The Lost Boys of Hockey
“Oh momma don’t you cry, St. Paul's hockey is do or die.”
“I play fall and spring hockey, there is no off season” stated Flurin Domenig ’13. “I do not play any other sport this year. I used to play varsity lacrosse, also tried JV Baseball. I just go to the gym and prepare for the upcoming hockey season. It is hockey season 365 days a year for us,” said Derick Roy ’11. Contrary to popular belief that “hockey bros” hang out with the ladies 24/7, there’s more to the “bros” than flirting. “I do not play any other sports. I left varsity soccer and lacrosse to dedicate all my time to hockey, which I did before coming to SPS” says Paul Arthur Plaisir ’11. This is what happens to hockey players when they come to St. Paul’s. Ryan Bliss ’14, for example, a hockey recruit, plays baseball in the spring, and Luke Babcock ’14 plays lacrosse. So did captain Derick Roy ’11, until he stopped so that he could pursue hockey 365 days a year.
Quite obviously hockey players take their sport seriously. “I miss hockey when I don't play hockey for 3 days. A couple of years ago I didn't play for 4 days and it was a dark time in my life” Flurin Domenig ’13. However this “all hockey all the time” mindset is not limited to just the varsity boys. Three new members of the girls JV team feel the same- Hannah Hirschfeld ’14, Tommie Deering ’14, and Carter Ballentine ’13. According to Hannah, “Hockey made my winter because of so many things, especially when we got to do Supermans at practice, even when Lucy Chase (’13) cheated.” Tommie commented that, “Regardless of whether I got to dress for the games sitting on the bench with the green line made me never want to play in games anyways.” Carter agrees on this, when she says, “Even though I didn’t get to play in a single game hockey was the highlight of my winter.”
According to students, the hockey players can be seen congregating after chapel, sitting at the Upper together, playing roller hockey together, and most notably surrounding Third Form girls. Why is this? “We're a group of guys who all come together for something that is much bigger then all of us combined and when you take a group of guys who all have such a passion for something the bonds that you form with those boys are stronger then ones that I have yet to find,” answers Sam Hudziak ’13.
To put it in the words of Greg Zaffino ’13, “Hockey is just the best sport.” Hockey at St. Paul’s sets the mood, whenever the “bros” travel in a pack its noticeable whether or not they had a successful game—either solemnly quiet, or loud and rowdy. But really, what it takes to be a “hockey bro” is true dedication for hockey—live for it, die for it. Even at the expense of some Third Form girls.
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