As the Plymouth Observer’s Tim Smith notes, USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth is hosting the Under-18 Five Nations Cup from February 13th to 17th, and the event is one of the premier tournaments for draft-eligible players:
The building (14900 Beck Road) will be jammed with National Hockey League officials and scouts who will be filling notebooks with musings about dozens of players considered the cream of the crop in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft.
In addition to the U.S., the round-robin tournament will include Russia, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic.
“The ones who have been here for any international event know they’re fun, the games are great,” said Scott Monaghan, senior director of operations for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program, which is based in Plymouth. “(During) the women’s world championship, the USA-Canada games just rocked.
“We hosted a Five Nations in February two years ago, that was the younger age group, U-17s. We had a fantastic final game with USA-Russia. The building was packed and it was rocking.
“This is a bigger event, because it is the last event before the U-18 World Championship, the next-to-last time the NHL teams and scouts can see all these kids. And there’s probably going to be upwards of 60 kids that are ranked in the draft from these five countries.”
Continued, and USA Hockey posted a hype video for the tournament:
