Omaha prospect Avery Hanowski earns U.S. Under-17 Select Team spot

Avery Hanowski’s rise kept moving when USA Hockey named the Omaha prospect to the 2026 U.S. Under-17 Men’s Select Team, a 20-player group that will go to the Under-17 Four Nations Tournament in Chomutov, Czechia, from Aug. 15-19. Hanowski was one of 14 players on the roster with USHL ties, a strong signal for an Omaha organization that is trying to reset its identity around younger, higher-upside talent.

The selection came after the Boys National 16 Player Development Camp in Amherst, New York, where Hanowski earned his place in a process that had not initially included him. His path sharpened after an injury created an opening, and the opportunity fit a player who has climbed fast through USA Hockey’s evaluation ladder. The tournament will send the United States against host Czechia, Slovakia and Switzerland, with the Americans carrying the weight of a program that has won the event nine times since 2010 and owns a 57-2-1-12 all-time record.

For Omaha, the timing matters. The Lancers drafted Hanowski in the third round of the 2026 USHL Phase I Draft, taking him with the 45th pick in a phase reserved for 2010-born players, with each club allowed 15 selections. That made Hanowski one of the organization’s clearest long-term bets, and one of the first young pieces linked to the Lancers’ rebuild. The club said it first identified him at the Select 15 Festival in Buffalo last year, then tracked his season-long growth at Rosemount High School in Minnesota.

The numbers back up the upside. Public game logs showed Hanowski finished the 2025-26 season with 23 points in 31 games, and he had produced 72 points in 60 games in 2024-25. Rosemount listed him as a 6-foot-0, 180-pound left-shot forward wearing No. 10, while USA Hockey’s roster put him at 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, a small but telling reminder that he is still adding size and definition as his game advances.

Omaha head coach Ron Fogarty treated the selection as an honor and pointed to Hanowski’s arrival in an Omaha jersey as a near-term goal. Assistant general manager Rich Michalowski said the staff liked Hanowski early because of his size and complete-game profile, and the international invite only raises the stakes for what comes next. With the Americans going to Czechia after finishing second at the 2025 event in Plymouth, Michigan, Hanowski now steps into a stage that should accelerate the development Omaha is banking on.