Last week, incoming freshmen Adam Clendening, Charlie Coyle, and Matt Nieto played in the Chowder Cup tournament in Foxboro, Mass., This week, the trio is in Lake Placid, N.Y., participating in USA Hockey’s evaluation camp for the U.S. Junior National Team. A group of forty-two players are competing for roster spots on the squad that will seek to defend the World Junior Championship won by Team USA last January in Saskatoon. Terrier assistant captain David Warsofsky was a member of that gold-medal winning team.
The 2011 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship will be played Dec. 26, 2010-Jan. 5, 2011, in Buffalo, N.Y., just a long slapshot from Clendening’s hometown of Niagara Falls, N.Y.
A link to the USA Hockey evaluation camp prospectus is here. It includes bios of Clendening (pg.25), Coyle (pg. 44) and Nieto (pg. 53) The camp concludes with a series of exhibition games against Team Sweden and Team Finland. FASTHockey will Webcast five of the games. Details.
All three Terriers have previously represented USA Hockey. Clendening and Nieto spent the past two seasons as standout performers in the U.S. NTDP program. Coyle, the San Jose Sharks first-round draft choice in this past June's NHL entry draft, skated for U.S. Select 18 Team at the 2009 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament in Piestany, Slovakia last summer and later joined the NTDP U18s for Four Nations Cup in Finland where he scored the game-winning goal in the team's final game.
- THFB post on Nieto and Clendening at World U18s with video of each scoring.