Holiday Leftovers

The blogging came to a screeching halt as the result of holiday travels, but having now returned home a Heinz post is in order. Here's some old news along with some not-so-old news in an effort to catch up:

• Team USA kicked off the 2013 World Junior Championship today with an 8-0 thumping of Germany, and North Dakota forward Rocco Grimaldi picked up an assist in the victory. They will take on tournament host Russia tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM CST, and the game can be viewed on NHL Network or streamed on NHL.com (Full Broadcast Schedule). Grimaldi is seeking to play a big role for Team USA, and he and WJC linemate Johnny Gaudreau are big on ability despite both being under 5'10". In another local connection, the team doctor for Team USA is Phil Johnson of Fargo.
• In a WJC lead-up feature, Jonathan Toews came in at No. 8 in TSN's Top 40 All-Time Canadians in World Junior history.
• Corban Knight finished off the season's first half in style with a six point weekend in a road sweep against Michigan Tech and he was named the WCHA Offensive Player of the Week for his efforts. Beyond the Pond says he is no silent Knight, while Goon's World asks the question, why not Knight for Hobey?  
• The Western College Hockey Blog issued its WCHA First Half Awards and Knight, Grimaldi, Danny Kristo, and Jordan Schmaltz all received recognition.
• After being named the CHL Goaltender of the Month for November, Aaron Dell stayed hot and was named the league's Goaltender of the Week for the week ending December 16th.
• Brock Nelson was recently included in The Hockey News' Hot List.
• The 2012 Spengler Cup is underway in Davos, Switzerland and former Sioux defenseman Travis Roche is representing Team Canada. Roche has notched an assist in two tournament games and is among an unheralded group of Canadians getting the job done. This year's Spengler is drawing a bit more interest than usual as a number of locked out NHL stars pepper tournament rosters. Among the familiar names are Rick Nash, Joe Thornton, Patrick Kane, Tyler Seguin, Patrice Bergeron, John Tavares, Jason Spezza, etc.
• Colby Genoway was recently featured in a nice video highlight package (link opens a YouTube video). Genoway currently plays for Lausanne of the NLB (Switzerland Tier 2) and is tied for 8th in the league in scoring with 45 points (19G, 26A) in 26 games. His 1.73 PPG rank first in the league among players with at least 25 games played. 
• As virtually everyone knows, UND recently received verbal commitments from two highly-coveted recruits. St. Cloud Cathedral's Austin Poganski and Holy Family's Shane Gersich both committed to North Dakota in the days leading up to Christmas. A recruit profile for Gersich is forthcoming, and in the meantime you can get to know Poganski a little better via his recruit profile.
• Poganski will be joining fellow North Dakota recruit Chris Wilkie on Team USA's entry in the 2013 World Under-17 Challenge, which runs Dec. 29 through Jan. 4th in Victoriaville/Drummondville, Quebec. Team USA plays an exhibition game Friday against Canada Pacific before kicking off preliminary round play Saturday in a tilt with Canada Ontario. Poganski is the only high schooler on the Team USA roster. The majority of the roster is made up of NTDP players, while a few others play for junior clubs.
• The 2013 Women's Under-18 World Championship begins Saturday in Vierumaki/Heinola, Finland, and North Dakota has four committed recruits taking part. Alexis Shaw (G), Gracen Hirschy (D), and Amy Menke are on Team USA's roster while Halli Krzyzaniak (D) will be playing for Team Canada.