Beyond the X: Building Olympic hockey stars in Ann Arbor

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The speed of the game is dizzying.

Boston University commit Jack Eichel, his white USA jersey flying in the breeze, gets his stick on the puck. He quickly moves left, then right past an older Adrian College opponent. He shoots. That shot is saved, but within a second or two, the rebound turns into a goal by teammate Alex Tuch.

The red light underneath a row of blue USA Hockey world championship banners lights up at the Ann Arbor Ice Cube. Eichel hugs his linemates.

It is on this same patch of ice in the same arena that nearly half of the 2014 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team‘s players once played in those same USA Hockey colors. Patrick Kane, the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, played here as a high school athlete from 2004 through 2006. So did Toronto Maple Leafs and Olympic teammates James van Reimsdyk and Phil Kessel. Detroit Red Wings and Olympic goaltender Jimmy Howard also played at The Cube.



It is here, about a mile and a half from Michigan Stadium (college football‘s "Big House"), that two teams of high schoolers are being molded into future Olympic and National Hockey League stars in USA Hockey‘s National Team Development Program (NTDP).

When the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team begins play at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games on Feb. 13 against Slovakia, nine of the players will be USA Hockey NTDP alumni.

"One of the big missions of this program when they started it, 18 or 19 years ago … was to do that," said Danton Cole, head coach of the U.S. National Under-18 Team. "That‘s kind of slowly but steadily building up to the point now where about half the (Olympic) team is guys who have come through here…

"We‘re very prideful of that. It‘s great to see that it is working long-term."

When Howard returned to Ann Arbor on New Year’s Day as goaltender for the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL Winter Classic game against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Michigan Stadium, it stoked a few memories. He spent his senior year of high school in the NTDP in 2001 and ‘02.

"Back when I played with the U.S. program, my senior year in high school, it was 9-11. It was a little bit of a rallying cry for us heading over to the Under-18s," Howard said.



After the NHL Winter Classic ended, Howard skated back onto the ice surface in front of 105,000 spectators as he was introduced as making his first Olympic team. The announcement produced a roar from the crowd, which included tens of thousands of Red Wings fans.

"Any time you‘re wearing the USA sweater, it‘s such a tremendous honor," he said. "The respect that comes with it is second to none."

It was a moment that was also special for Van Riemsdyk, a Maple Leafs forward who played for two seasons in the NTDP from 2005 to 2007 and graduated from Pioneer (Ann Arbor, Mich.). He moved to Ann Arbor from New Jersey.

"Since I came to Ann Arbor, something I’ve always wanted to do is be able to play at the Olympics," he said. "It’s a huge thrill for me and I’m very excited about it."

Coming to Ann Arbor is a part of the experience. Not every member of the program grew up in Michigan, and that means many had to choose to leave their hometown high schools behind to chase the hockey dream. Leaving the familiarity of family and home isn't easy for some, but the rewards are easy to see.

The Olympic numbers provide a big piece of the motivation for current players in the NTDP.



"It just shows how good of a track record the national program has," Eichel says about this year's Olympic team. "It just shows that guys had success after coming through here. The identity of the guys that come through here, they're all hard-working. It just shows how successful the national development program has been in past years."


Video by Christoper Magnuson/Edited by Bryce Escobar/Cover photo by Scott Mapes
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Walk through the doors of the USA Hockey NTDP headquarters in Ann Arbor, and among the first things you‘ll notice is a long hallway adorned with autographed, framed pictures of the program‘s famous alumni. More pictures are displayed in the weight room.

Walk into the locker rooms, either the U-18 National Team on one side or the U-17 National Team on the other side, and you'll see USA hockey jerseys neatly hung in front of each player's stall. The USA Hockey emblem is sewn into the carpet. The doors to the locker room from the stadium arena, one of three ice sheets at the Ice Cube, have the Team USA logo.

"Everything gives you chills, really," said Colin White, a U-17 player from Noble & Greenough (Dedham, Mass) and a Boston College commit. "The first time I walked in here, it was surreal, really. Nothing really like it. Unbelievable feeling."

NTDP's headquarters include meeting rooms and video rooms for training. A fitness area includes a weight room and boxing lessons. Offices for coaches and other staffers fill up an entire floor above the locker room.

Knowing that NHL star players and Olympians once sat at those same locker room stalls simply fuels the energy of a proud national training center for the best high school-age hockey players in the United States. All have either left their high school teams back home to train here or simply skipped over high school hockey altogether to pursue a higher development level.



"It's really eye-opening to see all those guys who sat in our locker room, put on that jersey and now they're representing their country at the Olympic level," said Nicholas Boka, a University of Michigan commit who is from nearby Plymouth, Mich. "It gives us something to look forward to, something to work for."

The program is filled with Division I college commits. Many from the U-18 team will be drafted in the first round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft and the U-17 players a year later in the 2015 NHL Entry draft. All will be primary candidates for the U.S. U-20 entry in the annual World Junior Championships.

But this isn't just about hockey.

Most of the U.S. national governing bodies that administer the operation of each of the Winter and Summer Olympic sports have residency training programs. USA Hockey's NTDP is unique in that all of the athletes are high school students. Joining the program after surviving an invitation-only tryout camp held each March results in a two-year commitment beginning with the U-17 National Team. Members of the team move to Ann Arbor from different locations in the United States, they are assigned a host family in Ann Arbor and they attend school at Pioneer, which is situated across the street from Michigan Stadium.

For most, it is their first time away from home.

"Usually it's a bit of being overwhelmed early," Cole said. "There's just so much going on. New home, new family, not to mention the training. So there's a lot thrown at a 16-year-old when they first get here. They usually get through it. It's nice that they're all the same age, they're all going through it, so they have a pretty good support system of friends. They come in and there are 22 guys that are a band of brothers going through it together."

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In addition to daily practices, a busy game schedule and international trips that include the world championships, the NTDP players carry a regular workload of classes at Pioneer and must meet a minimum grade point average. Study tables are arranged to accommodate academics when the team is on the road. They even have their own academic adviser at Pioneer, a woman named Lisa Vollmers.



Players must carry a 2.25 minimum grade point average. If a player doesn't meet that, he's out of the program. That hasn't been a problem: The U-17 team averaged a 3.56 GPA in the fall; the U-18 team, a 3.48 average.

"You see guys studying or doing homework on the plane or the bus ride to hotels," said Joe Wegwerth, a forward on the U-18 team from Brewster (N.Y.) and a Notre Dame commit. "There's obviously a lot of dedication because at the end of the day everybody wants to get an education, too."

Of the 22 players on the U-18 team, only three have yet to make a college commitment.

Vollmers, who works for both USA Hockey and the Ann Arbor Public Schools, helps to pull everything together at Pioneer. She runs the academic side of the program. She meets with the student-athletes daily, arranges for testing and makes sure the athletes are meeting NCAA requirements so that they're eligible for college admission standards.

"She's outstanding and she takes so much off our table by keeping that all together," Cole said.

"Going to school with all the guys, it's a treat to say the least," Eichel said. "We have a really good time and Mrs. Vollmer takes care of us."



An athlete on a sports team at Pioneer may have situations where he or she has to leave school early on a particular day for a same-day road trip to another school for an athletic event. But that athlete will be back in class the next day. NTDP players sometimes leave town for several days, or longer in the case of North American road trips and international tournaments.

"Pioneer has been really good," Eichel said. "All of the teachers and staff have been really understanding of us missing school, letting us get our work in here (at the Ice Cube), not really putting a target on us at USA Hockey, but just letting us be like other kids in the school."

Just like those other kids in the school, the NTDP kids select their own classes and walk the same hallways as the other Pioneer students. A hockey player might have several teammates in one class or none at all.

"I think it's a really good experience for us because you have to deal with kind of everybody looking at you and have the aura around you," Wegwerth said. "But I think we do a great job of just being professional about it. Still trying to fit in, not acting like we're above everybody else. I think we've done a great job and I think Pioneer has done a great job accepting us and not making us feel out of place."

And how many schools in the country actually produce more Olympians than Pioneer High School? In 2012-13, 50 NTDP alumni were on 28 NHL rosters. In the 15 years that NTDP players have been eligible for the NHL Entry Draft, 228 have been selected.

There are still a number of players who have risen to the Olympics level directly through the NHL, college and junior hockey, but the NTDP numbers are increasingly growing.
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Eichel, the U-18 team's leading scorer this season with 22 goals in 29 games, and defenseman Ryan Bliss share a unique background. They both came to the national program from Chelmsford, Mass., a northern suburb of Boston.



So on the rare times they get to go home, mostly during the summer between school years at Pioneer, they still see each other in Chelmsford. And when they get homesick during the season, they have each other.

"He's one of my real good friends," said Bliss, a Cornell University commit. "It's nice to have him here and also at home, just have the same schedule as somebody else."

"When we go home in the summer and things like that, we're able to work out, skate together," Eichel said. "We push each other.

"Usually nobody from your hometown or where you're from understands what the program is about, so having somebody like Ryan around is really nice because he understands it. At the end of the summer, we're always gunning to get back here and we're really excited about it. Yeah, it's really nice to have somebody like that."

For the rest of the 44 players split between the U-17 and U-18 teams, it is a mix of hometowns and backgrounds. Many players are from the hockey-rich states of Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York. Blake Weyrick, a goaltender for the U-18 team, is from Ojai, Calif. Auston Matthews, a forward on the U-17 team, is from Scottsdale, Ariz.
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Once the NTDP players arrive in Ann Arbor from a variety of American locations, a serious bonding develops, not only among themselves but with the host families that provide a home for them.

The long-standing friendships that occur became evident to Cole at a reunion this past summer.



"The guys that came back … just how close those guys still are," Cole said. "It's a unique experience that I don't know you'll be able to ever duplicate. Pro hockey and college hockey certainly won't be like this."

"One of the things that is special about it here is it's the same players, both years," Wegwerth said. "You get that connection that you don't really get anywhere else. On a junior team, you have guys leaving to go to college after one year. In college, you have guys that graduate as seniors. But here, it's two years with the same guys. You really build a connection that's really special."

"I think we'll always keep tight," Eichel said. "I don't think there's any relationship that compares to the ones we create here."

And in the next few years, many of the guys will be playing against each other in college.

"It's going to be funny, really," White said. "Seeing the guy next to me (during a faceoff), I'll give him a little tap, get in his head a little. That'll be fun to do. After the game, though, seeing them, spending time with them. They're brothers to me."

The same type of bonding is built with the host families.



"They're really great," Bliss said. "They've helped me with a lot, just being there for me. They're very outgoing and very friendly people. They have two younger boys, they're interested in hockey. It's just like at home; I have little brothers. Not much different than being at home."

In the midst of all this bonding is the training. It is intense and it is fast. Fast-moving scrimmages are interrupted only by specialized drills. And there are many of those.

"Every time I step on the ice, I feel like I'm learning something from the coaches. It's very intense," Boka said. "They demand a lot out of you. I feel like if you put your best foot forward every day, you're going to get something out of it."

"When we need it, they're definitely after us," said White, who actually broke his wrist on his first shift in the 40-man tryout camp. "They're right on us. When we're going and having fun, they're going to give us a little space. They're on us: Schoolwork, hockey practice, workout."

In case there is any doubt of the payoff, all they have to do is look up and look at the blue world championship banners. Professionalism and patriotism. Those are two words often used together here.

"That does kind of summarize how we go about things," Cole said. "Yeah, we want to win, but we want to do things the right way. There are going to be better hockey players leaving here, that's unavoidable. But we want them character-wise and people-wise, we want them to represent the U.S. the right way when they leave here as well."



Paul Bowker, an online and newspaper sports journalist for 30 years and the author of two Major League Baseball books, is based in the Chicago area. He may be reached at bowkerpaul1@aol.com.