Updates were sparse here as I spent the last few days out in the Mile High air of Colorado where the results of the CU-UMass football game were disappointing but the beer scene was not.  So there’s a lot to catch up on.  There are two pretty major stories to get to regarding Kevin Czepiel and Frank Vatrano.

Czepiel, the former UMass captain, spent the last year as the Director of Hockey Operations on Coach Micheletto’s staff handling a lot of the key administrative duties for the program.  However he’ll be moving on as Northfield-Mount Hermon announced on their Facebook page that Czepiel, a NMH graduate, will be joining the school as an assistant coach immediately with the plan to serve as head coach for the 2016-17 season.  The Holyoke native will be taking over the NMH program for Tom Pratt who has coached at the school for the last two decades.

Obviously this is a great opportunity for Czepiel to get into coaching under very familiar conditions with someone to help mentor him in the role.  With the season soon approaching for the Minutemen look for Micheletto to fill the Hockey Ops position quickly.

▲

It wasn’t a huge surprise when Frank Vatrano left UMass in the spring to sign a professional contract with the Bruins since it was obvious even in the one full season for the Minutemen that he had the skill level for pro hockey.  It is a bit of a surprise at just how quickly he has adapted to playing among the other Bruins rookies though.  Last night in the Bruins first game in the Prospects Challenge against the Devils’ rookies Vatrano, wearing an A for the black and gold, scored two goals including the overtime gamewinner.  Here’s a video of Vatrano being interviewed following the win.  And he has already scored a goal in the rookie Bruins’ game tonight as well.

Earlier in Rookie Camp Vatrano was featured with a profile piece on the Bruins website and in a story by the Boston Herald.  Kirk Luedeke, who does a great job covering NHL prospects, wrote about him as well.

▲

Other news over the weekend was the recruit Jake Massie, who was picked by Carolina in the 5th round of this past June’s NHL draft, had his rights sent to Chicago as part of the Kris Versteeg trade.

Speaking of recruits there’s a good chance tomorrow will be the debut weekly Recruit Update post here on FTT.  So keep an eye out for that.