First of all, congrats GOBRUINS19 on hosting the tournament. Had the pleasure of going to many of the games in Selkirk/Stonewall two years ago it was a great experience. I'm envious that you'll be getting to go to those games this year.
The Americans, Pacific, and Russia will probably be the favourites in the Challenge this year. Ontario and Quebec are always in the running for medals. Team Atlantic won't have Crosby but look much better on paper than in 2001 and will have the home crowd behind them. Western are in tough but will be competitive. Finland and Germany were poor two years ago, perhaps they will have improved now. Slovakia are making their debut in the Challenge are an unknown quantity.
Some of the names that are mentioned prominently (by moosefan primarily and others) follows:
Pacific- Gilbert Brule (FW), Brock Bradford (FW), Devon Setoguchi (FW), Jason Lynch (D), Casey Price (G)
Western- Chris Durand (FW), Codey Burki (FW), Tyler Dittmer (FW), Brodie Dupont (FW)
Ontario- Bryan Little (FW), Bobby Hughes (FW), Kyle Lamb (D), Marc Staal (D), Ryan Wilson (D)
Quebec- Guillaume Latendresse (FW), Francis Charette (FW), Francis Pare (FW), Francis Guerrette-Charland (FW), Marc-Andre Cote (FW), Derick Brassard (FW), Kristopher Letang (D), Mathieu Carle (D)
Atlantic- Kenzie Sheppard (FW), Daniel Ryder (FW), Dean Ouellet (FW), Ryan Mior (G)
Russia- Vitaly Anikeenko (D), Sergey Belyakov (FW), Alexey Sopin (FW), Gennady Churilov (FW), Alexander Kucheryavenko (FW), Alexey Privalov (D), Vyacheslav Buravchikov (D)
United States- Philip Kessel (FW), Jack Skille (FW), Peter Mueller (FW), Jack Johnson (D), Jeff Frazee (G)
Germany, Finland and Slovakia are a mystery to me (trying to locate some info on them other than the rosters off Hockey Canada). Perhaps others will fill in the missing blanks, plus some of the other players I've missed. In any event it should be an exciting Challenge. Enjoy!!