The NCAA announced their sanctions to the Penn State football program this morning. You probably already knew that. The new Penn State hockey program shouldn't be affected at all. Penn State will take a hit in the pocket book, but Penn State's hockey program was privately funded by billionaire Terry Pegula, who has reaffirmed his commitment to Penn State throughout this ordeal. Their hockey program will never hurt for money as long as he is around.
For any Denver-area readers, SBN's Mile High Hockey is putting together an on-ice memoriall for Jessica Redfield, the aspiring hockey journalist who was killed in the Colorado theater shootings.
USA Hockey held their Select 15 & 16 Festivals in New York in the past two weeks. Russ Bitely has a pretty good run down of the Select 16 Festival. Shane Gersich, Jack Eichel, and Dylan Larkin are the top three players. There's a ton of really good players in that '96 age group. Lots of good players in that 'C' group or unlisted.
Miami assistant coach Brian Kaufman has left Oxford to join the Omaha Lancers coaching staff. By my count, Miami, St. Cloud, and Alaska all have vacant assistant coaching positions to fill before the season starts.
If you're looking for a great explanation of the NHL's upcoming labor troubles, former boss James Mirtle does an epic job of breaking it down.
If you're like me and find it fascinating to compare different levels of hockey, an all-star team of Houston, Texas area high school players traveled up to Minnesota last weekend for some summertime high school scrimmages. The team finished 2-1, beating a Sauk Rapids team(Sauk Rapids was inexplicably split into two teams, both of which were slaughtered in every game) and Bloomington Kennedy, and losing to St. Francis. Obviously not the highest levels of high school hockey, but given the geographic challenges those kids face, they were fairly impressive.