Lake Placid Fills Up With College Hockey Talent for USA Hockey's Women's National Festival
USA Hockey brought 92 players to Lake Placid for its Women's National Festival, and nearly half of the invite list is drawn straight off current NCAA rosters. From Wisconsin to Minnesota Duluth, here is who is skating for a spot on the U.S. Collegiate Select Team and why the camp matters for the sport heading into the season.
Key takeaways
- USA Hockey's Women's National Festival runs August 2 through 9 in Lake Placid, New York, splitting 92 invited players between a U-18 Select camp and a Collegiate Select camp.
- Forty-six current NCAA players made the collegiate invite list, including Wisconsin's Cassie Hall and Kelly Gorbatenko, Ohio State's Rylee Bartz and Minnesota's Maddie Kaiser.
- Minnesota Duluth sophomore Rae Mayer, coming off a 21-point freshman year, earned her second career Festival invite after making the U-18 team back in 2024.
- Both camps trim down to 25-player rosters that will square off with Canada across three games from August 12 to 15, played up in Richmond, British Columbia.
Nearly half the Festival's roster spots this year belong to current college players, underlining how much national team development now runs through NCAA rinks.
Team USA's summer proving ground opens in the Adirondacks
USA Hockey opened its Women's National Festival on August 2 in Lake Placid, New York, and the event runs through August 9 with 92 players on hand chasing a spot on one of two national teams. It is the kind of gathering that rarely makes headlines outside hockey circles, but for the players involved it is essentially a tryout with a national team jersey on the line.
The Festival splits into two separate pools. One camp is the U-18 Women's National Select group, made up of players still finishing high school. The other is the USA Collegiate Select camp, built entirely from players who already suit up for Division I programs during the winter, and that group is the one worth watching if you follow the college game closely.
Every player in Lake Placid this week already has a home rink somewhere between now and October, and a strong week on the ice in the Adirondacks can carry momentum straight into puck drop for their actual college season.
A loaded group of forwards headlines the collegiate camp
Forty-six current college players were invited to the Collegiate Select camp, and the forward group reads like a who's who of last season's top scoring lines. Wisconsin sent two of its own in Cassie Hall and Kelly Gorbatenko, while Ohio State's Rylee Bartz and Minnesota's Maddie Kaiser round out a forward pool built from programs that were already fighting for conference titles a few months ago.
Minnesota Duluth sophomore Rae Mayer is one of the more interesting names in the group. As a freshman she finished as the Bulldogs' third-highest scorer with 21 points on 12 goals and 9 assists, led the team with three power-play goals, and put together a six-game scoring streak that ran from late October through November. This marks her second Festival invite, having first been selected to the U-18 team back in 2024, so Lake Placid is a bit of a homecoming for her development path.
Other programs represented among the collegiate forward and support staff picks include St. Thomas, Minnesota State, and Ohio State, giving the camp a spread across several conferences rather than concentrating talent in just one league.
The blue line and the crease get their own auditions
It is not just forwards getting a look this week. Clarkson defender Sydney Lamb and Princeton's Megan Healy are among the blue liners invited to the Collegiate camp, giving USA Hockey evaluators a mix of ECAC talent to study alongside the bigger-name forward pool. Goaltending invites span schools including Minnesota State, Harvard, and Providence, which means whoever ends up between the pipes for the final roster will have already proven herself in three very different conference environments.
Programs also get something out of sending a player to Lake Placid beyond individual development. Minnesota Duluth, for example, is using assistant coach Olivia Soares as one of USA Hockey's college evaluators for the week, a dual role that lets a coaching staff stay plugged into how their own player and dozens of others are performing against national team caliber competition.
What comes next, and why it matters beyond Lake Placid
By the end of the week in Lake Placid, USA Hockey will trim each pool down to a 25-player roster, one for the Collegiate Select Team and one for the U-18 Select Team. Both finished squads then travel north to take on Canada over three outings, penciled in for the middle of August in Richmond, British Columbia, giving these players a real measuring stick against the sport's other top program before their college seasons even begin.
For a desert hockey scene that has watched women's professional hockey plant a flag on the Strip with PWHL Las Vegas kicking off its inaugural season this fall, camps like this one are a reminder of just how deep the women's college pipeline runs behind it. Keep an eye on these names all season, because talent that gets a look at a national camp in July tends to show up on scouting reports by winter.
College hockey in the desert is only getting bigger, and there is no better way to see the sport's rising names up close than catching a game live. Grab your tickets to the Ice Vegas Invitational and watch the next wave of college hockey stars on the Strip.
Six college players to watch out of the Lake Placid camp
The Collegiate Select camp is stacked with names who already shaped last season's conference races. Here are a few worth tracking.
- Cassie Hall, Wisconsin: A forward off a Badgers roster that spent last season near the top of the national rankings.
- Kelly Gorbatenko, Wisconsin: Hall's teammate and another forward invite from a Wisconsin program that keeps producing national camp talent.
- Rylee Bartz, Ohio State: A forward representing a Buckeyes program that has become a steady source of national team invitees.
- Maddie Kaiser, Minnesota: One of the Gophers' picks for the forward pool at this year's Festival.
- Rae Mayer, Minnesota Duluth: A sophomore forward coming off a 21-point freshman season, earning her second career Festival invite.
- Sydney Lamb, Clarkson: A defender bringing ECAC experience to a blue line pool built from several different conferences.
- Megan Healy, Princeton: Another ECAC defender invited to test herself against the country's top collegiate talent.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the USA Hockey Women's National Festival?
It is an annual camp where USA Hockey brings in top college and high school age players, splits them into a Collegiate Select camp and a U-18 Select camp, and evaluates them for national team roster spots.
When and where is the 2026 Festival being held?
The 2026 Festival runs August 2 through 9 in Lake Placid, New York, with 92 total players invited across the two camps.
What happens after the camp ends?
Each camp is trimmed to a 25-player roster, and both the Collegiate Select Team and U-18 Select Team then meet Canada for a best-of-three-style set played in Richmond, British Columbia during the middle of August.
Why does this matter for college hockey fans in Las Vegas?
Many of these players will be featured names on NCAA rosters this winter, and with PWHL Las Vegas about to begin its first season, camps like this show how deep the women's hockey pipeline into the desert has become.
Sources
- USA Announces Collegiate Select And U-18 National Team Camp Rosters — The Hockey News
- Mayer Named to USA Hockey Women's National Festival — UMD Athletics