Rink of dreams
Published on January 15th, 2003
STONEHAM, MA - Many Stoneham youths have dreamed of growing up to skate on the Fleet Center Ice like their Boston Bruin heroes, but last Monday the Stoneham Youth Hockey Peewee C team actually got the chance to do just that.
As part of the Future Bruins program offered by the team, Coach Walter O’Leary was able to arrange a game between his team and a team from Wakefield.
“Actually my assistant coach Caroline Colarusso did most of the leg work. She heard about it from someone and then she pursued it” said O’Leary.
The program allows teams that can arrange their own game to get the ice for two 20 minute periods, with the clock continuing in running time. As part of the arrangement, the teams each must sell 125 tickets, which go for $30 each. After the game the teams got to move up to the balcony to watch the Bruins take on the Pittsburgh Penguins.
At 4:50 pm, as the organ music played through the loudspeakers blared the strains of organ music, the gates opened and the Stoneham team in their blue shirts made their way onto the Fleet Center ice. Then to the beat of Elvis Costello’s “Pump it up” they were followed by the Wakefield team who donned their red jersey’s and after the prerequisite skate around and warm-up drills the two teams squared off in action.
“We thought it would be a fun thing for the kids. It’s been a long year for them, they’ve struggled a bit and so we thought this would be kind of a nice break for them” said O’Leary.
It appeared to be a bit of a thrill for the coaches too, as coaches on both sides managed to arrange a quick photo-op upon arriving on the bench.
The scoreboard was set for the later Bruins-Penguins game so that Wakefield stood in as the Bruins and Stoneham was represented as Pittsburgh.
As for the game, Wakefield went on to score first and the Stoneham squad soon matched them goal-for-goal.
Eventually the bigger, faster Wakefield team was able to overpower Stoneham 7-4, thanks largely to the hat trick from Matt Graham, but the Stoneham squad acquitted themselves nicely. The Stoneham scoring came from Richard Curro (2 goals), Joe Colarusso and David Geer.
As the youngsters fulfilled their dreams on the ice, cheering parents supported them from the stands.
“It’s just a thrill for him” said Dave Luciano of his son Anthony.
“He’s been really excited and looking forward to it” said Luciano.
After the game the teams got to pose for some photos on the ice and then headed to the locker room before heading up to section 327 to watch the professionals play.
It was back to reality for the parents as well as they abandoned the luxury of the loge seats for the height of the balcony.
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