Thursday, December 3, 2009

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Remember when we said Jerry D'Amigo was probably going to miss the next four games?

Yeah. About that...
Jerry D’Amigo practiced on Wednesday. Not just skated, practiced.
Whether or not Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s standout freshman plays this weekend, remains to be seen.

“There’s a chance,” said RPI head coach Seth Appert. “Better today (Wednesday) than there was yesterday (Tuesday).”
This kid is John Wayne. "MCL? Pfft. Whatever. I've got another one."

You know what else John Wayne had? Big. Brass. Balls.
“I want to get back and help the team win,” D’Amigo said.

“Yeah, I didn’t even intend on him practicing,” Appert said after Wednesday’s practice.

“He keeps needling me and letting me know how much he wants to play,” Appert says. “And I think that says a lot about him. He knows he has a chance to play to make the (USA) World Junior team in a few weeks but yet he really wants to get back in there for Friday night’s game here. That’s a heckuva mindset that he has about that and I think it’s very impressive and it shows why he’s such a special player, because he’s such a team guy.

“Our intention was,” Appert continued, “was to bring him out there for some (pre-practice) work. We did some skill-development stuff, we did some goalie work, and he was shooting on the goalies and he was doing crossovers and testing (the sprained knee) it, see how it’s feeling with the brace.

“But Jerry’s Jerry and he started testing it more aggressively,” Appert said, “and all of a sudden I look over and he’s doing stops-and-starts, blue line to blue line and really testing it, seeing if he can stop and explode the other way. He went for about 20 minutes doing those things and it was fine. There was no discomfort, no pain, no looseness.”

So, after speaking with team doctors and trainers, Appert decided to allow D’Amigo to practice wearing an orange (no contact) shirt “and see how practice goes and practice was successful as well.
Oh yeah. This happened too.
Jerry D'Amigo, a freshman forward on the Rensselaer men's hockey team, was one of 29 players named Wednesday to the preliminary roster for the 2010 U.S. National Junior Team. That means he's been chosen to participate in the three-day pre-tournament training camp Dec. 17-19 in Grand Forks, N.D.
If he makes the team (there are 16 forwards on the preliminary roster, they'll probably take 13), he'll be missing for GLI, but it's a total honor to make the team at D'Amigo's age. He'll still be eligible next year, and there aren't many guys who get a chance to play in two World Junior Championships.

This guy is all heart. Period. He's a fan favorite already for a reason - he doesn't take any shifts off and he wants to shoot for the stars as a team player.

Obviously, we'd love to see him in the lineup this weekend if he can make it. I think we can do without him in Michigan - hopefully he's in Saskatoon representing his country that weekend.

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