It's an amateur contract, so no reason to cuh-ray-zee over it.  But it's still awesome when you see a 19-year-old kid get an opportunity like this with a big club, especially the Penguins. 

The real gist of this is that he's not exactly signed by the Penguins, but instead had his rights signed over to them.  In other words, no one can lay claim to him while he sits under the Penguins' radar.

Full story from the kid's Orleans paper available here.

My favorite quote?

After he received a bunch of calls from his mom, he called her back:

"She said it was urgent, so I called her from the car and that's when she told me that Pittsburgh had called a bunch of times so I called my agent and he said that the Penguins wanted to offer me an amateur contract," says Cowick, who was passed over by the NHL during the 2006 draft.

I guess it's just amazing to me that a 19-year-old can say, "So I called my agent..."