Sophomore wingers Joey Anderson and Riley Tufte and freshmen defensemen Mikey Anderson, Scott Perunovich and Dylan Samberg will represent the University of Minnesota Duluth while skating for United States at the 2018 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship. That 10-team event runs from Dec. 26, 2017- Jan. 5, 2018 in Buffalo, N.Y. The U.S. will open preliminary round play on Dec. 27 against Denmark at KeyBank Center.

UMD has more players on the 23-member U.S. roster than any other school in the country (Boston University and the University of Michigan are next with three)

Joey Anderson, who will serve as U.S. team captain, became the first Bulldog to win a gold medal at the IIHF World Junior Championships one year ago as he and his U.S. teammates posted a 5-4 shootout-round victory over Canada in the title game at Montreal's Bell Centre. In six tournament games, Anderson collected two assists and was a +1 while skating on the team's top line and a regular shift on the penalty killing unit. This season, the Roseville, Minn., native has four goals and five assists in 13 outings. Perunovich, from Hibbing, Minn., currently tops the Bulldogs in scoring with 16 points four goals and 12 assists and is a team-leading +10. Tufte, a Ham Lake, Minn. product who like Perunovich has taken shifts in all 19 games to date, sits third on the UMD scoring charts with a Bulldog-best eight goals and three assists. Mikey Anderson, Joey's younger brother, has racked up 10 points (three goals and seven assists) while Damberg (Hermantown, Minn.) has been credited with four points (all assists).

That quintet will miss UMD's Ledyard Classic bouts against Yale University and Dartmouth College on Dec. 29-30 in Hanover, N.H.

Joey and Mikey Anderson will be just the third set of brothers to represent the U.S. in the same world junior tournament, joining Neal and Aaron Broten (1979) and Chris and Peter Ferraro (1992, 1993).

In all, 15 UMD products have previously competed in the IIHF World Junior Championship (14 for the U.S. and one for Canada), with Brian Johnson (U.S. in 1984 and 1985) being the only Bulldog to do so twice. Current UMD bench boss Scott Sandelin served as the U.S. head coach in 2005 and as an assistant seven years later.

The most Bulldogs to ever take part in the same IIHF World Junior Championship was three back in 1982.

2018 IIHF World Junior Championship Information