USA Hockey announced the preliminary roster for the 2024 U.S. National Junior Team on Monday. The group of players will head to Plymouth, Mich., from Dec. 14-16 for training camp. From there, players will fight for a spot on the 25-player roster that will head to Gothenburg, Sweden, for the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship. That tournament will take place Dec. 26-Jan. 5. Two New Englanders and six players from local colleges made the roster. The post Two locals will compete for spots on U.S. team for World Junior Championship appeared first on New England Hockey Journal ..read more

These days, it's rare to see a player go right from high school or prep school to college hockey.  Players opt to play a year or two in junior leagues around North America as another preparatory stop for college hockey.  The 2022-23 season saw some strong performances from locals in different junior leagues. In this story, we'll focus on the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), North American Hockey League (NAHL), National Collegiate Development Conference (NCDC) and United States Hockey League (USHL).  Let's dive into the awards from 2022-23.  The post Handing out t ..read more

Brendan Gibbons’ junior hockey career with the North American Hockey League’s Maine Nordiques is nearing its end, but his legacy will live on for years to come. The 6-foot, 200-pound right winger led the Nordiques during the regular season with 17 goals and 41 assists for 58 points, and was a cog in helping Maine reach the NAHL East Division finals. The Wakefield, R.I., native will be playing Division 1 hockey next year at the Air Force Academy. Matt Pinchevsky, the Nordiques’ head coach and director of player personnel and development, saw Gibbons’ talent in spurts during the 2021-22 season ..read more

The 2023 NAHL Draft was far from short on players from New England. Two of the top three selections were from New England. Drew Haxton (Wakefield, R.I.) went second overall to Rochester. Haxton came up with the Neponset Valley River Rats before heading to Nobles. He played with Cowichan Valley in the BCHL last season where the right wing posted eight goals and 17 points in 45 games. Shane Baker (Grafton, Mass.) was picked next by New Hampshire. The center scored 18 goals and 39 points in 50 games for the NCDC's Boston Jr. Bruins this winter. Haxton and Baker were two of 20 different New Engla ..read more

Before the calendar flips over into a new hockey season, it's time to celebrate the standout achievers from last season.  Here are our New England Hockey Journal Awards for the 2021-22 season. We'll start with awards for junior hockey. And we'll unveil high school/prep school and college awards in the coming days.  The post 2022 New England Hockey Journal Awards: Juniors appeared first on New England Hockey Journal ..read more

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) held its entry draft and American draft Monday and Tuesday of this week. The QMJHL is one of three major junior leagues under the umbrella of the Canadian Hockey League. Players who compete in the QMJHL, OHL or WHL are ineligible to play college hockey. The birth year for the QMJHL Entry Draft was 2006 while a few '05s were selected in the American draft. For the most part, the New England players selected in either QMJHL draft are purely for show. It’s becoming increasingly rare to see players from the region head north of the border to play. Wit ..read more

As we shift to summer hockey, it is a good time to look at the best players in net from the New England region. After watching hockey at every level this past season from the NHL down to bantam major (14-U), we’ve seen the lion’s share of those who live between the pipes and are the last line of defense for their teams in and from New England. For this series, we’ll focus today on the birth years 2002-04, with the 2005-2007 prospects getting the spotlight in part two. Time, patience and confidence are often needed to develop goaltenders. The younger you look, the tougher it is to project what ..read more

The New Jersey Titans defeated the Northeast Generals, 5-4 in Game 5, and advanced to the next round of the NAHL postseason on Sunday at Middletown Ice World Arena. The Titans will now play the Jamestown Rebels in an Empire State showdown for the chance to reach the Robertson Cup series with the league’s other division winners in Blaine, Minn., later this month. The No. 4 seed in the East Division, the Generals nearly pulled off the upset of the No. 1-seeded Titans after winning games 1 and 4, In Game 5, they led 3-0 and 4-3 before New Jersey got a controversial last-second goal from forward ..read more

The United States Hockey League just completed the first round of the Clark Cup playoffs, with four best-of-five series set to begin this weekend. The Tri-City Storm won the Anderson Cup as USHL's top regular season team, finishing with a franchise-record 47 wins in 62 games. The Sioux City Musketeers finished behind Tri-City as the second seed in the Western Conference. In the Eastern Conference, the defending league champion Chicago Steel took the top seed, with the Dubuque Fighting Saints behind them. Those teams earned first-round byes. The Omaha Lancers, Muskegon Lumberjacks and Madison ..read more

Each of the six New England states produces players at varying degrees. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have a leg up when it comes to famous NHL alums and current stars skating at the game’s highest level. While not up to the same bar, Vermont can boast John LeClair, Maine lays claim to Brian Dumoulin, and New Hampshire produced Ben Lovejoy. And all six states have their own significance when it comes to the history and future of the game of hockey in New England. Over the coming weeks, New England Hockey Journal will unveil the best player from each of the region’s six states, b ..read more