The Shattuck-St. Mary’s Boys U18 Team competes in a rigorous seven-month schedule, averaging 50-65 games a season, with tournament play throughout the United States and Canada. The program has captured back-to-back USA Hockey Boys High School National Championships in 2022 and 2023. Former players have gone on to play for NCAA Division I and Division III programs, as well as professionally in North America and Europe.
Student-athletes are on the ice five to seven days per week and each participates in a year-round strength and conditioning program. Players have access to two NHL regulation-sized arenas and a 3v3 ice rink, a 10,500 sq. foot weight training and conditioning facility, video room for team and individual analysis, as well as an athletic training room providing advanced aquatic therapy and full-time athletic training staff.
Tyler Ruegsegger is a Colorado native who came to Shattuck-St. Mary’s as a freshman in 2001. He played four years at SSM, winning a national championship in 2005 with the Boys’ Prep team. He graduated in 2006 and then played his college hockey at the University of Denver. He graduated summa cum laude from Denver in 2010, with a degree in Business Administration. Ruegsegger represented Team USA at the World Junior Championships in 2008 and played professional hockey for four seasons in the ECHL and AHL, where he won a championship with the Alaska Aces. Ruegsegger was a 2006 draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Ruegsegger began his coaching career at Valor Christian High School as an assistant to his former college coach George Gwozdecky. He is currently in his sixth year as a coach at SSM, and has coached at the U14, 15O, and U16 levels. In 2021 he won a USA Hockey national championship with the U14 team and in 2022 he helped lead the 15O team to the national championship game. In addition to coaching, Ruegsegger is the Hockey Advancement Coordinator for the Shattuck hockey program.
Tyler and his wife Megan have two girls, Reagan and Aspen, and in his spare time he enjoys being home and playing with them.
Steve DeBus, Boys U18 Assistant Coach
Email: steve.debus@s-sm.org
Coach Steve DeBus joined the Shattuck-St. Mary’s community in 2016 as the assistant coach for the Boys U18AAA team. The following season he served as assistant coach for the Boys U16AAA before switching back to his current position with the Boys U18 team.
DeBus is no stranger to the Minnesota hockey community. A native of Rochester, Minn., DeBus played collegiate hockey at the University of Minnesota where he was a standout, three-year starting goaltender for the Golden Gophers. From 1998-2003, he played professional hockey for teams in the ECHL, IHL, UHL, WPHL, and CHL.
Prior to joining the Sabres, Coach DeBus was the men’s hockey assistant coach at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. from 2007-2011. In 2011, he accepted the head coaching position with women’s hockey at Hamline University in St. Paul where he led the Pipers until the end of the 2015 season. He returned to St. Olaf in the fall of 2015 as the goaltender coach for both the men’s and women’s programs.
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