Monsters tab Fresno native Dale assistant coach

The Fresno Monsters, who will begin play in the Tier II Junior A North American Hockey League (NAHL) this season, have announced that Bryce Dale has been named one of the team’s assistant coaches.

A Fresno native, Dale, 26, played youth hockey for the Fresno Lightning in the 1996-97 season before heading to Canada to play junior hockey in the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) for the Williams Lake Timberwolves and Penticton Panthers.

Following his junior hockey career, he was awarded a scholarship to Utica College of Syracuse University in Utica, N.Y., where he was team captain for two of his four years. Dale also played professional hockey in the International Hockey League (IHL) for the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons.

California skates to 9 medals, 5 titles at State Wars VI

With an entry list of 267 teams and medals secured by squads from 17 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces, State Wars has clearly become a major player among the summer spate of North American inline hockey championship tournaments. State Wars VI took place Aug. 4-15 in Darien, Ill., and both representation - and success - by California teams was pronounced.

West Coast success was championed by nine Golden State squads that skated to medals at this year’s tourney. California teams won championships in the 1999 AAA, 1999 A, 1996 AAA, Elite AAA and Women’s AAA divisions, while also collecting two silver medals (2003 AAA and 1998 AA divisions) and two bronze medals (1995 AA and Masters AAA divisions).

To add to that bounty of medals, California teams finished fourth in two more divisions: 2001 AAA and 1992 AA.

McColgan, Nieto invited to NHL development camp

Manhattan Beach's Shane McColgan and Long Beach's Matthew Nieto - both highly-touted 2011 NHL Entry Draft prospects - were invited to the Toronto Maple Leafs' training facility in Etobicoke, Ont., to take part in the 2010 NHL Research, Development and Orientation Camp from Aug. 18-19.

The purpose of the camp is for team officials to get a look at possible rules changes, with the extra benefit that 33 of the top 2011 Draft-eligible prospects will show off their skills while bringing those changes to life.

"This camp has the bonus element of giving general managers and their staffs an early season look at many of the players whose names they will be calling out as their teams' top-round selections in the June 2011 Entry Draft in St. Paul," said E.J. McGuire, the director of the NHL Central Scouting.

Season not quite over for Team USA’s Josh Laricchia

If Huntington Beach’s Josh Laricchia is elected by some amateur inline hockey organization as its “Man of the Year,” it would not come as a surprise.

For starters, Laricchia led the American Inline Hockey League in scoring during the recently completed 2009-10 season, pacing his team - Huntington Beach Elite - to the AIHL’s Major Division national championship over Memorial Day weekend in Orlando, Fla. He then led the HB Reebok Ducks to a gold medal in the Men’s Pro Division at the AAU Junior Olympic Games in early July in Southern California and, just two weeks later, claimed a gold medal with Team USA at the FIRS world inline hockey championships in the Czech Republic.