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Notre Dame's Landon Slaggert and Justin Janicke headed to USA Hockey junior camp

By John Fineran

ND Insider

Notre Dame freshman Justin Janicke, shown Dec. 3, 2021, had his first goal of his collegiate career Friday night against Penn State.

Notre Dame hockey forwards Justin Janicke and Landon Slaggert are among 60 players who will participate in USA Hockey’s National Junior Evaluation Camp July 24-Aug. 3 at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan.

The camp will be used by USA Hockey to determine teams for the upcoming August and December World Junior Championships which both will be played in Canada.

Slaggert, a junior from South Bend, has participated twice for Team USA in World Junior tournaments in 2021 and 2022. He was a member of the gold-medal USA team in 2021 during his freshman season at Notre Dame.

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Last season, he scored what proved to be the game-winning goal in Team USA’s 3-2 victory over Slovakia on Dec. 26 in Red Deer, Alberta. Team USA then forfeited its game against Switzerland on Dec. 28 because of a COVID-19 outbreak which eventually forced the abandonment of the entire 2022 tournament.

In February, the International Ice Hockey Federation re-scheduled the 2022 World Junior Championships for Aug. 9-20 at Red Deer and nearby Edmonton. Team USA will compete in Group B at Red Deer along with Sweden, Slovakia, Switzerland and Latvia, replacing Russia which was expelled for its invasion of Ukraine.

The Group A competition in Edmonton will feature Canada, Finland, Germany, Czechia and Austria.

Notre Dame's Landon Slaggert during the Wisconsin-Notre Dame Big Ten hockey tournament game on Sunday, March 06, 2022, at Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend, Indiana.

Both Slaggert, who had 12 goals and 26 points last season for coach Jeff Jackson’s Irish, and Janicke, a former player for the United States National Team Development Program from Maple Grove, Minnesota, are eligible to play for Team USA in the August tournament, with a final roster to be announced by Aug. 3.

Janicke, who scored two goals and 10 points in 33 Irish games last season, is also eligible for the 2023 World Junior Championships to be played in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick from Dec. 26 through Jan. 5, 2023. That team’s roster will be announced in mid-December.