The Massachusetts hockey program picked up a commitment tonight from 6’1”, 175lb defenseman Colin Felix.  Felix is a ‘99 birth year so he’d likely arrive in Amherst in 2018, joining fellow defenseman Brian Scoville as the second commitment for that fall.

Felix played this past season as a high school sophomore for St George’s Prep in Rhode Island.  He had two goals and 16 assists in 23 games.

Felix was picked in the 6th round of the USHL draft by the Green Bay Gamblers in the recent months and has been attending their training camp this week.  He was also picked by Kitchener in the 13th round of the OHL draft this Spring.

Felix has been active in USA Hockey camps and Jeff Cox had these observations of him from last year’s Select 15 Festival:

“Didn’t know as much about him as some of the other defenders here, but he was solid. He made nice plays defensively, did a good job pushing the play to the perimeter and made some nice outlet passes.”

Over The Boards tweeted this following the news of his commitment:

Here is his MaxPrep’s page that contains a number of video highlights from this past season.

Overall looks like another solid pickup for the coaching staff of a kid with a lot of upside and plenty of time to develop.

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If Felix ends up playing with Green Bay this season, he’ll be teammates with another future Minuteman, John Leonard, who announced that he’s heading there for next season.  After the Springfield Cathedral star dominated Massachusetts high school hockey this past season he says he’s looking forward to the step up in competition.

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And now for a mish-mash of news around the program:

Steve Mastalerz was able to go from last place in Hockey East to AHL champion in just a matter of months.  He signed with the Manchester Monarchs this spring to be their 3rd goaltender and get some exposure to pro hockey.  But due to injury he suddenly found himself dressing as the backup goaltender in the AHL finals.  While he was never needed in a game, he did get to be part of the on-ice celebration when the Monarchs (a franchise soon to be no more) won the Calder Cup.  He can be seen in the lower left hand corner in the below tweet:

Ben Gallacher was mentioned in this Hockey’s Future story on Panther prospects.

New Athletic Director Ryan Bamford recently did a Q&A with fans where he was asked what he’ll do to revitalize and support the hockey program.  Here was his response:

“As we do with all of our programs, it’s important for our administrative team to evaluate how we allocate our resources and if we are providing the right things to our programs that allow them to be successful. Hockey is an important piece to our overall health as a dept and I look forward to working with Coach M and his program to make sure we are supporting them in the right ways.”

Nothing too eye-opening in that response, but hey I’m just happy a UMass AD is talking about UMass hockey.

Bamford was also recently asked on Twitter, where he’s been very active, about covering cost of attendance for hockey.  His response:

The dates for Merrimack have been added to the schedule page.

That’s all I have for now.  I will be posting a NHL Draft Preview next week as a few future Minutemen hope to hear their names called by NHL teams next weekend.