Former Belmont Hill and Boston Junior Eagles center Teddy Stiga has committed to Boston College. The 2006 birth-year player from Sudbury, Mass., will spend the next two seasons playing for USA Hockey’s NTDP before matriculating to BC.
Stiga, the New England Hockey Journal Co-Freshman of the Year in prep school hockey, accelerated his classwork this summer in order to reclassify as a junior for the 2022-23 season. As a result, he was able to commit to the Eagles on Wednesday. BC had been considered the favorite to land the speedy, slick-skating Stiga for quite a while.
Stiga had seven goals and 14 assists during the prep school season while helping the Sextants advance to the finals of the NEPSAC Elite 8 tournament. There’s never been any doubting Stiga’s skating, but his physical play and ability to make plays even in high-traffic areas continued to get better as the season progressed. It was evident that the Belmont Hill coaching staff felt similarly, as his role increased over the last month of the season.
Boston University picked up its fifth ’06 recruit on Wednesday with the announcement that Mount Saint Charles left wing Callum Hughes would play for the Terriers. From Basking Ridge, N.J., he scored 17 goals and had 21 assists in 36 games for Mount Saint Charles, a team that was consistently ranked as the top 15 Only team in the country. He was invited to USA Hockey’s NTDP Evaluation Camp but fell short of making the team. Hughes, a second-round pick of the Waterloo Black Hawks in the USHL Phase I Draft, is the cousin of Northeastern forwards Reilly and Jack Hughes. In addition to Hughes, the Terriers have commits from forwards Mack Celebrini and Kamil Bednarik and defensemen Owen Keefe (Saugus, Mass.) and Cole Hutson.
Northeastern kept its momentum going forward on Wednesday, as Chicago Mission wing Eero Butella committed to the Huskies. The Chicago native is a goal scorer who helped the Mission win the USA Hockey 15 Only national championship in April in Plymouth, Mich. A power forward, he joins Joe Connor (Amherst, N.H.) and Ben Miller as rising juniors who have picked Northeastern over the past week. Butella is another second-round draft choice of Waterloo.
Harvard secured its first American-born ’06 on Wednesday when Shattuck St. Mary’s defenseman Drake Murray committed to playing for the Crimson. In 52 games for Shattuck’s U-16 team, he scored 11 goals and had 40 assists. The Manhattan Beach, Calif., native long has been considered one of the top ’06 defensemen in the country. Also a 40-man camp invitee, Murray was chosen in the first round by the Sioux City Musketeers.
In a more surprising development, Dartmouth received a commitment from Cleveland Barons defenseman Mitch Kneidel, who spent the past two years with Bishop Kearney Selects. An ’06 from Columbus, Ohio, he plays hard and his physically mature stature helps him dominate at times. In 79 games for BK Selects 15 Only, he scored nine goals and 34 assists. He’s the first ’06 to commit to the Big Green.
Maine and Merrimack picked up a commitment each from older players on Wednesday. The Black Bears secured the services of ’03 goaltender Patriks Berzins, who was named the Latvian Player of the Game in Wednesday night’s game against Canada at the World Junior Championship. Merrimack received a pledge from former Mount Saint Charles winger Ryan O’Connell. An ’03, he’s expected to play for the USHL’s Cedar Rapids RoughRiders this upcoming season.
