COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – When the 2024 U.S. National Junior Team hits the ice in Gothenburg, Sweden this winter, the coaches behind the bench will have a distinctly National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) feel with three of the five members of the 2024 U.S. staff currently coaching in the NCHC.
 
Denver head coach David Carle will serve in the same role for the 2024 U.S. National Junior Team, while St. Cloud State head coach Brett Larson will be one of three assistant coaches and DU director of hockey operations Travis Culhane has been named the video coach by USA Hockey.
 
Team USA will play in the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship from Dec. 26, 2023 to Jan. 5, 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The U.S. is in Group B along with Czechia, Norway, Slovakia and Switzerland, and will play its preliminary round games at Frölundaborg Arena.
 
Carle, who will be entering his sixth season in charge of the Pioneers when the 2023-24 season begins in October, will serve as a U.S. National Junior Team coach for the first time. In five seasons at the helm, Carle has led Denver to three NCAA Tournament appearances (in four opportunities), including the 2022 NCAA National Championship. In addition, Dener has won back-to-back Penrose Cups in 2022 and 2023 as NCHC regular-season champions.
 
Carle has amassed a 116-53-13 overall record in his five campaigns at Denver so far. The Anchorage, Alaska native was the youngest head coach in NCAA Division I men's hockey when he was hired at DU at 28 years old and became the fourth-youngest coach to lead a team to a national championship in 2022 at age 32.
 
Prior to being hired as the head coach at Denver on May 25, 2018, Carle spent four-and-a-half seasons behind the bench at DU as an assistant coach from 2013-2018. During that time, he helped the Pioneers to the 2017 NCAA National Championship, two NCHC Frozen Faceoff titles, the program’s first Penrose Cup (2016-17) and five NCAA Tournament appearances.
 
Larson will serve as a coach for Team USA for the fourth time in 2024. Most recently, Larson served as an assistant coach for the 2022 U.S. Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Team. He was also an assistant coach for the U.S. National Junior Team at the 2020 IIHF World Junior Championship, and in 2012 served as head coach of the U.S. Junior Select Team that won the World Junior A Challenge.
 
Larson completed his fifth season as the bench boss at St. Cloud State in 2022-23, guiding the Huskies to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship and an NCAA Regional final appearance. During his five seasons at the helm of SCSU, he has compiled a 106-60-16 record, including four NCAA Tournament appearances (in four opportunities) with a national runner-up finish in 2021. In his first season at SCSU, Larson was named NCHC Herb Brooks Coach of the Year after leading the Huskies to the 2018-19 Penrose Cup as NCHC regular-season champions.
 
A native of Duluth, Minn., Larson played four years at Minnesota Duluth (1991-95), serving as team captain as a senior. He also completed two stints as an assistant coach at his alma mater, first from 2008-2011 and again in the NCHC from 2015-2018, during which he helped the Bulldogs win the program’s first two NCAA National Championships in 2011 and again in 2018.
 
Culhane has served as Denver’s director of hockey operations each of the last two seasons, helping Denver win the 2022 NCAA National Championship in his first season. Prior to his role at DU, the Kalamazoo, Mich. native was the director of operations for Colorado College’s hockey program for two seasons from 2019-2021. A 2017 graduate of Western Michigan, Culhane first held the director of operations role at his alma mater in 2018-19, before moving on to two more NCHC programs.
 
The other assistant coaches on the 2024 U.S. National Junior Team staff are David Lassonde and Steve Miller, both of whom previously served as assistant coaches at both Denver and Miami prior to the NCHC.
 
Team USA has won a medal in six of the last eight IIHF World Junior Championships, the best medal stretch in U.S. history. The six medals include two golds (2021, 2017), one silver (2019) and three bronze (2023, 2018, 2016).
 
Carle joins several other NCHC head coaches, including Larson (assistant coach 2020), who have previously served on U.S. National Junior Team coaching staffs: Former St. Cloud State head coach Bob Motzko (head coach 2017 and 2018); Minnesota Duluth head coach Scott Sandelin (assistant coach 2019 and head coach 2020); Colorado College head coach Kris Mayotte (assistant coach 2021 and 2022); and Western Michigan head coach Pat Ferschweiler (assistant coach 2023).
 
USA Hockey will host the World Junior Summer Showcase as part of its evaluation process for the 2024 U.S. National Junior Team in late July in Plymouth, Mich. at USA Hockey Arena, with games against Finland and Sweden part of the event. Final dates and schedules will be announced at a later date.
 
NCHC Head Coaches on U.S. National Junior Team Coaching Staffs
2017 – Bob Motzko (head coach)
2018 – Bob Motzko (head coach)
2019 – Scott Sandelin (assistant coach)
2020 – Scott Sandelin (head coach), Brett Larson (assistant coach)
2021 – Kris Mayotte (assistant coach)
2022 – Kris Mayotte (assistant coach)
2023 – Pat Ferschweiler (assistant coach)
2024 – David Carle (head coach), Brett Larson (assistant coach)