Linkorama

This rumor has been floating around for a couple weeks, but it looks official now that Bloomington Jefferson's Joe Faust will play for Wisconsin. The Badgers will likely need to bring in another defenseman for next season to replace the recently departed Ryan McDonagh. The two main candidates seem to be Troy Hesketh and Joe Faust, both of whom were expected to play junior hockey next year, and would probably be better off playing junior hockey next year. It's been an interesting off season in Wisconsin to say the least.

New Western Michigan head coach Jeff Blashill hired his two assistant coaches this week. They are former Bronco Pat Ferschweiler, who was coaching with the Russell Stover AAA program, and former UNO Maverick Rob Facca, who was an assistant at Northern Michigan the past three years.

High-scoring Minnesota high school forward Tanner Lane committed to Nebraska-Omaha. He's still in the process of deciding whether to return to Detroit Lakes HS or play for Fargo in the USHL. Lane was recently drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers in the sixth round of the draft, which may help push him towards the USHL.

Speaking of players leaving high school early, including Duluth East's Andy Welinski. I'll recap them all later in the summer/early in the fall, when things become a little more official, but as of right now, with so many players leaving an already thin group, this is looking like it could be one of the weakest years for Minnesota HS hockey in some time.

The USA Hockey national development camps are going on throughout the month in Rochester. The Select 16s completed prior to the fourth of July, and USA Hockey picked their Select-17 team that will compete in this summer's Five Nations tournament.

I answered a bunch of questions about Tyler Pitlick over at SBN's Edmonton Oilers blog.

Copper & Blue also had a fantastic piece on homophobia and discrimination in hockey that is definitely worth checking out.