Three WHLers Set To Represent Team USA At 2024 Under-17 Five Nations Tournament
Three 2023 first-round WHL U.S. draft picks are headed overseas for international competition.
Three WHLers Set To Represent Team USA At 2024 Under-17 Five Nations TournamentBrodie Gillespie, Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll, and Kalder Varga were among the 20 players named to Team USA's roster for the 2024 Under-17 Five Nations tournament. This year's tournament will be held in Slovakia from August 14 to 18. Team USA will open their tournament on August 15, when they face off against Germany.
Gillespie was selected first overall by the Spokane Chiefs in the 2023 U.S. Priority Draft, where he played three games in the 2023-24 WHL season. He comes from the RINK Hockey Academy Kelowna U18 program, where he collected 14 goals and 19 assists in 29 games. The Portland Native gets his first taste of international play not on home soil, though he did put up impressive numbers in the 2023 John Reid Memorial Bantam tournament (4g-4a-5gp). Gillespie is set to begin his first full WHL season with Spokane in 2024-25.
A ninth overall selection by the Medicine Hat Tigers, Gordon-Carroll is the youngest player on this U.S. roster (November 26, 2008) and one of five late 2008 birthdays. Despite this, the Utah product put up 33g-62a-95p in 82 games for the Chicago Mission U15 program. Joining a Tigers unit that already includes the likes of Gavin McKenna, Cayden Lindstrom, and Thomas Mrsic, Gordon-Carroll will get plenty of valuable experience this upcoming season when he makes his WHL debut.
Rounding out the WHL signees, Kalder Varga was a seventh overall selection for the Kelowna Rockets. The Geneva, Ill. native was teammates alongside Gordon-Carroll with the Mission U15 squad in 2023-24, and his stat line was equally, if not more impressive, with 40 goals and 90 points in 50 games. Varga comes from WHL and has professional experience. His father, John, spent four seasons with the Rockets organization from 1991-95 and played over 300 games at the AHL and ECHL levels.
The tournament kicks off in Piestany, Slovakia, on August 14 and runs for five days.
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