Atlantic Youth Hockey League

AYHL Sends Four to USA Hockey Nationals

Release Date : 3/27/2014

FLORHAM PARK, NJ – The Atlantic Metropolitan Hockey League is pleased to announce that four AYHL members will be participating in the upcoming USA Hockey Tier I Nationals, presented by Toyota, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Representing the AYHL will be Team Comcast at the U14 level, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Junior Knights and the Long Island Gulls at the U16 level and the Philadelphia Junior Flyers at the U18 level.

Team Comcast won the AYHL Bantam Major regular season and playoff championships. Forward Evan Barratt (’99 birth year/Bristol, PA) and defensemen Mattias Samuelsson (’00 birth year/Voorhees, NJ) led Comcast in the playoffs and will again be looked upon in Nationals. Comcast will be in Pool B with Belle Tire, Thunder Hockey and the Colorado Thunderbirds.

At the U16 level, the Junior Knights finished tied for the regular season crown while the Gulls took the playoff championship and then won the New York State crown to advance to nationals. Both teams were heavily scouted all season long and featured several Division I commitments by Simon Butala (’98 birth year/Downingtown, PA) to Maine, Adam Fox (’98 birth year/Jericho, NY) to Harvard, Dante Palecco (’98 birth year/Whippany, NJ) to Yale and Samuel Sternschein (’98 birth year/Syosset, NY) to Cornell from the Gulls and Konstantin Chernyuk (’98 birth year/Pittiston, PA) to Maine from the Knights.

The Knights are in Pool C with the Colorado Thunderbirds, Team Wisconsin and the Valley Junior Warriors and the Gulls will play out of Pool D with Chicago Young Americans, Chicago Mission and national powerhouse, Shattuck-Saint Mary’s.

The Junior Flyers were near the top of the AYHL Midget-18 standings all season long and were led by Air Force committed Kevin Charyszyn (’96 birth year/Jamison, PA) who averaged over a point per game in AYHL play and reached the national tournament by sweeping Comcast to win the Atlantic District.

The Junior Flyers will play out of Pool A with Shattuck-Saint Mary’s, Team Illinois and the Bock Blazers.

“To have four teams representing four different organizations at Nationals is a testament to the seasons that each one of them had,” said AMHL President Gene Palecco. “We expect all four teams to represent the AMHL in the best possible way and regardless of the final outcomes, we couldn’t be prouder of these four teams, their players and their coaches. We wish them the best of luck in Green Bay.”