USA Hockey today named the 29 players that have been invited to its pre-tournament camp beginning Dec. 17 in Troy, Rochester, Jamestown and Amherst, N.Y., and make up the preliminary 2011 U.S. National Junior Team roster.

The camp will include exhibition games against Rensselaer's men's ice hockey team (Dec. 19), the Czech Republic (Dec. 21) and Norway (Dec. 23). The final U.S. National Junior Team 22-man roster will be announced prior to Team USA's final exhibition game against Norway.
 
The 2011 U.S. National Junior Team will compete at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship, Dec. 26, 2010-Jan. 5, 2011, in Buffalo and Niagara, N.Y.

"We're excited with the group of players coming to the camp," said Jim Johannson, general manager of the 2011 U.S. National Junior Team and also the assistant executive director of hockey operations for USA Hockey. "It was difficult to get down to the 29 and we'll have some tough decisions to get down to our final 22-man roster, but that's a good problem to have."

Among those invited to the camp are eight returning players from the gold medal-winning 2010 U.S. National Junior Team, including goaltender Jack Campbell (Port Huron, Mich.); defenseman John Ramage (Chesterfield, Mo./Univ. of Wisconsin); and forwards Ryan Bourque (Boxford, Mass.), Jerry D'Amigo (Binghamton, N.Y./RPI), Chris Kreider (Boxford, Mass./Boston College), Jeremy Morin (Auburn, N.Y.), Kyle Palmieri (Montvale, N.J.) and Jason Zucker (Las Vegas, Nev./Univ. of Denver).

Also highlighting the preliminary roster are 11 players from the gold medal-winning 2010 U.S. National Under-18 Team, including Campbell and Andy Iles (Ithaca, N.Y./Cornell Univ.) in goal; defensemen Adam Clendening (Niagara Falls, N.Y./Boston Univ.), Justin Faulk (South St. Paul, Minn./Univ. of Minnesota Duluth), Derek Forbort (Duluth, Minn./Univ. of North Dakota) and Jon Merrill (Brighton, Mich./Univ. of Michigan); and forwards Connor Brickley (Everett, Mass.), Rocco Grimaldi (Rossmoor, Calif.), Matt Nieto (Long Beach, Calif./Boston Univ.), Brandon Saad (Gibsonia, Pa.) and Zucker.