A few weeks ago, it was Hockey Canada providing fans with lots to talk about after releasing their list of 42 players invited to attend Olympic orientation camp in late August.
On Tuesday, it was USA Hockey’s turn to reveal the 44 players they were inviting to participate in their orientation camp set to go down in Plymouth, Michigan, from August 26th through the 27th.
We already knew that Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes, Auston Matthews, Charlie McAvoy, Brady Tkachuk, and Matthew Tkachuk would be there; however, several marquee names were left off the list, drawing plenty of chatter online.
Reigning Calder Trophy winner Lane Hutson, two-time all-star Thatcher Demko, and fellow two-time all-star Alex DeBrincat stood out as the three biggest snubs to not receive an invite from USA Hockey. They revealed the full list of players in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
https://x.com/usahockey/status/1957835022129303793
Calder Trophy runner-up Dustin Wolf and two-time all-star John Carlson are two others who could certainly make a case that they deserve to be at the Americans’ orientation camp at the end of the month.
These players could still make the Olympic team
Understandably so, fans are going to be all worked up over those who were snubbed from orientation camp; however, it should be noted that it won’t preclude them from actually making the 2026 Winter Olympic team.
As we’ve seen with Nazem Kadri’s response to being snubbed from Canada’s camp, not receiving an invite could further fuel these players to have a big first half of the season and make management regret their decisions to leave them off the lists.
These are all very difficult decisions to be made, though it is quite head-scratching to see some of the high-caliber players that were not even among those invited to camp. It should lead to a very interesting start to the 2025-26 season, as many will have the possibility of representing their country on the biggest stage in February top of mind.
