Mandi Schwartz, the sister of Colorado College's Jaden and Rylan Schwartz, and a former Yale hockey player herself, passed away after a two-year battle with leukemia on Sunday.Thoughts go out to the Schwartz family in this difficult time. They deserve a ton of respect and admiration for the way their family has handled such an incredibly difficult situation.
In honor of Mandi Schwartz, Norton Sports Management's Make My Day Monday campaign will donate $1 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for every time this tweet gets retweeted.
Miami's Andy Miele has signed a free agent contract with the Phoenix Coyotes. I guess I knew Miele was putting up a ton of points this year. I didn't realize it was the most by a college player since Peter Sejna in 2003. Like Sejna, I think there's a little bit of a concern about expecting too much from a player that isn't necessarily a prototypical pro player, though I do think Miele does have the skating ability to make it at the next level, which is what tends to separate the Martin St. Louis' and Nate Gerbes from the players like Peter Sejna.
No Alibis No Regrets asks if the WCHA has changed their recruiting tactics in recent years when it comes to taking young commitments. Looking at the empirical evidence, there's definitely a case to be made. But I'll admit two questions immediately sprang to mind: 1. Is there a WCHA program out there that wouldn't take a commitment from Hudson Fasching right now? That's probably a pretty resounding 'no'. And 2. How many other players in the upper Midwest are in that category where you'd be super-confident in offering them a scholarship at this point? There's maybe a few, but it's a very small list.
The same probably could have been said for Michigan over the past two years, in what were considered down years for the local talent in the area. In fact, I think I did say that at some point. Then this year, they've gotten four pretty big early commitments from players in the '95 age group. Point being, not all years are created equal, and ebbs and flows can also be based on the talent available as much as the conventional wisdom at the time.
Speaking of those young '95 players, Detroit Honeybaked took down Shattuck-St. Mary's 3-2 on Sunday morning to the win the Tier I U16 title in quite a battle of the heavyweights. Shattuck's Taylor Cammarata led the tournament in scoring with 14 points. Shattuck captured the U18 title with a 3-1 win over Mid-Fairfield(Conn.). Teddy Blueger, a Latvian import playing for Shattuck, led that tournament in scoring.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press put together a great feature piece on hockey legend Glen Sonmor.That is definitely worth a read.
USA Hockey announced their roster for the World U-18 championships. They pretty much kept their NTDP roster. There's a few additions from the U17s, but no players from outside the program. If they take home gold again, it's a huge credit to the quality of coaching in the program, because when this group first came together, it looked like they were going to need a lot of help from outside the program to be successful internationally.
Here's a good interview with the United States of Hockey's Chris Peters that covers all sorts of hockey topics you're likely interested in.