There is no doubt that New England is a college hockey hotbed. Just look at the numbers. There are 20 Division I schools in the region. Six of the last 11 national championship teams call New England home. Former Northeastern and current Vancouver Canucks forward Adam Gaudette (Braintree, Mass.) is the latest of four Hobey...
There is no doubt that New England is a college hockey hotbed. Just look at the numbers.
There are 20 Division I schools in the region. Six of the last 11 national championship teams call New England home. Former Northeastern and current Vancouver Canucks forward Adam Gaudette (Braintree, Mass.) is the latest of four Hobey Baker Award winners in the last five years from the region.
However, there are a host of local products — 36, to be exact — spending their college careers outside of the six New England states.
No team outside the region boasts more New Englanders than Army West Point, which has nine players from four of the region’s states on its roster. Three of the Black Knights’ locals are seniors, including co-captain Dalton MacAfee, a Needham, Mass., native who is tied for the team lead with nine points and doubles as a midfielder on the lacrosse field.
Boxborough, Mass., native Cal Burke has started off his junior season at Notre Dame on a strong note, recording five goals and 10 points over the first eight games. Burke’s younger brother, Cam, joined the Fighting Irish as a freshman after they advanced to the Frozen Four title game last year.
From a conference perspective, 25 players outside the region attend Atlantic Hockey and ECAC schools as those leagues also have strong representation within New England borders. Included in that group is RPI’s Chase Zieky, an Avon Old Farms product who played spent his first two college seasons at Providence before transferring this year.
Elsewhere, seven New Englanders took their talents to the Big Ten, including two sets of brothers with the Irish. Two players from the region skate in both the NCHC and WCHA.
From freshmen in the first weeks of their tenures on campus to upperclassmen looking to keep making an impact at their respective schools, here is a list of all the New Englanders playing college hockey outside of the region they call home:
