BUFFALO, NY-- USA Hockey has selected the City of Buffalo to host their inaugural All-American Prospects game in the fall.
The game will take place September 29, 2012 at the First Niagara Center and will feature 40, top American hockey players that will be eligible for the 2013 NHL draft.
The Sabres and USA Hockey have a tremendous working relationship. One major reason the new event is being debuted here in Buffalo is because of the success of the World Juniors tournament held here in late 2010 and early 2011. Dave Orgean, executive director of USA Hockey said this afternoon at the First Niagara Center "that whole experience, with this city, with its fans, with this city's business community and especially with this building and the Buffalo Sabres give us great excitement and comfort in announcing that the newly created All-American Prospects game will happen for the first time this September, the 29th, in this building in Buffalo New York."
Sabres President Ted Black said "we are honored and excited that USA Hockey has selected the Sabres and the city of Buffalo to host this inaugural event. This first of its kind event is just another example of the depth of the Buffalo market and the passion for hockey. It is the reason why Buffalo is hockey heaven not only at the professional level but at the grass roots level which I know USA Hockey spends to much time cultivating. I'm here to say on behalf of the Buffalo Sabres we're not done yet. We love our friends at USA Hockey and we want to continue to bring more events of this kind to Buffalo and to celebrate hockey every way we can."
The players come from junior hockey, high school and college will be participating.
Orgean Two On Your Side's Stu Boyar "we're still fine tuning the very details of how players are chosen. It will be significantly a collaboartion between at least USA Hockey hockey operations and NHL Central Scouting."
Sabres forard Nathan Gerbe said "its an awesome opportunity for the players, also for the players to get to know each other over the three days or however they structure it. I was fortunate enough to be part of the development team for two and a half years so I saw a lot of the really good US young players come up like Pat Kane, Jack Johson, Phil Kessel so I was fortunate enough to see that but now everyone gets to come together and really see what these kids are made of."