DENVER – The journey for incoming freshmen Kristian Epperson and Brendan McMorrow to make Team USA for the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship gets underway this weekend in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
 
The University of Denver hockey duo are among 42 players overall and 11 from the National Collegiate Hockey Conference that have been invited to participate in the 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase, a week-long evaluation camp that features practices and 10 total exhibition games in preparation for this year's World Juniors in Minnesota from Dec. 26, 2025 to Jan. 5, 2026.
 
The summer camp starts today, Friday, July 25 with practices and concludes with games on Saturday, Aug. 2. Canada, Finland and Sweden will also be sending teams this week for exhibitions and practices at Ridder Arena on the campus of the University of Minnesota.
 
While every American at the Summer Showcase is on USA Hockey's radar to make the team, not every player will be invited again to training camp in December before the final team is announced. Additionally, if an under-20 player wasn't invited to the Summer Showcase, they are still eligible to be invited to training camp in five months and make Team USA's roster for the World Junior Championship, which will be held on U.S. soil for the first time since 2018 in Buffalo, New York.
 
Both Epperson and McMorrow are familiar with wearing the red, white and blue, as they each played for the U.S. National Team Development Program for two seasons from 2022 to 2024. Both players helped the Americans win gold at the 2022 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, with McMorrow also being a member of USA's gold-medal winning squads at the 2024 IIHF U18 World Championship and 2024 World Junior-A Challenge.
 
Denver Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach David Carle had led the Americans at the past two World Juniors and won the gold medal each year, marking the first-time ever that the United States won back-to-back championships at the U20 tournament. University of Minnesota head coach Bob Motzko, who also won gold in 2017 with the USA National Junior Team, is leading this year's squad.
 
Overall, the U.S. has won a medal in eight of the last 10 IIHF World Junior Championships, the best medal stretch in U.S. history. The eight medals include four golds (2025, 2024, 2021, 2017), one silver (2019) and three bronze (2023, 2018, 2016). The United States has won 28 of its last 32 games over the last five World Junior Championships, with a trio golds (2025, 2024, 2021) and one bronze (2023) medal during that time.
 

TICKETS: Full and Friday half-season tickets for DU's 2025-26 campaign as well as five-game mini plans are on sale now. Single game and group ticket will be available in the coming weeks. Click here for more information.