Gunnar Conboy headlines Minnesota natives at USA Hockey Hlinka camp

Gunnar Conboy earned a place among 36 players invited to USA Hockey’s 2026 Hlinka Gretzky Cup Selection Camp, and he was one of 13 Minnesota natives in the group. The Green Bay Gamblers forward got the look after a season that included 21 points in 37 games, enough to keep him in the mix for one of the final spots on the United States’ Under-18 radar.

The camp will run July 23-27 at TRIA Rink in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with the roster battle centered on who advances to the 2026 U.S. Under-18 Men’s Select Team for the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. That tournament is set for Aug. 3-8 in Edmonton, Alberta, and it has become one of the clearest checkpoints on the path from USHL production to international evaluation.

Conboy’s standing has been built in layers. Green Bay tendered him on March 26, 2025, then watched him work into a role that brought him into USA Hockey’s view. The Gamblers have identified him as a Lakeville, Minnesota, native and as a commitment to the University of Minnesota, making him the only Gopher commit among the Minnesota players at the camp. His name has already appeared on Team USA pages for the 2025 U17 Four Nations and the 2025 World Junior A Challenge, and a Gamblers update dated Feb. 2, 2026 said he returned to the international stage with a roster spot on the U17 Five Nation team.

That mix of USHL production, home-state familiarity and repeated national-team exposure is exactly what puts a player in this camp conversation. Minnesota has long been a deep feeder state for USA Hockey, and this selection list again shows how the USHL pipeline connects local development to the sport’s top international age-group events. Conboy enters Saint Paul with that résumé and a chance to turn it into a spot in Edmonton.