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The Boys Select 16 Festival, which features '91 birthdates this year, got started yesterday. I'm not sure how much I like USA Hockey's new site design. It seems like it's a lot tougher to track individual player performances with it. Also, apparently they're giving players 2 points for a goal?

It sounds like Michigan recruit Jon Merrill will be playing in the USHL next season.

Bill Simmons tried to write about the NHL Draft. I didn't make it all the way to the end because, well, it was written by Bill Simmons, but what I read was terrible. It's basically the same thing we've seen from ESPN for the past year. He has no knowledge of the NHL, or the draft, so he just makes a bunch of lame jokes about the NHL's TV contract. He mentioned how young the players looked so many times, I was almost hoping for his trademark lame music/movie references. Absolutely awful.

Of course a story with actual substance that will never make it on ESPN is that a record 30% of the players drafted in the NHL Draft were American, including 10 in the first round. The top two players were also American for the first time ever.

Tier II Jr. A hockey also had a great day at the draft. I guess somebody else disagrees with Hockey Canada's Development Model.

A round-up of the 3 Wisconsin recruits taken in the first round. Justifiably, there's been a lot of excitement from Wisconsin fans, though with Brendan Smith, I think it's important to remember the track record for freshmen defensemen taken at the end of the first round hasn't been spectacular.

Michigan had a lot of players get drafted.

Most every team put out news releases of their drafted players. CSTV's newswire collected most of them.

The only two teams not to draft a future or current college hockey player were Carolina and Minnesota. Minnesota was the only team not to draft a college player or an American.