from Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star,

When American colleges go door to door, recruiting teenaged hockey players, they now have bragging rights over the Canadian Hockey League thanks to the United States’ victory in the world junior hockey championship.

“What it demonstrates is how good college hockey is,” says Mike Snee, the executive director of College Hockey Inc. “It speaks to the calibre and quality of play and player in NCAA hockey.”

The American team was loaded with college players as it earned the U.S.’s third gold medal since 2010, the most by any country in that time span. Canada, a team loaded with major junior players since the inception of the tournament, has won one gold medal since 2010.

The hockey world has been waiting for the Americans to arrive. They haven’t done so at the senior level in international tournaments — their lone title in the last 50 years was at the 1996 World Cup — but Olympic glory is probably only a matter of time (and continued NHL participation).

But bubbling beneath the surface — and beyond its vaunted U.S. national development program — is the rise of the U.S. college system as an important cog in developing players.

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