The United States flag keeps getting raised at tourneys. Thank you, USNTDP, for making it happen. Merry Christmas. While I gushed about an absolutely miraculous Division IV World Championship win by the Philippines in Mongolia back in March, this is about something closer to home. Closer to Our Favorite Team, the New Jersey Devils. Closer to America, land that I love. And closer to the Christmas season tradition in international hockey: The World Junior Championships (WJCs). Also known as the IIHF World Under-20 Championships. The last post was about a team at very bottom of the international ladder. This post is about something far closer to the top. The stunning growth of American hockey in the National Hockey League and the game in general has been apparent for decades now. This post is about one of the key components for that growth: the United States National Team Development Program. It has been dominant at the youth level. It has been remarkably effective. It has earned all of the love that this post is about to give the program. Before the USNTDP For many decades, despite the National Hockey League having more teams in America than Canada, the game was largely Canadian. USA Hockey was founded in 1937 as the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States by Tommy Lockhart, who led it until 1972. The brand changed to USA Hockey in 1991. As you may be aware, American hockey did not exactly light the world on fire on the international stage. Sure, they took gold at the 1960 Winter Olympics and gold after the Miracle On Ice in 1980 in Lake Placid, New York. But those big wins were few and far between other international competitions: The Americans won just one medal between 1960 and 1980: a silver in […]
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