Tyler Kleben, the former UND and Fargo Davis defenseman, has already won a gold medal at the international level with Team USA in the 2020-21 IIHF World Junior Championships. Currently, Kleben has joined the USA squad for the IIHF Men’s World Championships in Finland and Latvia. USA has already won two games against Finland and Hungary with five pool games remaining against Germany, Austria, Denmark, France, and Sweden. The quarterfinals are scheduled for May 25th, while the semi-finals and medal games will be held on May 27th and May 28th, respectively.
Kleven is a college hockey conference champion who has played for the Fighting Hawks for the past three seasons, helping the national team win two Penrose Cup titles. The 6-foot-5, 213-pound Blueliner scored eight goals and 18 in 35 games as a junior. After the season, he signed a three-year contract with the Ottawa Senators and immediately jumped into the NHL.
Kleben appeared in eight games for the Senators and is not an uncommon late addition to American rosters. In December 2020, he was added to the USA World Junior Team. The last-minute call to join the United States in Edmonton after several players tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the U-20 tournament, and the American went on to win gold medals.
Kleben becomes the second former UND player on the US roster. FW Rocco Grimaldi also belongs to the team, and after two games, Grimaldi is second in the tournament’s top scorers with four goals. Former UND forward Ludwig Hof also plays for Norway. The last former UND players to win gold at the Men’s World Championships were Troy Stecher and Jacob Bernard Docker of Canada in 2021.
The American team has failed to win a gold medal at the men’s world championships except for two times in 1960 and 1933. Former UND defenseman Christian Wolanin was on the American team during the last Men’s World Championships, where the last American to win a medal was bronze. Brad Elliot Schlossman joined the Herald in 2005 covering college hockey in Grand Forks and has been named North Dakota Sports Writer of the Year four times.