The United States opens play at the under-18 world men’s hockey championships in Grand Forks, N.D., on Thursday as the two-time defending champion. In a sport usually dominated by their neighbors to the north, the Americans have won six of the last seven tournaments and have a record 13 medals in the event’s 17-year history.

It is a run of success born of disappointments and frustrations at the international level.

In 1995, when Ron DeGregorio was elected vice president of U.S.A. Hockey and put in charge of international competitions, American teams had, in 35 years, earned a grand total of six medals at events sanctioned by the International Ice Hockey Federation: two golds (1960 and 1980) and a silver (1972) at the Olympics, a bronze at the world championship in 1962 and bronzes at the world junior championships in 1986 and 1992.

That was not good enough for DeGregorio, whose first order of business was establishing a national team development program.

“We wanted to have a program that would elevate the status of Team U.S.A. at all levels,” he said. “No longer did we want to rely on miracles. We wanted to make sure we were a contender year in and year out in international play. That’s not to say our development programs were horrendous before this — we developed some pretty great hockey players over the years — but we wanted to raise the bar. The goal was to have more elite American hockey players, and it had to start with a solid development foundation.”