When Carter Amico was called into management’s office during the United States National Team Development Program tryouts in March 2023, he thought he was in trouble.
The 6-foot-5 defenseman from Westbrook, Maine, who had turned 16 less than a week prior, was among the top 45 American players competing for a spot on the coveted U-17 team for the 2023-24 season at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Mich.
Amico and the rest of the group played six games in four days. It was the third night of camp when Amico felt particularly sore, so he went to ice his elbow in the training room. That’s when Kevin Reiter — then the director of player personnel — called him to assistant executive director Scott Monaghan’s office, where he was left outside to wait for roughly 30 minutes.
“I was confused,” Amico said. “He didn’t tell me what was going on. … I just kept thinking about if I made the team or not.”
As Amico waited, Reiter called Amico’s grandfather, Glenn, who has decades of coaching experience from youth levels to college. Glenn has been a constant presence in Carter’s life, either as a formal coach or off-ice mentor. He traveled to tryouts from Maine along with his son, Carter’s uncle Anthony, to watch.
Glenn had left the arena to get dinner when Reiter called asking him to come back. Upon returning, the two older Amicos were brought into a room with about 25 evaluators. Glenn looked left and saw Carter there, still icing his elbow. The three proceeded into Monaghan’s office, where Monaghan started asking questions about the camp.
“How do you like camp so far?” Monaghan asked.
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Carter expressed his excitement about it, while Glenn admitted they were just happy to be there and were prepared to head back to watch Carter play out the next season at Mount St. Charles if things didn’t work out.
Then Monaghan addressed exactly what Carter had spent the whole time wondering: He was being offered a spot on the team.
“I almost fell to the floor,” Glenn recalled. “It was unbelievable. I looked at Carter and (said), ‘That’s what hard work does to you. It pays off.’ ”
That work had started 13 years prior, when, after observing a 3-year-old Carter walk around the living room watching hockey with skates and a mini stick, Glenn suggested to Carter’s mother, Marissa, that he start skating lessons.
So grandfather and grandson started going to weekend public skates at Portland Ice Arena, which eventually turned into power skating lessons. Soon enough, Carter entered the youth circuit.
At every level, Carter towered over his peers “by 10 inches to a foot,” Glenn estimates. Carter was so tall that Glenn had to bring his birth certificate to every Squirt, Bantam and Pee-Wee tournament.
“It was a challenge, believe me,” Glenn said. “I had to rip it out a few times. The tournament director wanted to see it.”
Despite his height, Carter never had an “awkward giraffe” phase. His natural athleticism and commitment to training always kept him ahead of the curve.
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As Carter progressed in his career, going from the Casco Bay Spartans to Seacoast Performance Academy and Mount St. Charles, the dream of playing for the NTDP and college hockey became realistic. People started to take notice.
Former NHL defenseman Frank Bathe, a friend of Glenn’s through the local hockey scene, sat in the stands as his son Landon coached a 12-year-old Carter. After watching him on the ice, Bathe told Glenn that Carter would make the NHL someday.
“(It was) just hearing everyone say ‘raw talent,’ words like ‘potential,’ ” said Carter, who would have coaches and evaluators approach him after games as he got older. “Even just the confidence on the ice sometimes. … (I started) putting the pieces together and realizing, ‘OK, I can do this.’ ”
When Carter earned his spot with the NTDP, he became just the fourth player from Maine to do so. James LaLiberty (Waterville, Maine) was the first in 1997, and New York Islanders forward Oliver Wahlstrom (Yarmouth, Maine) was the most recent in 2016. The other was Greg Moore (Lisbon, Maine), who was hired to coach the U-17 team months after Carter made it. Moore played for the program from 2000-02 before starring at the University of Maine in the mid-2000s.
Carter wears No. 15 with the NTDP, which Moore wore for the Black Bears, but their connection runs deeper.
“We talk a lot about things back in Maine and different areas and regions that we know of,” Moore said. “And different experiences that we both have had from growing up in Maine, and we joke all the time. It kind of has bonded us as a player and coach, knowing that we both come from the same background.”
When his time with the NTDP is up, Carter will return to his roots, or at least closer to it. Carter committed to Boston University, where he intends to play next season.
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After spending the past few years away from home, Carter soon will be playing less than a two-hour drive away, making it easier for Marissa and his 6-year-old brother Kyan to see him. The two brothers are best friends, according to their mom, and Carter said everyone at BU will know Kyan with how often they plan to visit.
“It’s a dream come true,” Marissa said. “Anyone who’s a traveling sports family understands that two hours is beautiful.
“For the past few years, he’s lived away. So it’s hard on the both of them, but we have FaceTime, and we call and we do travel when we can.”
Carter continues to ride an upward trajectory on his way to BU, but it hasn’t come without speed bumps. He broke his patella in March, which sidelined him for the rest of the 2023-24 season and into the summer.
It was a grueling rehabilitation process. Carter had to relearn how to raise his leg and how to walk, essentially doing everything from scratch. In what was the biggest setback of his career thus far, he leaned on his faith to work past his frustration and learn how to stay positive and mentally tough.
Unfortunately for Amico, he suffered another brutal setback in November. He's now out for the rest of the season after needing leg surgery. Still, family is the one force that kept him grounded during his injury last season. That will be the case again.
“They’ve helped me so much. It still weighs on me now,” Carter said. “Being supportive, always coming to games … my family comes out to Michigan as much as they can — my mom, my little brother, grandparents. I love it. It means the world to me.”
