Michigan Hockey Advancement high school program ready for new season, expansion

 

By @MichaelCaples –

The Michigan Hockey Advancement program is gearing up for Year 2, and they have big plans in place.

The program, created by Brandon Naurato and Total Package Hockey, brings together 80 of the best high school hockey players from across the state for their ‘Top 80 Showcase’ before selecting two elite teams to compete in tournaments prior to their varsity season.

“Jeff Petry just signed that big deal, Greg Pateryn, Justin Abdelkader, Luke Glendening – year after year high school hockey is sending guys to the next level, so we’re just trying to show that it’s just another good avenue,” said Naurato, himself a Detroit Catholic Central product who went on to play at the University of Michigan and professional hockey.

The ‘Top 80 Showcase’ brings players to the Farmington Hills Ice Arena for a series of games, training exercises and educational seminars with the likes of College Hockey, Inc. and the North American Hockey League, to better prepare high school athletes looking to make the jump to junior and college hockey.

MORE: Top 80 Showcase offers preseason exposure, education for high school players (2014)

This year, tryouts for the event will take place on Aug. 14-16th at Farmington Hills Ice Arena, with the goal of hosting the ‘Top 80’ during Labor Day Weekend. That way, coaches from college hockey programs are available to attend. While they had more than 40 scouts attend the inaugural ‘Top 80’ event, it took place during the opening weekend of the NCAA season, which limited the availability for college coaches.

After the showcase, the top 20 players in the 18U and 16U age brackets will be selected to form tournament teams; those rosters will compete at the Compuware Honeybaked AAA Invitational, the Warrior AAA Invitational, and a Beanpot tournament in Boston.

For Naurato, however, the MHA is just in its infancy.

“The goal is to grow this program into a regionalized model with the hopes of getting more high school coaches involved, getting more high school teams, not just metro Detroit but U.P. guys, west side guys, east side guys, metro Detroit, all going towards the common goal of boosting the brand of high school hockey,” Naurato said. “We need to be letting people know that high school hockey is a good option whether you want to move onto the next level or you just want to have some fun and play for your varsity team. ”

The plan for Year 3 of the program is to have regional tryouts with more involvement from high school coaches in their specific areas, creating more opportunities for players in the process.

“Going into Year 3, our goal would be to have regionalized tryouts in the U.P., regionalized tryouts in the west side of the state and then regionalized tryouts in Metro Detroit,” Naurato said. “From there, we would take and pick two teams from the U.P., two teams from the west side, and then four teams from Metro Detroit. Then we would have a showcase of these eight teams, and from that eight-team showcase, you would knock that down to the Top 80. From there, you would take that to the tournament teams, the final 20 for U18 and U16.”

The MHA is continuing to have more buy-in from coaches across the state, which makes this plan feasible, according to Naurato. More and more high school coaches will be the evaluators at the showcase, be coaches at the showcase, and join the teams as coaches for the tournaments.

“The biggest message is that the high school coaches are more involved now,” Naurato said. “When we break into the regionalized models in the future, say there will be a regionalized tryout for the U.P. guys, so all of the coaches in that area know the best players. If you make it, you are getting promoted by your own area. It’s not like, OK I’m a Downriver kid, so the big-name Metro Detroit school coaches aren’t going to be pick me because they’re taking care of their own guys. It’s promotion from within.”

The goal, of course, is to promote high school hockey and the players who want to take the next step in their career.

“For Total Package Hockey, we work with everybody, we have AAA kids that come to the TPH Center of Excellence, we work with high school players in the fall league, and we just want to make kids better,” Naurato said. “We want to do everything we can to open up doors, but at the end of the day, the kids are the ones that earn their opportunities. Any way we can help showcase them or promote them as people, that’s what we want to do.”