Orangeville’s Tessa Janecke set to make debut with USA Hockey Senior Team

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (WIFR) - 2022 has been quite a year for Orangeville native Tessa Janecke. The Stateline teen graduated high school, won a Regional title in softball with the Broncos, earned a silver medal at the IIHF U18 Women’s World Championships, and has been a standout for Penn State hockey as a freshman.

Now, to put a cherry on top of things, the Stateline native will be the youngest player on Team USA’s Senior National Team as they face off against Canada in a pair of games in the Rivalry Series.

“I’m just glad to be a part of the experience and get to learn with them like taking as much as I can,” Janecke said.

Janecke will be getting to play alongside one of her idols as Olympic Gold Medalist Hillary Knight will also be on the roster, the two met when Janecke was just a kid while Knight was still playing hockey at the University of Wisconsin.

Janecke said she already received a valuable message when the two met back in August.

“She came up to me and was like ‘Hi I’m Hillary’ which I thought was very funny at the time because I obviously knew who she is but it’s like very humbling and shows the kind of person she is not to be the person whose like ‘oh, you should know me’ so it’s not just learning from them on the ice but how they treat people off the ice,” Janecke said.

As for herself, the Nittany Lion has one objective in mind when it comes to her two-game opportunity.

“I want to leave an impression just for the future camps or world championships is just to do what I can and leave it all out there and take in as much as I can from the players and staff  and just the whole experience,” Janecke said.

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