NCAA players set to face European pro teams in 1st Spengler Cup appearance

College hockey is in the spotlight more than ever this season, thanks in part to an influx of players from the Canadian Hockey League.

And now it's stepping onto the global stage.

For the first time, NCAA hockey will have an all-star team at the Spengler Cup, the world's oldest invitational hockey tournament, dating to 1923. The United States Collegiate Selects are one of six teams taking part in the event, which will be held in Davos, Switzerland, from Dec. 26-31.

It certainly will be a challenge for the 25-player team that has an average age of 21 years, going against professional teams from the top leagues in Switzerland (host Davos and Fribourg), Finland (HIFK) and Czechia (Sparta), as well as a Hockey Canada entry featuring mostly pros playing in Europe.

The team was to travel to Switzerland on Tuesday after a short training camp in Boston on Sunday.

"We absolutely have to keep in mind that this is going to be an older, bigger, stronger tournament," said Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky, who will lead the Collegiate Selects team.

There is concern, but also confidence from officials heading the Collegiate Selects.

"Quite frankly, we want to go win some games, and we think we can go win some games," said Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf, the team's general manager.

Minnesota Duluth’s Adam Gajan, a Chicago Blackhawks prospect, is one of three goalies with the Collegiate Selects Spengler Cup team

* * *

Mike Snee will have plenty to keep him busy in late December in his role on the organizing committee for the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as his full-time job as vice president of the Minnesota Wild Foundation.

But he'll be paying close attention when the puck drops at Eisstadion Davos on Friday for the Collegiate Selects' tournament opener against Hockey Canada.

Seeing an NCAA all-star team playing in the Spengler Cup will mark the culmination of a process that Snee began in 2019 when he was executive director of College Hockey Inc., a men's college hockey advocacy group.

"I'm so ecstatic it's going to happen," Snee said. "I can't wait to watch it. I definitely will be watching it and feeling, ‘Man, that would be so cool to be there right now.’ ... Certainly not on the ice, but part of it, and part of it from Day 1. So there certainly is just a personal attachment I have to it."

Snee was a college student spending a semester abroad in Germany during the 1990s when a hockey game in the German league piqued his interest in European sports. Eventually he discovered the Spengler Cup.

"I went down a bit of like a Spengler Cup rabbit hole, because what I recall seeing was the building was full, the building was super enthusiastic, and the building itself looked cool as heck," he said. "And then you find out it's in this beautiful mountain town, and that it happens to be the town where all the financial meetings occur (World Economic Forum). ... So I just got intrigued about it."

What he learned stuck with him as he developed his professional career in hockey, which took him to College Hockey Inc. in 2012. Especially every December, when he'd see a press release or a social media item showing current or former NCAA players who were skating in the Spengler Cup.

"If you go back and look at rosters every year, it felt like there was one-to-three Canadian college hockey players that would get assigned to the Canadian Spengler Cup team," Snee said. "Ian Mitchell, who played in the NHL, when he was with Denver, all of a sudden he's on the Spengler Cup team; I have no idea why. (Former NHL forward) Dylan Sikura, he was at Northeastern, and on social media I see a release, Dylan Sikura playing on the Canadian Spengler Cup team. So I just know all this stuff is happening for a variety of reasons."

In 2019 Snee was speaking with Keith Sullivan, an amateur scout for the Edmonton Oilers at the time. The conversation eventually turned to the Spengler Cup.

"He's like, ‘I go all the time,’" Snee said. "And then he started validating everything that I heard about it -- it is the coolest sporting event in the world, and so on and so on.

"Then we're talking about college guys in it, and he goes, 'You should put together a college all-star team and play in it.' And I was like, ‘Yeah, it's actually a great idea.’"

As Snee sought ideas for a talking-points memo to sell Spengler Cup participation to the different NCAA hockey stakeholders, he found more support than he realized.

"As I started to work on this and put this brief together, every single time I encountered a college hockey coach who had played in it, because a number of college hockey coaches are either Canadians that played on Team Canada when they were pros, or maybe an American that was playing for a European pro team and that pro team played in the Spengler Cup," he said. "So I would talk to some of these coaches, and then every single one of them [would say], ‘That was the best week of hockey I ever had in my life, that was so memorable. This would absolutely be something we should do.’

"So that really pumped me up. I think we're onto something. Because these college coaches not only were validating how wonderful the event was, they were like, 'Can I be a coach? Can I be one of the coaches that coaches it?' ... I would say, probably over my four or five years of working on that, I probably encountered 15 different coaches that played in it, and every single one of them had the same reaction. They were all like, ‘The most fun I ever had playing hockey.’ It was powerful."

Among those coaches stepping up was Gadowsky.

"The Spengler Cup is an extremely prestigious tournament, and something that has been televised live in Canada forever," he said. "So it's something that I've known about. I did play for a Canadian national team in the 1990s, and learned more about it. It's been over probably six or seven years ago that someone contacted me and said, ‘Do you think NCAA college hockey would be interested if there was a way to get an all-star team?’ And I said, 'Yes.'"

The support also came from athletic directors and conference commissioners when Snee would pitch the idea to them at college hockey's annual meeting.

"They were overwhelmingly in support of it," Snee said. "‘This is the concept, this is the idea.’ It worked out wonderfully that I think in every one of those meetings, there was at least one coach in there who had played in it eight years earlier when he was a pro, and he was like, 'Great idea. Let's do it. It'll be wonderful.'"

Left, Mike Snee’s talking-points memo promoting NCAA participation in the Spengler Cup; right, Cornell University forward and Boston Bruins prospect Ryan Walsh.

* * *

It may have been a great idea, but making it happen was a bit tougher for several reasons.

First and foremost was an NCAA rule that banned all-star style teams from playing during a sport's calendar season. But after a bit of digging, Snee found a favorable precedent in women's college hockey.

"For like three Olympics in a row, the U.S. women's Olympic team would scrimmage the WCHA (Western Collegiate Hockey Association) women's all-star team a couple of different times," Snee said. "One of the challenges in high-level women's hockey prior to the PWHL (Professional Women's Hockey League), is there aren't a lot of teams around that can compete with the U.S. and Canada in women's hockey. So when the U.S. puts together their Olympic team, Canada puts together their Olympic team, they're really the only two teams that can compete with each other. So who are they going to train against? So the NCAA then allowed an exception for the WCHA, which is the best women's college hockey conference, for them to put together an all-star team on a couple of different occasions."

That precedent, combined with the support of college coaches and administrators, plus the Spengler Cup's willingness to consider offering a spot in the event, earned Snee NCAA approval.

But then came a larger hurdle that no amount of negotiating could overcome -- the coronavirus pandemic, which led to the cancellation of the Spengler Cup in 2020 and 2021.

When the tournament was restarted for 2022, Snee and his group went back to work to assemble a team of NCAA players. He led a delegation of college hockey executives to the 2022 Spengler Cup to meet with tournament organizers and see how the event is run.

"It was better than I expected, and my expectations were so high," Snee said. "It is a hockey party.

"I would say it feels like Oktoberfest meets hockey."

Snee found an advocate in Fredi Pargatzi, who was president of the Spengler Cup organizing committee from 1990-2015 before shifting into the role of head of international relations and team acquisition for the tournament.

However, Pargatzi remembered the two previous times NCAA teams had taken part; Minnesota had played in the 1981 Spengler Cup, and North Dakota traveled there in 1982. The teams went a combined 1-7 and were outscored 51-27.

"We had been discussing the participation of an NCAA team in our organization for quite some time," Pargatzi said. "However, from the very beginning, the focus was on a select, or all-star team, rather than a pure university team."

Others at the Spengler Cup had concerns about how a team of college players would fare against veteran professionals.

Metcalf's response? Watch a game.

"They were interested in us, but for some of the folks that were deciding, they had a misconception about what our team might look like," he said. "They thought it was going to be a team of 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds. Maybe they're thinking a World Junior-type situation. Perhaps they're thinking college hockey players are younger. So that was a misconception that they had, which was easy to correct.

"I could fact-check them on that and explain that's not the case but then there was still a little bit of wariness about it -- 'Steve told us that's not the case, but we've got 30-year-old pros playing here. Are they going to be competitive?' And so I said, ‘Please do not worry about that, but don't take my word for it. Go watch a college hockey game. ... Watch this game, Providence College vs. Boston College.’

"They watched the game, and the guy called me right away and he goes, 'Yeah, you'll be just fine.'

Spengler Cup officials saw what hockey fans in North America have seen when it comes to the speed and intensity of the NCAA game.

"We're going to have a team of future pros that's going to go there," Metcalf said. "And the consensus is, the college team that we're putting together is going to be skilled, for sure. They're going to be fast. Some of that's the benefit of young legs, but we're going to bring a fast team. And then I think the other thing is our guys are going to go hit everything in sight, because that's what they do. That's college hockey. And some of these veteran pro teams, they're not hitting everything in sight because it's self-preservation. It's not the NHL, and because it's not the NHL it's a little different. I don't mean that in any disparaging way at all, but the college hockey guys don't know anything different than playing 100 percent all the time. That's how they have to play every single night. And so, I think we're going to be just fine."

Notre Dame teammates Cole Knuble, a Philadelphia Flyers prospect, and Danny Nelson, a New York Islanders draft pick, will be U.S. Collegiate Selects Spengler Cup teammates.

* * *

With a spot in the 2025 tournament set, next came the task of building a staff.

Metcalf was named general manager, and he tabbed Sean Hogan, who replaced Snee as College Hockey Inc. executive director in August 2024, as assistant GM.

Gadowsky was named coach, with New Hampshire coach Mike Souza and Niagara coach Jason Lammers his assistants.

It's important to note that between Metcalf (Hockey East), Gadowsky (Big Ten), Souza (Hockey East) and Lammers (Atlantic Hockey America), three of the six college hockey conferences were represented.

"When it came to the staff, we were very intentional that we were going to get coaches from different conferences,” Metcalf said, “and Guy Gadowsky at Penn State, although he works at the big, bad Big Ten at big, bad Penn State, he's been probably the biggest advocate and proponent and champion of us getting a team together for the Spengler Cup for years and years and years. That's one of the reasons he got into this position. So we want to have coaches from different conferences. But then when we started to get into the staff, we were intentional about that as well. The very first person we brought on was someone who worked at the CCHA (Central Collegiate Hockey Association). Then we brought on someone that worked at a school in the ECAC (Eastern College Athletic Conference), and then ... obviously we had myself from Hockey East, but we ended up bringing on someone else from Hockey East. Then we brought someone in from the NCHC (National Collegiate Hockey Conference). There's all-stars all over the country, as far as staff and coaches, but we got staff or coaches from every single conference."

There was similar intentionality when it came to selecting the players. It was decided that any returning player who was an All-American last season automatically would receive an invitation to join the team.

That group included Penn State forward Aiden Fink (Nashville Predators); forward Joey Muldowney (San Jose Sharks) of Connecticut in Hockey East; Penn State defenseman Mac Gadowsky, Guy’s son; defenseman Jake Livanavage of North Dakota in the NCHC; and goalie Alex Tracy, who plays for Minnesota State in the CCHA.

The five players represented teams from four conferences. And when the roster was set, the 25 players were drawn from 17 colleges, with each of the six conferences represented.

"We did come to the understanding that we were going to do everything we can to have representation from all of college hockey," Hogan said. "Which I do think is important. … This isn't just a Big Ten team or a Hockey East team. This is college hockey as a whole, trying to put together a very competitive team to showcase college hockey as a whole."

Penn State teammates Aiden Fink, left, and Mac Gadowsky, were among the first five players named to the Collegiate Selects Spengler Cup roster.

* * *

It will be a meaningful tournament for everyone involved, but maybe a bit more for Guy and Mac Gadowsky.

Guy is in his 15th season as Penn State coach, but this is the first season he's shared a locker room with his oldest son. Mac, 23, transferred this season after playing the previous two seasons at Army.

Last season, Mac led NCAA defensemen with 16 goals and was third with 42 points in 38 games, was a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, awarded to the top men's NCAA hockey player, and was a First-Team All-American.

"I'm very grateful to the head coaches across the nation for voting him as an All-American, because it means that he gets an invite to this team, which is great," Guy Gadowsky said. "And as a dad, yeah, I’ve got to be honest, to be able to be with him at Christmas during this time is going to be very special, and I'm very grateful for that. I feel very blessed for that opportunity."

Guy said he's going to try to make it as much of a family event as possible with his wife, Melissa, and their daughter, Mia, joining them in Switzerland. Son Magnus, 22, is a sophomore forward at Division III Amherst College.

"We're hoping to make it as much of a family Christmas as possible," he said.

For Mac, the Spengler Cup will be another memorable father/son moment.

"I think it's definitely exciting for us both," he said. "First, him being named the coach, it's super exciting for our family for him to have that opportunity. And then a few months later, getting pulled aside and told that I get that opportunity to play in that tournament, and for him, was pretty exciting for myself and also the rest of my family too. The opportunity to kind of have the best for two of us together is always something special."

Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky and his son, Mac Gadowsky, from last season when Mac played at Army. He transferred to Penn State this season.

Mac will get to spend the holidays with a few of his Penn State teammates in Fink and forwards Charlie Cerrato (Carolina Hurricanes), Matt DiMarsico and JJ Wiebusch.

There's also the added opportunity to play against professionals and in front of NHL scouts, as well as scouts for European teams.

"I think it's a great opportunity for everyone on this team," Mac said. "Being in college, we all have hopes and dreams, and more specifically a goal of playing at the next level. I think that this is a great way to kind of experience something like that, playing against older guys, a little bit more experienced. It's a pretty good opportunity for us to show that as a group that kind of just gets put together, we can play against some of the top European teams. And them being older, try to prove ourselves for that next level.

"All of us want to play in the NHL, but that may not all happen for everyone. It's a great opportunity to expose ourselves to a great path and alternate route."

It's also a great opportunity for college hockey. The arrival of top NHL prospects like Penn State freshman forward Gavin McKenna, the projected No. 1 pick of the 2026 NHL Draft, and North Dakota freshman defenseman Keaton Verhoeff, a likely top-three selection, has drawn an unprecedented amount of attention.

Though McKenna and Verhoeff will have the chance to showcase themselves at the World Juniors, the Spengler Cup provides a chance for the NCAA to market its brand on a global platform. It has been announced that every game of the tournament, including those featuring the Collegiate Selects, will be streamed live in the United States via the Spengler Cup’s official YouTube channel. Canadian viewers will be able to view each game of the tournament on TSN.

"This is a great, great opportunity for college hockey," Guy Gadowsky said. "It truly is. College hockey has been getting better and better and better the longer I've been in it. And I think possibly the biggest jump in quality has been this year. I think it's a great year to come in and show the rest of the world how good college hockey is. And we're very grateful for that responsibility, and we take that responsibility very seriously."

UNITED STATES COLLEGIATE SELECTS ROSTER

GOALIES: Adam Gajan, Minnesota Duluth (Chicago Blackhawks); Josh Kotai, Augustana; Alex Tracy, Minnesota State

DEFENSEMEN: Vinny Borgesi, Northeastern; Mac Gadowsky, Penn State; Larry Keenan, Massachusetts (Detroit Red Wings); Jake Livanavage, North Dakota; Gavin McCarthy, Boston University (Buffalo Sabres); Eric Pohlkamp, Denver (San Jose Sharks); Abram Wiebe, North Dakota (Vegas Golden Knights)

FORWARDS: *Owen Beckner, Colorado College (Ottawa Senators); Charlie Cerrato, Penn State (Carolina Hurricanes); Aiden Fink, Penn State (Nashville Predators); Matt DiMarsico, Penn State; Quinn Finley, Wisconsin (New York Islanders); T.J. Hughes, Michigan; Cole Knuble, Notre Dame (Philadelphia Flyers); Martins Lavins, New Hampshire; Joey Muldowney, Connecticut (San Jose Sharks); Jack Musa, Massachusetts; Danny Nelson, Notre Dame (New York Islanders); Christopher Pelosi, Quinnipiac (Boston Bruins); Zam Plante, Minnesota Duluth (Pittsburgh Penguins); Jack Stockfish, Holy Cross; Ryan Walsh, Cornell (Boston Bruins); JJ Wiebusch, Penn State

*-- injured and unable to participate

2025 SPENGLER CUP SCHEDULE

Friday, Dec. 26: Fribourg vs. Sparta, 9:10 a.m. ET; Hockey Canada vs. U.S. Collegiate Selects, 2:15 p.m. ET

Saturday, Dec. 27: HIFK vs. Fribourg-Sparta loser, 9:10 a.m. ET; Davos vs. Hockey Canada-U.S. Collegiate Selects loser, 2:15 p.m. ET

Sunday, Dec. 28: HIFK vs. Fribourg-Sparta winner, 9:10 a.m. ET; Davos vs. Hockey Canada-U.S. Collegiate Selects winner, 2:15 p.m. ET

Monday, Dec. 29: Quarterfinals: 9:10 a.m. ET and 2:15 p.m. ET

Tuesday, Dec. 30: Semifinals: 9:10 a.m. ET and 2:15 p.m. ET

Wednesday, Dec. 31: Championship game: 6:10 a.m. ET

Top photo: From left, Aiden Fink (Penn State), Alex Tracy (Minnesota State), Jake Livanavage (North Dakota) and Mac Gadowsky (Penn State) headline the U.S. Collegiate Selects Spengler Cup roster