Desert star

Teammates Beattie and Herrington will also wait by their phones on Draft Weekend hoping for a call to realize their lifelong dreams.

Beattie, an Avondale, Ariz., native and veteran of the 2008 USA Select 18 team, began the season in the shadows of his teammates, but seized his opportunity on the big stage.

Beattie began the season as a “C” player, noting that he had an outside shot at being selected in the later rounds.

“My advisor set me up, so I didn’t know what to expect when I came [to the Monarchs],” said Beattie. “The major goal was to get to college hockey and I knocked that out.”

After hitting the ground running and stepping up as a major contributor to the Monarchs’ offensive brigade. Despite steady production, as well as his team’s ascent in the Northern Division, Beattie was left off the midterm rankings.

“I kind of hit a slump toward the middle of the year, so it wasn’t that big a deal,” he said.

“I knew I needed to turn things around and work harder, and this just confirmed it.” His absence from the midterm rankings gave him the necessary spark and he finished as the Monarchs’ leading scorer, tied for ninth in the EJHL, with 20 goals and 40 assists. He will attend the University of Maine in 2010, and most telling, he appeared at 99th on the final rankings.

Echoing Dumoulin’s statements, Beattie agreed that “the whole team was supportive of me throughout the season. They told me to keep playing well and everything else would work out.”

Big Brooks

Joining Beattie and Dumoulin on the Final Rankings is Brooks Herrington, a skilled forward who also brought size to the team’s offensive corps. With his 6- foot-3-inch, 210-pound frame, Herrington used his muscle to out-duel opposing defensemen and fight his way to the net.

Herrington made a smooth transition from the Empire League to the EJHL and found himself 193rd on the midterm rankings. He, as well as the rest of the Monarchs, chugged along in the second half, winning the regular season title, appearing in the Dineen Cup Championship series, and winning the National Championship, much due to Herrington’s play.

His 23 goals and 22 assists placed him third on his team in scoring, gave him a final ranking of 164th among North American skaters, and landed him a scholarship to the University of Vermont, where he will join his older brother Lance in 2010.

Though the season ended on the highest of notes for the Monarchs, Dumoulin, Beattie, and Herrington have their sights set even higher. Their impressive careers and ability to perform at the junior level, along with tremendous upsides for the future, should see all of them receiving a coveted phone call on Draft Weekend.

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Always playing up
Kings’ Logue followed advanced career path to Draft prospect status

By Mike Klein

As the South Shore Kings’ Sean Logue prepares for the upcoming NHL Entry Draft, one cannot help but marvel at the road he has taken since bursting onto the scene four years ago.

Logue, then a 14-year-old, played Midget hockey on a team loaded with future Division 1 college and NHL players and more than held his own. Offers from junior teams and a tryout with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program came in, but Logue opted to stay in Massachusetts.

He joined his hometown Foxboro Stars as a sophomore in high school and had a respectable year, scoring seven goals and netting 12 assists against much older competition, while receiving considerable attention from Division 1 teams.

Hoping to continue his ascent, he ran into a roadblock during the 2007-08 season. An injury limited Logue to 16 games, with only four coming in the second half. He worked out relentlessly over the summer of 2008 and righted the ship, picking up 34 points (16 goals and 18 assists). To top off the season, he accepted an offer to play at St. Lawrence in 2010 and landed at 141st on the Central Scouting rankings.

“I was pretty excited after I saw the rankings,” Logue said. “I had an okay first half, and that more than anything pushed me to work harder. I could not have asked for a better reward for all the hard work I put in to come back from that injury.”

The three years in the Eastern Junior Hockey League also gave Logue an office perspective unknown to most.

“I know the ranking is hardly a guarantee of getting drafted, and I know I’ll have to prove myself in college,” he said, “but it helped me stay focused and it helped motivate the rest of the team as well. Scouts were coming to the games and nobody wanted to be seen having an off day.”

While Logue has one more season of junior hockey, he stepped up his workout regimen with a more immediate concern.

“A few teams had contacted me, and right now, I’m hoping to make an impression at training camp,” he added. Regardless of whether or not the call comes on Draft Weekend, Sean Logue has traveled an incredible road to college hockey and with his ability and work ethic, there is little doubt that he will have a bright future at St. Lawrence and beyond.

A big Hit on the charts

Jersey’s Langlois ranked 121st in final rankings for NHL Draft

By Mike Klein

Since his first taste of Eastern Junior Hockey League-related competition, Jeremy Langlois has embodied the term “standout.”

He, along with his Phoenix Polar Bears teammates, gave the Jersey Hitmen all they could handle in the 2008 Tier-3 Jr. A National Championships, with Langlois scoring a goal and netting an assist in his two meetings against the Hitmen.

Hitmen coach Toby Harris was impressed by Langlois’ play, and the forward joined the Hitmen for the 2008- 09 season along with Polar Bears teammates Alex Cantor and Steve Edgeworth.

The Phoenix trio continued its strong play under Harris, with Langlois rising to the top. The Tempe, Ariz., native recorded points in his first 18 games and finished the season with 35 goals and 47 assists (82 total points), good enough for the EJHL scoring title.

He led the Hitmen to a secondstraight EJHL Dineen Cup Championship and another berth in the National Championship.

Despite not appearing in either the preliminary or midterm Central Scouting Bureau rankings, Langlois kept up his torrid pace and gathered EJHL Player of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year honors. Quinnipiac University won the bidding war for his services in the fall, and NHL scouts took notice and ranked the forward 121st in the final rankings.

With the honors collected by Langlois following the season, he is undoubtedly the most decorated player in the team’s five-year history.

A selection in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft would represent yet another honor for Langlois in his short but illustrious career, as well as an important milestone for the Hitmen: if all goes according to plan, Langlois will be the first player drafted from the team.