possible cause). It might have something to do with them maybe being surprises and not inivted to the original camp over the summer and they aren't doing quite well enough to merit a special invite to the more select camp a little while ago. It might just be the caoches feel like they have forwards that fill those roles better, that are maybe older and more experienced.
EDIT: According to the CCHA website, Anders Lee is 20 (http://www.ccha.com/notre_dame/player.aspx?p=604) which is why he can't go...