USA Hockey's sixth Hockey Weekend Across America is Feb. 15-17, and is designed to celebrate the sport and provide opportunities for people who haven't been exposed to it.
Events include "Wear Your Favorite Hockey Jersey Day" on Friday and nationwide opportunities on Saturday to try hockey for free. For more information, visit hockeyweekendacrossamerica.com.
State-By-State MVPs
In the spirit of celebrating hockey across all corners of the U.S., as we did last year, we are saluting the top contributors in Division I men's hockey from each state this year. In all, 39 states plus the District of Columbia are represented on Division I rosters, from Minnesota (182 players) to Alabama, Kentucky, Utah and Wyoming (1 each).
As you can imagine, picking the one "best" player from some of these states was a huge challenge. We based the decisions on this year's performance and gave an edge to those players whose teams have played well. More noteworthy than the individual selections is the variety of states represented among the top players.
Without further ado, our selections, plus a breakdown of players by state in each conference:
Click category at top of column to sort table
| State | Atlantic | CCHA | ECAC | HEA | WCHA | Ind. | Total | MVP |
| Alabama | 1 | 1 | Nic Dowd, SCSU | |||||
| Alaska | 1 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 1 | 27 | William Rapuzzi, CC |
| Arizona | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 15 | Jeremy Langlois, Quinnipiac | |
| California | 11 | 17 | 8 | 11 | 10 | 2 | 59 | Matt Leitner, Minn. St. |
| Colorado | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 35 | Nick Shore, Denver | |
| Connecticut | 9 | 3 | 11 | 10 | 33 | Pat Mullane, BC | ||
| District of Columbia | 1 | 1 | Andrew Panzarella, UND | |||||
| Florida | 2 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 17 | Shayne Gostisbehere, Union | |
| Georgia | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 8 | Vinny Saponari, Northeastern | |
| Illinois | 11 | 20 | 13 | 4 | 16 | 2 | 66 | Ryan Dzingel, OSU |
| Indiana | 2 | 2 | 4 | Jordan Sims, UConn | ||||
| Iowa | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | David Gerths, Notre Dame | |||
| Kentucky | 1 | 1 | Chris Paliafito, Sacred Heart | |||||
| Maine | 3 | 2 | 6 | 11 | Jon Gillies, PC | |||
| Maryland | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 | Adam Mitchell, RIT | ||
| Massachusetts | 17 | 2 | 31 | 51 | 1 | 1 | 103 | Mike Collins, Merrimack |
| Michigan | 22 | 74 | 7 | 13 | 11 | 4 | 131 | Riley Barber, Miami |
| Minnesota | 27 | 24 | 22 | 9 | 98 | 2 | 182 | Ryan Walters, UNO |
| Missouri | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 24 | Brett Gensler, Bentley |
| Nebraska | 2 | 2 | 4 | Matt Bruneteau, UVM | ||||
| Nevada | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Cory Ward, Bemidji State | ||
| New Hampshire | 2 | 5 | 6 | 13 | Casey DeSmith, UNH | |||
| New Jersey | 4 | 3 | 12 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 40 | Johnny Gaudreau, BC |
| New York | 27 | 4 | 33 | 19 | 2 | 1 | 86 | Kyle Flanagan, SLU |
| North Carolina | 1 | 1 | 2 | Patrick Kirtland, UConn | ||||
| North Dakota | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | Eric Meland, Princeton | ||
| Ohio | 9 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 31 | Jimmy Mullin, Miami |
| Oklahoma | 1 | 2 | 3 | Chase Grant, Minn. State | ||||
| Oregon | 1 | 1 | 2 | Kyle Singleton, Merrimack | ||||
| Pennsylvania | 27 | 3 | 10 | 18 | 3 | 8 | 69 | Parker Milner, BC |
| Rhode Island | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 9 | Derek Army, Providence | ||
| South Dakota | 1 | 1 | 2 | Matt Farris, Princeton | ||||
| Tennessee | 1 | 2 | 3 | Sebastian Geoffrion, UAH | ||||
| Texas | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 11 | Cason Hohmann, BU | |
| Utah | 1 | 1 | Alex Halloran, AFA | |||||
| Vermont | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 | Riley Wetmore, UMass Lowell | |||
| Virginia | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 | Jay Williams, Miami | ||
| Washington | 6 | 1 | 7 | Jeff Smith, RIT | ||||
| Wisconsin | 4 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 22 | 1 | 39 | Landon Peterson, UW |
| Wyoming | 1 | 1 | Russell Finch, CC | |||||
| Total | 223 | 202 | 191 | 206 | 223 | 33 | 1078 |