Let’s make it 4 recruits from the U-18 NTDP team! Andrew Copp, an Ann Arbor kid who attends Skyline, is their quarterback and just happens to play forward for the Team USA hockey team in his spare time announced earlier this week on his twitter that he is committing to Michigan for next season.

He joins defensemen Connor Carrick, Jacob Trouba and goalie Jared Rutledge from the Ann Arbor program.

Copp didn’t play in the fall for Team USA because he was quartback of the Skyline football team–that’s probably why his name sounds familiar to those of you who read AnnArbor.com and keep up with the prep sports around town. He was injured last October during a game against Bedford and sustained a broken collar bone.

This unfortunate injury came 2 weeks after he set the state record of 557 passing yards!

Once he was healthy he played for both the u-17 and u-18 teams. According to the USHL website, he played in 18 games, scoring 3 goals and had 7 assists.

Here’s a football highlight video:

Jack Johnson

To be a “Michigan Man” you have to be a lot of things…leadership is one of those qualities.

Jack Johnson, former Michigan hockey player, was named captain of Team USA at the World Championship. This is the second time he has been given the honor.

Jack was traded from the LA Kings to the Columbus Blue Jackets earlier this year. He had 8 goals and 16 assists for the Kings through 61 games and 4 goals and 10 assists through 21 games with the Blue Jackets.

Congratulations, Jack! Good luck!

#1team1dream

If you follow any of the u-18 Team USA hockey players on twitter, they have been adding that hashtag to their posts over the last 2 weeks during the IIHF U-18 World Championship.

Team USA went into the tournament playing for their fourth straight Gold medal.

On a Sunday morning in the United States, Sunday afternoon in the Czech Replic, Team USA accomplished that goal beating Sweden 7-0.

Commence the celebration!

I paid the $7.99 to watch the game on FastHockey.com. I’d like to think that this was one of the best choices I’ve ever made in how to spend my money!

Seeing Team USA dominate Sweden and capitalize off of so many Sweden miscues was wonderful. This team has been together for 2 hockey seasons now and has worked so hard for the opportunity to win gold for the fourth time in a row. They didn’t want to be the team to ruin the dynasty!

screen cap of the Celebration

The first and only goal in the first period was scored by Notre Dame recruit, Thomas DiPauli. Ohio State recruit and my personal favorite goalie, Collin Olson, stopped 11 shots in that frame.

Goals in the second period were scored by Danny O’Regan. Danny is from Massachusetts and came to Ann Arbor a few times this spring to play with Team USA.

The third goal of the game was scored by Michigan recruit J.T. Compher. He had a 2 on 1 breakaway, kep the puck, and sniped it top shelf. The water bottle sitting on top of the net actually flew up into the air from the speed of the shot!

The fourth goal was scored by Wisconsin recruit Nic Kerdiles.

Olson faced 10 shots in the second period.

The third period saw another three goals scored. The first by Miami University recruit Ryan Hartman. The second by Michigan recruit Connor Carrick. He striped one from the blue line. I’m not even sure the goalie saw it coming, but he let it rip and before you knew it, it was in the net! The final goal was scored by Kerdiles with 16 seconds remaining in the game.

Collin Olson received the Best Goaltender of the Tournament Award and was named Player of the Game.

Team USA was able to overcome the unthinkable when two days before they were set to fly to the Czech Republic, the International Ice Hockey Federation ruled USA forward Stefan Matteau was ruled ineligible. Stefan was born in the United States, but had lived in Canada for several years. Since he hadn’t played hockey in the United States for a full two years before this tournament, the IIHF said he was not eligible. Imagine the heartbreak Stefan and his teammates faced knowing he couldn’t play. He has been on the team with them since the beginning, dreaming and working hard together for this tournament.

Team USA really showed the IIHF! You can’t hold them down!

It’s hard to believe these two years have come to an end. I’m really going to miss having these guys in Ann Arbor. The current U-17 team and all other kids looking to be a part of the NTDP have some big shoes to fill. Dedication, hard work, and leadership are all qualities the u-18s have.

Michigan recruit Jacob Trouba and Michigan  player Jon Merrill have both been named to the Team USA World Junior Championship Roster.

USA has put together a very experienced team–There are 22 members of the team, 19 of them are 19 years old (the cutoff is 20).

It is a huge accomplishment and pat on the back for Trouba to be selected to this team as a 17 year old.

From the Edmonton Jounral:

On the defensive end, I think 17-year-old defenceman Jacob Trouba makes this team as a third-pairing defenceman. Although he looked a little lost in his own end at times, his raw potential is pretty evident. Here’s what head coach Dean Blais had to say about Trouba’s game.

“He was very physical. He’s probably a year younger than most of the guys here. You like those 92s, as many as you can get. He’s definitely a strong hockey player, he plays with intensity and we need more like that from our entire defensive core. We need some hits. After two periods, there were three defencemen who didn’t have one hit. You’ve got to muck and grind and be a little bit more physical.”

Merrill is still on an idefinite suspension from the Michigan hockey team. This looks to be a good opportunity for him to show USA and the Michigan coaching staff that he is committed to the game. I’m not sure if his suspension will be re-evaluated now that the fall semester is complete, but it might. Maybe his play will be taken into consideration if there is talk he will be reinstated. I honestly have no idea and can only speculate.

This is the fourth time Merrill has played on the WJC team. In 2011, USA finished in third place. Merrill scored one goal and had 4 assists. In 2010, he had one assist. In 2009, Team USA won gold. 

From the College Hockey News:

“We’ve been in communication with Red Berenson and the University of Michigan,” USA Hockey assistant executive director, hockey operations, Jim Johansson, said in a recent conference call. “Jon’s situation at Michigan is that he’s being supported by Michigan and his participation with us is being supported by Red and Michigan. That was important for us in Jon’s involvement and his continued development as a student-athlete.

“With us, Jon’s got a long history in our programs and has performed extremely well for us and carried himself well in everything he’s done with us. For him to be involved with us, we, number one, wanted to make sure Michigan was on board with it and they are. Second, can he help our team? We think he can help our hockey team. So that led to his involvment with us. He’s been skating and he’s in great shape and should be ready to go, if his playing history carries with him, we expect him to be a big part of this team.”

The World Junior Championship will begin on December 26th in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Team USA will face Demark in their first game. Click here for the official IIHF site.

Good luck to Jacob and Jon! Go USA!

Michigan has World Junior prospects on their team!

The 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship will be held December 26, 2011 through January 5, 2012 in Calgary/Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

The Canadian Selection Camp Roster includes Michigan freshman Phil DiGiuseppe. He is one of two college players on the selection roster of all major junior players.

Phil is from Maple, Ontario and is leading the team in points this year with 14 along with junior Chris Brown. Phil has scored 8 goals and had 6 assists. His eight goals have him tied for most goals on the team with freshman Alex Guptill. He is a +10, second only to sophomore A.J. Treais  who is a +14.

Michigan Head Coach Red Berenson has stated that DiGiuseppe will miss this Saturday’s game versus Michigan State in East Lansing to attend WJC Camp.

The Team USA Preliminary WJC Roster lists Michigan sophomore defenseman Jon Merrill.

Merrill has not yet played a game for the maize and blue this year. He started off the year with a 12 game suspension for violation team rules—what rules, we don’t know, but if you’re going to suspend a player for nearly 1/3 of the season, there has to be a good reason! That 12 game suspension was later turned in an indefinite suspension.

Now would Team USA take into consideration that Merrill has not played a game since last April? Would they take into consideration that he has been suspended by the team he currently plays for?—well at first he was suspended only for 12 games and then it was changed to indefinite so something else must have happened to warrant that change (I’m speculating/assuming/my own opinion here)!  I have no idea what Team USA is planning, but I would assume so they would take this into consideration.

Michigan recruit and will be freshman next year, Jacob Trouba was also named to the Team USA Preliminary WJC Roster.  Trouba currently plays for the U.S. NTDP U-18 team.

Through 23 games this year, Trouba has 3 goals and 6 assists.

For my 100th post, I am super excited to announce that Connor Carrick has signed his National Letter of Intent for the University of Michigan!

Fresh off helping the U-18 USA NTDP win gold in Switzerland last week at the Four Nations Cup, the defenseman signed and mailed his letter on Wednesday. The early signing period began last week while he was in Europe.

From NHL.com:

U.S. defenseman Connor Carrick led all defenders in the tournament with 3 points.

Through 17 games this year, Connor has scored two goals and assisted on three more.

Congratulations, Connor!

Michigan played their second and final exhibition game on Monday night when the hosted the team from literally 2 miles down the road–the under 18 USA NDTP–beating them 3-1. 

The first period was owned by the under 18 squad who got on the board first six minutes into the game on a goal from Nicolas Kerdiles. Assists came from Michigan recruit Jacob Trouba and Minnesota-Duluth recruit Kyle Osterberg.

Michigan was able to tie it up eight minutes later when Lindsay Sparks scored. Michigan outshot Team USA 12-7 in the first period, but Team USA had control of the game. USA was winning battles, was first to the puck, and was passing circles around the maize and blue. There was a lot of chasing going on with moments of clarity…

Then again, Michigan had seven of their freshman in the lineup, so you knew going into the game that it was going to be a bumpy ride, with only the game against Ontario Institute of Technology two nights before.

The second period saw 12 shots on goal for Michigan, but 14 shots on goal for Team USA. The tempo was taken up a notch, and Michigan seemed to start figuring things out. They began fighting back against the Team USA attack and creating some chances of their own.

USA defeseman and Michigan recruit Connor Carrick had to skate back to save what would have been a Michigan breakaway and distracted the forward enough that he only hit the post. Gasps were uttered around Yost Ice Arena, although their seemed to be hardly anyone in attendance–maybe 600 people?

Also in the second period, Michigan was able to score on a power play and take the lead for the eventual win when Luke Moffat found the back of the net.

The third period was when Michigan actually started looking like a team. All of a sudden they weren’t chasing Team USA around the ice, but skating with them and then eventually causing Team USA to have to chase the puck.  They started throwing their weight around.

Michigan increased their lead one minute into the third period which seemed to set the tone. Freshman Phil DiGiuseppe scored his second goal in as many games. He looks like a kid who is going to be fun to watch this year and is really finding his feet on the ice with his new teammates.

Random Notes:

Lindsay Sparks was EVERYWHERE last night….all over the ice and scored a goal.

The only time  I really saw Chris Brown was when he almost got into a fight with Connor Carrick in the third period. He was on the scoresheet with an assist, but the big guy really wasn’t knocking any of the high schoolers around like you would have figured he would. In fact, the high schoolers seemed to be knocking Michigan around a whole lot more than they were knocked around!

I am a HUGE Chris Brown fan, so I was shocked that I didn’t hear more of the high schoolers hitting the boards or landing on the ice.

****UPDATE******I guess Chris Brown knew I was writing about him because he just scored a goal to put U-M up 5-0 over Niagra in their first official game of the season!! WOHOOO Chris!!!

AND Lindsay Sparks has a hattrick!! Wowsers this is a different team than the one I saw play on Monday night!*******

A.J. Treais was 12/16 in the faceoff circle and had 2 assists.

This team has a LOT to work on, but I think with time they will work a lot of their kinks out. It also doesn’t help that their All CCHA Rookie team defenseman Jon Merrill is sitting out for another 10 games with a suspension for violating team rules. The good news is the newbies are getting some very needed playing time. There are a lot of holes that need to be filled…only a matter of finding the right group of guys on the ice.