Litter Box Cats, a Florida Panthers community

Denver forward and Wild prospect Jason Zucker will be the captain of Team U.S.A. at the World Junior Championship. Kudos to the young man, and please hurry into a Wild sweater soon.

From SBN's Western College Hockey: (Sam) Brittain injured himself towards the end of last season, but Brittain and Denver's staff decided to treat the injury with rest, rather than surgery. But Brittain was participating in Hockey Canada's Goaltending Camp this past weekend, and while there, tests on his knee showed that he needed the surgery. Brittain was a 4th-round selection of the Panthers in June, 2010; he succeeded fellow prospect Marc Cheverie in the University of Denver nets. Godspeed in your recovery, sir.

From the Denver Post's Mike Chambers: In 19 years of the Denver Cup, (Panthers '09 2nd round selection) Drew Shore was perhaps the easiest choice as the tournament MVP. The University of Denver sophomore had a hand in six of nine goals for the Pioneers, including a goal and an assist in Saturday's 3-1 victory against Air Force in the championship game. Shore, the first Denver native to win the award, scored the game-winning goal at 15:05 of the second period. His slap shot from the point came on the power play and gave DU a 2-0 lead en route to its sixth consecutive victory and 15th Denver Cup crown. Congrats to Drew, and you'll likely find another member of the DU squad vaguely familiar.

The San Marcos Times is reporting what teams the WAC will add in 2012. Looks like Montana isn't quite ready to make the jump to the WAC just yet. The WAC will now have a big presence in Texas and finally have a team in Colorado where the league headquarters are located. Hawaii should now go independent, now triple the travel to the Central time Zone. Texas State is only 4-4 this year in the Southland Conference, UT San Antonio doesn't have a football team yet. The big winners are Denver and Seattle who are mainly basketball schools that don't get much publicity.

From The Goalie Guild, via DobberHockey: Throughout his entire tenure as a (Denver) Pioneers goalie, even as a freshman, Cheverie had a certain elusive level of confidence that I don’t find in many goalies. It’s not that "cocky" confidence, either. It’s more of an intelligence and understanding. He has a keen sense of awareness and focus that can only come from an elite student-athlete that has the mental toughness to graduate in three years. A quick but most impressive recent audio interview with Cheverie can be found at the main link above as well; must-listen stuff. Wanna know why Alex Salak is in Europe? Here's your answer.