Saturday night in East Lansing, Michigan State second-year head coach Danton Cole finally got to exhale. His Spartans had just shut out Team USA’s U-18 national team, one of two squads under the National Team Development Program banner. 

The NTDP represents both home and family to Cole, as he spent seven years with the organization prior to taking his current perch at Michigan State. While there, Cole won two U-18 World Championship gold medals and collected a slew of lifelong friends. His winter break having just commenced, Cole stood on the ice sharing a holiday visit with Team USA coach John Wroblewski, as if they were kinfolk at a Christmas gathering. 

Cole and Wroblewski are USA Hockey family, having shared parts of two seasons at USA Hockey’s fast-track laboratory, proverbial ships in the night in 2016-17. That was Cole’s seventh and final year at the National Team Development Program, which happened to be Wroblewski’s first as a head coach, the former finishing his tenure with the U-18s, and the latter beginning his with the U-17s. They kept no secrets.

“We know each other pretty well,” said Cole from the inner sanctum of Munn Arena. “We were both head coaches there. We have our two staffs, and we work together. It’s a constant hot stove where we talk about hockey, and we’re trying different things. They’re going through experiences with their teams, which you can help them out with, because you’ve been through it. It’s just a great developmental place for coaches, and you get to do a lot of stuff, and train and figure out how young men work, and how the game works.”

As a player, Cole was an overachiever, under six-feet tall playing a big man’s game, willing himself into the NHL and winning a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 1995, an era when Americans were a distinct minority in hockey’s premier league. Cole represented his country at the 1991 World Championships, playing alongside American legend Jeremy Roenick. 

Cole interrupted a conversation to set the record straight about that championship in Helsinki. “Roenick played with me,” he said, his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Having won a Cup with USA Hockey Hall-of-Famer Bill Guerin, Cole knows first-hand about America’s wild bunch that went from winning the inaugural World Cup in 1996 to flaming out in the first professional Olympics in 1998.

“You look at that team with Billy Guerin and Brett Hull and Cheli [Chris Chelios], that ’96 World Cup, there was a lot of personality on that team,” said Cole with a laugh. Sadly for fans eager to share in the lives with their heroes, those days might be gone for good. “I think that media, social media more than that, you can’t; the personalities get hidden a little bit.”

Cole has experienced the homogenization of USA Hockey’s player base, from a nation of distinct hockey regions to a collective power. 

“Everything’s kind of melded,” said Cole. “You used to tell—he’s from Minnesota, or he’s from California, or he’s a Boston guy. I think it’s changed where these kids interact so much, they have national camps, the styles of play aren’t quite so drastic.”

USA Hockey has mined unlikely regions for talent, not only California, but also Arizona and Florida. The tentacles of our national governing body reach every corner of the continent, transforming Team USA from the occasional medalist in international affairs, to a contender for gold in every IIHF U20 and U18 World Championships. 

“Everyone’s done a great job from coaching education, the youth hockey stuff and women’s hockey, just growing the game, and doing it the right way. I’m proud of my seven years,” Cole said.

Tim Rappleye is the author of "Jack Parker's Wiseguys" and "Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review," released in November. He can be reached @TeeRaps.