Wednesday, July 9, 1997 - The Michigan Daily - 15
young icers show off dimensions at A2 Ice3
y Mark Snyder
aily Sports Editor
The Ann Arbor Ice Cube - once
just used for recreational and figure
skating - has the gurus of the college
hockey world sitting in its plastic blue
eats this week.
And Jeff Jackson couldn't be happier.
After one year as the USA national
ockey coach and less than eight
months after the Cube
became hockey's home
in the United States,
Jackson has brought
the nation's top college
coaches to Ann Arbor
pining for talent.
Beginning last
Monday, 200 of the top
17-year-old American
Wckey players came to
Ann Arbor looking to u s A H
impress the hordes of SELE
college hockey coach-
es. Each coach is eager FEST
to get a jump on the
recruiting trail of the blossoming
skaters.
Among the dignitaries in atten-
dance: Boston University coach Jack
arker, Notre Dame coach Dave
ulin, Ferris State coach Bob Daniels
and Bowling Green coach Buddy
Powers.
Powers was frank in his assessment
of the players - each more than a
year from taking the ice for a college
team.
"All we want is an early read (on
their talent)" he said. But "recruiting
isn't an exact science."
The coaches, while interested in the
Bund-robin tournament that pits dif-
Terent regions against high-quality
competition, still keep in mind none of
these players will take the ice in col-
lege for at least a year.
Each player, under festival require-
ments, must have been born in 1980,
which makes all of the talent still a
full season away from Division I
competition.
c
e
E
r
"Each player is probably the top
player on his team at home,' Powers
said. "Then he comes here and some-
body else might be the best. It's a
higher (level of) competition."
Each of these coaches has a wealth of
experience, however, and they realize
that this week will not be totally repre-
sentative of each player's true talent.
"This is a great competition, but it's
summer," Michigan
assistant coach Billy
Powers said. "You
always take this with a
grain of salt. These
kids are offseason.
"Most of these kids
have had a grind of a
season like our college
guys have."
Junior league sea-
o c K E Y sons - where most of
CT 17 these players spent the
VAL past season - run
*VA L upwards of 70 games.
"They compete here
because they want to show everyone
what they're all about," Billy Powers
said. "But some kids haven't skated as
much as others."
The 1997 USA Hockey Select 17
Festival comes on the heels of last
week's Select 16 Festival, which
showed players at an earlier stage of
development.
"This camp is meant to educate our
kids, develop our players and start
tracking and following their careers,"
Jackson said. "We follow the players
until the age of 20 and hopefully at
that point they're either at a Division
I college or playing professional
hockey."
While the idea of bringing the top
talent to one location is not new to
Ann Arbor, the tournament has
bounced around the country in previ-
ous years.
Hosts in the past include Lake
Placid, N.Y., and Colorado Springs,
Colo. - definitely hockey hotbeds,
but sites lacking the central locality of
Boston University hockey coach Jack Parker Isn't just a face in the crowd. The Terriers, who eliminated Michigan In tI
semifinals, are focusing on the future, as Parker scouted prospective players at the Ann Arbor ice Cube this week.
/-
.I
southeastern Michigan.
Location "is why we chose Ann
Arbor," Jackson said. "It's a great
place to house our national team and
it's also a tremendous facility we have
access to (at the Cube).
"Once we have the national teams in
Ann Arbor, people will start realizing
this is something special."
Jackson, who won two national
titles while coaching at Lake Superior
State, has brought dedication and
renewed vigor to the position.
But the tournament is hardly just an
example of Jackson helping out his
friends.
The national program has an agenda
of its own during the seven-day tourna-
The top 200 17-year-old American
hockey players are in Ann Arbor this
week competing in the 1997 USA
Hockey Select 17 Festival. The show-
case is a chance for college coaches
MARK FRIEDMAN/Daly
RICHARDSON'S
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I
ment. From its origins under Jackson,
the player development plan has
advanced to a contained program in
Ann Arbor which will begin this fall.
Forty-four of the top players in the
United States will live and learn in
Ann Arbor, practicing under
Jackson's tutelage and living with
local families.
The Select festivals are the final
proving ground before the develop-
ment rosters are finalized next week.
"This (festival) has always been a
well-kept secret because it has always
been hidden in Colorado Springs,"
Jackson said. "Now we are in a hock-
ey area. It's called Hockeytown for a
reason."
While the USA Hockey program
has yet to. become acclimated to
Michigan culture, Jackson is a veteran
who knows the area well.
"Detroit is a great city to come to,"
he said. "There is access to a major
airport and also just the city itself.
The cultural and social aspects were
things I recognized 15 years ago when
I was a graduate assistant at
Michigan."
Buddy Powers couldn't be happier
that the tournament has moved closer
to Bowling Green and his home.
"We always would go wherever it
was," he said. "But it used to be a
week trip. It's a little more central
location than before."
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