Berlin's Tragic Goaltender and Hockey's Ties that Bind

A raw, driving rain turned to a slurry of wet snow as our boxy yellow school bus lurched northward from Manchester, NH, to Berlin. We were just into the first weeks of our 1974-75 season as Manchester Central High's Little Green hockey team, making our biennial pilgrimage to the Paper City.

 

Berlin, the defending state champion, was a tough match-up anytime. The team was a juggernaut, and had been for years. Having to play the mighty Mountaineers after a few practices and scrimmages was an onerous task. To have to travel three hours just to get to Berlin seemed downright unfair.

 

Guided by Hall of Fame coach Albie Brodeur, and benefiting from the influx of Notre Dame players who came on board when the parochial high school closed in 1972 (after claiming one last state title, 3-2, over Manchester Memorial), Berlin won the 1974 state championship with a 26-6-0 record. For the 1974-75 season, the Mountaineers were simply reloading, on their way to a 24-4-0 mark and another state crown.

 

Fortunately, I knew little about Berlin's hockey superiority, being the proverbial new kid on the block. I grew up in northeastern New Jersey before moving to Manchester as a 16-year-old in the summer of 1974. Berlin was a mystery.

 

As our bus rattled along the two-lane, I preoccupied myself with a history class reading assignment, primarily because our assistant coach, Mr. Connolly, was my history teacher. Our head coach, Mr. Finnegan, was a young, bearded firebrand who was relentlessly optimistic at the start of the season. I always gravitated to coaches like that.

 

Two hours into our journey, I sidled up to Coach Finnegan and asked, in typical kid fashion, “How much longer before we get to Berlin?”

 

“Oh, you'll know when we're close,” quipped my coach, laughing. “You'll smell it before you see it.”

 

Puzzled by his response, I inquired. He told me about Berlin's leading industry, the paper and pulp mills, and the unique, pungent odor they produced. He was right. The distinctive bouquet of Berlin hit me like a blind-side body check well beyond the city limits.

 

“In Berlin, they call that the smell of money,” said Coach Finnegan with a grin.

 

I had been tabbed as the starting goaltender for the early season tilt, and my teammates wasted no time in warning me that I was walking into a shooting gallery.

 

“Don't worry,” said Coach Finnegan. “No matter what happens, it won't be as bad as what happened to that poor kid a few years back.”

“What poor kid?” I asked.

 

“The goalie, from Notre Dame,” said my coach. “The rink's roof collapsed at his end of the ice, and buried him. He was all by himself. Killed him.”

 

Coach Finnegan left it at that.

 

##

 

Even though hockey goaltender is generally considered one of the toughest, and loneliest, positions in sports, for some strange reason the goal crease has always been my “safe spot,” my sanctuary. I'm not sure why.

 

Maybe because it has a certain “eye of the hurricane” quality to it, where all the action is swirling around you. It's like a giant funnel, where the play is designed to come right at the net behind the goalie. And there was a certain attraction of being the one player that could almost singlehandedly prevent another team from winning by preventing them from scoring.

 

For whatever reason, I just felt comfortable setting up between the pipes. The idea of a goaltender being buried under tons of snow and steel and wood shook me to my core. His name was Norman Boucher, and he was only 15. His death must have been horrifying, despite my coach's almost casual comment. It was as if that sanctuary had been violated.

 

For that catastrophe to happen in Berlin, of all places, it must have felt as if the hockey gods had turned against their own. Because the game is inextricably woven through Berlin's tapestry, and much of New Hampshire's tapestry. For me, Boucher's death was a poignant reminder of the ties that bind an incredibly tight-knit hockey community. 

 

##

 

Hobart Amore “Hobey” Baker and the black ice of the ponds near St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, get most of the credit for planting the seeds of New Hampshire hockey in the early 1900s. That's understandable, given Baker's preternatural talents and subsequent legend forged by his brilliant play at St. Paul's and Princeton, and his premature death (college hockey's best player is annually recognized with the Hobey Baker Award).

 

But it was Berlin that set the game's roots deep in the state's north country during Baker's star turn in Concord. The game immigrated to New England and this rugged mill city on the backs of laborers who streamed over the border from Quebec and the Maritimes.

 

“The concept of the game came down from Canada, and a rough form of the game was played on local ponds and rivers by 1903,” said Walter Nadeau, a retired Berlin police captain and amateur historian. “I'm guessing that the locals may not have had a copy of the written rules.

 

“The first formal, decent hockey rink was built in 1913, and used extensively,” said Nadeau. “As far as I know, from 1903 to 1918, many informal games were played among teenagers and young adults.”

 

Hockey captivated Berlin's predominantly French Canadien locals, and quickly became the community's lifeblood. The earliest known account of local high school students playing the game was published in the Berlin Independent on Dec. 4, 1903.

 

“The game is not like a baseball or a football game,” stated the Independent. “It is equally good to watch, but it is not one at which you can cheer, the playing is to [sic] rapid and incessant, and the most the spectators can do is give a sharp yell when anything sensational happens.”

 

According to the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey, “organized” hockey arrived in Berlin a few years later with the creation of amateur mill teams (offered by business owners to distract employees from desultory working conditions and low wages). Downing Potter “D.P.” Brown, a former Williams College hockey player and owner of the Brown Company, helped establish the Mill League, with games played on an outdoor rink at the city's baseball park. In 1920, a Father Lauziere formed the “Canadiens,” who played against Maine's top teams from French Canadien enclaves like Lewiston and Waterville.

 

“Most of the players were first- and second-generation French Canadien,” said Nadeau. “Hockey became a big part of the Berlin culture. The games brought people together.”

 

Starting in 1923, a succession of local squads – the Berlin Athletic Association and the Berlin Hockey Club – became regional powers, often making the long trek south to play at Boston Arena. In 1937, the fabled Berlin Maroons were formed and won three New England AAU championships by 1951. Nicknamed the “Flying Frenchmen,” the Maroons were crowned National Amateur Hockey Association champions in 1954, 1967 and 1968.

 

The city also became a force in high school hockey, beginning in the 1940s. The Notre Dame Rams, coached by Albert "Barney" LaRoche (a Maroon star known as “The Rocket”), won the first 16 NHIAA state championships, from 1947 to 1962. Over the next seven years, the public Mountaineers won six titles, and the Rams captured title No. 17 in 1965. In all, Berlin schools won the first 23 state hockey titles, before Hanover High broke the stranglehold in 1970 (defeating Berlin High in the final).

 

After the Maroons' national title in 1967, and the complete mastery of high school hockey by Berlin schools for the preceding two decades, the city was dubbed “Hockey Town USA.” A banner, featuring two enormous goalie sticks and the words “Welcome to Hockey Town USA” on a giant puck, was erected by Green Square.

 

“Besides the Notre Dame Arena, the recreation department maintains seven skating rinks,” said Nadeau. “Back in the day, many fathers maintained rinks in their backyard. Hockey was as much a part of the fabric of the community as meat pie.”

 

##

 

Meanwhile, the St. Jean (de Baptiste) Maple Leafs introduced organized hockey to Manchester in the late 1930s, hosting games at the Kelly Street church grounds through the early 1960s. In 1958, the Manchester Beavers descended on the Dorrs Pond Rink, and the Tam-O-Shanters and Alpine Club teams launched four years later. When the John F. Kennedy Memorial Coliseum, built beside Gill Stadium, opened for the winter of 1964, hockey moved indoors.

 

In the fall of 1966, the Manchester Blackhawks began competing, and played in the New England Hockey League through 1970. The Manchester Monarchs then played four seasons in the Can-Am League (the recent Los Angeles Kings farm team took the same name as an ode to the original Monarchs). Following the 1973-74 season, however, post-scholastic amateur hockey in Manchester came to an abrupt halt. The Blackhawks returned in the late 1970s for a brief encore, competing against the Concord Budmen and the Maroons, but soon shuttered operations.

 

The Queen City was hockey heaven for a me, a teenager who first fell head over heels with the sport playing street hockey in northeast New Jersey, where none of the schools had hockey teams and the natural-ice skating rinks prohibited the game due to liability concerns. The New York Rangers, and later the Islanders, gave us a taste of top-flight hockey, but the opportunities to play, on ice, were few and far between.

 

All that changed with my clan relocated to Manchester. I thought JFK Coliseum was an absolute gem, despite its shortage of locker rooms, and the University of New Hampshire's Snively Arena, where we played a pre-season game, was nothing short of palatial.

 

##

 

Like Berlin, my Manchester Central team had a distinct French Canadien flavor, but it was far from a cohesive unit. In fact, we resembled the old cultural brawls between the French Canadiens and the Irish who fought for jobs in the city's mills along the Merrimack River. While our team was dominated by names like Montminy, Bellemare, Allard, Carrier, Ouimette, Bernier, Petrin, Lemire, Pelletier, LeBlanc, and Metevier, we also had our share of players from different neighborhoods. Kids with names like Fitzgerald, North, Telge, Weise, Davidson, Soares, O'Brien, and me, O'Connor.

 

The irony is that while I was considered an outsider, I'm half French Canadien. My mom's maiden name is Pare, and her father – my beloved Grandpere – was my greatest sports influence during my formative years (and the reason I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan, despite growing up a stone's throw from New York City). My mom was raised on the predominantly French West Side of Manchester, which is why we moved to New Hampshire after my father lost his battle with cancer in the summer of 1971.

 

I was accustomed to a robust cultural mix, growing up in a diverse community in New Jersey. My sports of choice – baseball, then basketball, soccer, and hockey – all brought me into contact with dozens of ethnicities. At Manchester Central, my soccer teammates often joked that we were like the United Nations, with Greeks, Columbians, Bolivians, Ecuadorians, French Canadiens, and even one wonderfully talented young man from Haiti named Daniel Lascaze. But we blended beautifully on the field, winning the city championship my first season.

 

Our Little Green hockey team produced no such alchemy. One hockey teammate, who I met early on in homeroom, warned me: “This team is two cliques. The French kids, and everyone else. And their parents are nuts.”

 

That was a particularly delicate scenario for me, as the other two goalies were Gilles Ouimette and Mark Lemire. Gilles understood. Mark? Not so much. Probably because I was “third man in,” which is one goalie too many on most hockey teams.

 

Gilles, a sophomore, started the season before as a freshman, so I knew he was talented. To his credit, we got along famously, even though Gilles's father made his own opinions about who should be playing perfectly clear, spitting invective from the stands. There's a brotherhood among goalies, simply called “The Goalies Union.” We're tethered by the position's unique challenges, and the unmistakable pressures we shoulder.

 

That's why I felt a kinship with Norman Boucher, the sophomore goaltender for Notre Dame High's junior varsity who was crushed to death under a pile twisted metal and splintered wood on Feb. 27, 1969. Goalies are solitary figures. Typically, we're alone, confined to our “crease,” often left to our own devices. We're members of the team, but not always fully part of it.

 

Yet goalies typically take immense pride in their loner status. It's what draws us to each other. Boucher's untimely end resonated with me in a way other players couldn't understand. But it would be decades before I learned the whole story.

 

##

 

“Those who knew and loved Norman are still haunted by the devastating and tragic events of that night,” Karen Boucher Wheeler, a niece of Boucher’s who was only a year old at the time, told Steve Enman of The Berlin Daily Sun on the 50^th anniversary of her uncle's death.

 

That night, Boucher was on the ice with his junior varsity teammates, preparing for a scrimmage against their crosstown rivals. The fact that a city of almost 20,000 (in 1969) could field two high school varsity hockey teams and two JV teams was a testament to the sport's popularity. The Notre Dame Arena, built in 1947, was Berlin's only enclosed rink (and the second indoor rink in the state, after Dartmouth College). Like most buildings on that fateful day, its roof was sporting a thick blanket of heavy snow.

 

The snow had started falling on Feb. 24, and during the next five days the skies deposited more than five feet of the white stuff over the region. Romeo Tremblay, Notre Dame's varsity hockey coach, and members of his team shoveled portions of the arena roof, but large drifts remained on either end of the building. 

 

Early evening on Feb. 27, after chatting with coaches and teammates by the benches, Boucher skated back to his net to take a few more shots. Al Cayouette, a Notre Dame student and varsity hockey player, was setting up the public address system.

 

“At 5:25, as I pushed the button on the PA microphone, I heard an eerie sound, like the crunch of a chip, the cracking of wood, and then a loud 'whoosh' of air as the roof suddenly and quickly collapsed on the ice,” Cayouette told the Daily Sun. “I couldn't see the Notre Dame players and fans on the south end of the arena due to the debris.”

 

Another student recalled that the roof fell like a massive swinging door, narrowly missing the players at the blue line.

.

“I looked up and saw sparks, with flying lights and cables snapping and the roof began to swing down in my direction,” Peter Noel, another goalie, told the Daily Sun. “Instinct and/or adrenalin somehow made me skate from in front of the net to behind it, with a thought to get down to the ice and hug the boards”

 

Noel shut his eyes, and a morbid silence descended over the arena.

 

“I opened my eyes to see that the roof had fallen in around me, and to my left I saw Bob Bertin struggling to move,” said Noel. “I couldn't see anything in the area where Norm had been, only debris.”

 

Bertin and another Notre Dame JV player, Dan Blais, were severely injured.

 

“There was absolutely no time to react. I must have been knocked out because the next thing I know I am awake, laying amongst the beams and snow and unable to move anything but my legs,” Blais told the Daily Sun. “I prayed, because there was nothing else I could do – I couldn’t even talk. It was like I was in a bubble, and if I had been 1 or 2 feet to the left or right when the roof fell in, I would not be alive to tell this story.”

 

Boucher was crushed underneath one of the roof's large girders. The late Omer Morin, one of the referees that night, found Boucher buried by rubble, unconscious, and immediately started cutting off his pads. A local doctor, though, couldn't find the young goalie's pulse, and told Morin (a next-door neighbor of the Boucher family) not to rush.

 

“That's something I'll never forget. I'll never, never forget that,” said Morin in the 2010 documentary “At the River's Edge: An Oral History of Berlin, New Hampshire.” “And I knew the family. They were neighbors, like I say. The kid never made it. That was a real tragedy in town. A real tragedy.”

 

The arena was repaired, under the direction of Monsignor Alpheri Lauziere, and eventually reopened. A plaque honoring Boucher was installed in the lobby.

 

##

 

With my coach's sobering-but-abbreviated tale of Norman Boucher fresh on my mind, I took to the ice at Notre Dame Arena that December night in 1974. If I was distracted, I don't remember. I looked to the rafters, and thought everything looked structurally sound (not that I would  have known if it wasn't). But those thoughts quickly gave way to concerns about the red and white-clad Mountaineers, who looked intimidating even during warm-ups.

 

For a period, we skated toe-to-toe with the defending state champs, down only 1-0 after 20 minutes. Moments into the second period, I made one of the few truly memorable saves of my high school “career,” flashing my right skate to foil a point-blank bid. I thought maybe we had a chance. Then my luck, and the luck of the Little Green, ran out.

 

The Mountaineers put at least four more pucks behind me by the end of the period. My night was done. Gilles came in to finish the game, and played valiantly. But the game was lost. We slowly shuffled out of the rink to our bus, knowing we had a long ride to lick our wounds. I don't recall seeing Boucher's plaque.

 

Curling up on my bus seat, I felt a strange sense of relief. I would play again. There would be more games. Norman Boucher never had that opportunity. His future was taken from him in the cruelest way imaginable.

 

As fate would have it, my senior year was the last time that Berlin would rule the roost of New Hampshire school boy hockey (we gave the Mountaineers a great game that season during the Queen City Tournament, dropping an excruciating 4-3 decision). The year after I graduated, Central made it to the state semifinals, only to lose in heartbreaking fashion to Bishop Guertin of Nashua. But by 1980, the Little Green would be state champions, and defended that title in 1981. They were only the third team in state history to repeat, and the first that didn't hail from Berlin.

 

##

 

Had the hockey gods and Old Man Winter not conspired against Norman Boucher more than a half century ago, he would now be 67, not much older than me. I sometimes wonder if he would recognize his city, and his game, today.

 

The proud city of Berlin, which once hosted two championship-caliber hockey teams, barely has enough players to field a full squad. The city has been hit hard economically – the main pulp mill closed in 2006 – and as the jobs left, residents followed. Berlin's population now hovers close to 9,000, less than half the number from the city's hey-day of the 1930s. As a result, the once-mighty Mountaineers formed a co-operative team with neighboring Gorham, and dropped to Division 3 simply to remain competitive (in 2016, the co-op team won the state's D-3 crown, the city's first hockey championship in 40 years).

 

Likewise, my old school, one of the state's largest, just a few short years after its last state championship in 2014, has had to join forces with rival Manchester West to continue offering a varsity program (coincidentally, my Central team played in the first high school match at the “new” West Side Arena in 1974, against West). It's an odd juxtaposition, seeing longtime opponents joining hands to play the game they love. But it's becoming more of a necessity, as cities like Manchester lose affluent residents to surrounding suburbs. 

 

By comparison, Bedford, which didn't even have a high school when I attended Central, fielded three hockey teams – varsity, junior varsity, and a practice squad – last season. There is strength in those numbers. The Bulldogs are a powerhouse, winning or sharing the state title in four of the past five years.

 

This is the reality of the current hockey landscape. It is no longer the blue-collar, ethnic sport that thrived in Berlin. Hockey is still a great game, capable of teaching invaluable life lessons. But many of those lessons are being overshadowed by money. The game requires a significant investment, in terms of both expense and time. (In the early 1970s, I was able to buy all my own goalie gear – high quality gear – with my paper route proceeds. Today, that's impossible.)

 

Steve Bellemore, president of the non-profit Manchester Regional Youth Hockey Association, said the sport is still popular, with close to 500 boys and girls playing in the program. The cost, though, runs close to $3,000, equipment not included.

 

“We try to be a top program that has a place for everyone,” said Bellemore. “We try to make it so everyone has a place to play. That was the dream of our forefathers, and that's our goal.

 

“So many of these programs are about the almighty dollar, and it gets a little cut throat,” he said. “I'd be lying if I said we didn't have to cut kids every year, but we try to find a place for those kids.”

 

For-profit “select” programs are even more expensive, and expect six-month commitments (or longer), preventing kids from playing for their high school teams while promoting sports specialization and fueling unrealistic dreams of collegiate careers. They succeed, in part, because too many parents have lost their minds. Conversely, the three-month high school season is a quaint dinosaur. Much like me, I suppose.

 

Playing multiple sports throughout the year was always special for me. The variety kept things interesting, and kept my love for each sport strong. Those love affairs lasted a long time – I continued to play soccer and hockey well into my 50s, before my hips finally gave out.

 

I treasure my memories of those winter days playing for the Little Green, and my own insignificant place in New Hampshire's colorful hockey history. Norman Boucher was robbed of those memories more than 50 years ago, but his plaque still graces the Notre Dame Arena lobby. Rink manager Joe Accardi, who played for Berlin High his senior year (1977-78) after a stint with the Junior Maroons, said he wouldn't even think of moving it.

 

“Hockey's been a big part of my life, and my children's life. We all played hockey,” said Accardi. “His death is something that we all remember. It's part of the history of the arena. It's big for a lot of us, especially guys our age. That plaque will always be there.”

 

I'm glad Norman Boucher is remembered, and remembered fondly. He deserves that much.

 

Brion O'Connor, Manchester Central Class of 1976, still coaches hockey goaltenders. His career peaked in 1982 when he backstopped Sigma Beta to a nail-biting 4-3 victory over Congreve for the University of New Hampshire campus intramural championship. He flunked his statistics mid-term the next day, but the goalie stick commemorating that title hangs in his garage to this day.

 

FINIS

Wenham’s Charrette Powers St. John’s Prep to Ski Title

March 1, 2025

Sam Charrette, left, celebrates St. John's fourth
ski title with teammates Owen McLain, center,
and Josh Haarmann at Berkshire East.

As a writer, I always prefer working with sources who are more talkative. Sam Charrette isn't one of those people. But the teenager from Wenham is an impressive young man nonetheless, an integral part of four strait ski championships for St. John's Prep. As a former athlete and coach, however, I have to admit that there was one moment during my chat with Sam that really stood out for me, even though it's not in the story. His father had told me that the top three skiers really are the difference makers on the team, and expectations were high this year because there were no seniors on last year's title-winning squad. But when I mentioned that to Sam, he quickly corrected me. There were seniors, but they weren't stars. And that spoke volumes about his character ... Obviously, everyone on the team was important to Sam. And that's as impressive as anything else, in my book. This is my story on Sam and the St. John's Prep ski team for the H-W News.

Best, -Brion

 

Wenham’s Sam Charrette Powers St. John’s Prep to Ski Title

 

It’s one thing to be consistent. It’s another thing to be great. But to be consistently great is something special. Admirers of the exploits of US Ski Team legends Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin over the past two decades will undoubtedly be impressed with the consistent excellence of the St. John’s Prep ski team, which captured its fourth consecutive MIAA Alpine boys’ championship on Tuesday.

 

And a mainstay on those powerhouse Prep squads for all four years has been Wenham’s Sam Charrette.

 

“As far as I know, it's never happened before, for any team to win four straight titles,” said St. John’s ski coach Tim Broderick. “It's definitely never happened at St. John’s in terms of skiing. It's happened in some other sports, but it's never happened in skiing, so it's an incredibly unique thing.

 

“And for these guys who are seniors, Sam and Josh (Haarmann), it's pretty unbelievable,” said Broderick. “Four in a row is pretty spectacular.”

 

At Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont, the Eagles soared to defend their state title, their 5:01.12 combined time edging Concord-Carlisle (5:08.31), Needham (5:22.62), St. John’s of Shrewsbury (5:23.30), and Winchester (5:24.87).

 

“You need three strong skiers to win this,” said Sam’s father, Steven Charrette. “So if you have three strong skiers, which they do, that’s why they've always been able to win the title.”

 

The 18-year-old Sam Charrette, a team co-captain, led the way by winning the giant slalom and finishing fifth in the slalom, the top St. John’s finisher, just ahead of teammate Owen McLain, a junior from Beverly, and fellow senior co-captain Josh Haarmann of Boxford. McLain also nabbed a 4^th-place finish in the giant slalom.

 

“For the last three years, it’s been on me, Josh, and Owen McLain to win states, and we pulled through all three years,” said Charrette. “Last year I didn’t have a great year, but I was still Top Ten. So we knew we had the best team. We just all had to finish.”

 

This year, Charrette put it all together. The first place finish in the GS, combined with his 5^th place slalom result, gave Charrette the overall boys’ individual title.

 

“In practice, I almost never finish a run, but when I finish I'm fast,” he said. “That was probably the first ski race I ever won, so I felt pretty good. I had won at Bradford (in Haverhill, the home hill of the Eagles), but that doesn’t really count.”

 

As opposed to the gentle runs at Ski Bradford, Berkshire East’s steeper slopes suited Charrette’s wiry 5-foot-10, 155-pound frame.

 

“I'm good at skiing pitches, so I feel like it played to my strengths,” he said.

 

For Broderick, both the team and individual titles were a fitting culmination of Charrette’s 4-year ski racing career.

 

“Sam's one of those guys who basically has continuously competed to be at the top, and in his eyes, I feel like he always just felt like he comes up just shy of his own expectations,” said Broderick. “He has very high expectations for himself. And if he doesn't meet them exactly as he sees, then he feels like he came up short.

 

“So, one of the nice things about (Tuesday) was, he couldn't say that, because he won,” said Broderick. “To have that as your last memory is pretty awesome.”

 

Charrette has attended St. John’s since 6th grade, and started ski racing with the Eagles his freshman year. Before that, he began running gates as a 9-year-old, following friends from the Mountaineers development program at Attitash Mountain in Glen, NH, to the resort’s alpine race team. Four years ago, after meeting Haarmann at St. John’s, he moved to the alpine race team at Gunstock Mountain in Gilford, NH, where he really honed his downhill skills.

 

“To be honest, when I first started, I wasn’t that good, but I stuck with it and got a little bit better each year,” said Charrette.

 

“A lot better,” added his father.

 

There won’t be much time for Charrette to celebrate his ski team’s title. During the season, he also ran track for the New England Elite program out of Andover, specializing in longer sprint distances, including the 200 and 400-yard dash. He plans to compete for the Eagles track team this spring.

 

“My goal is to break the school record for the 200,” Charrette said, referring to the SJP mark of 21.8 seconds.

 

As for next year, Charrette is still waiting to hear from several schools, including the University of Massachusetts and the University of Utah, and may even take a gap year. He doubts that he’ll ski race in college, though running track is a possibility.

 

Whatever the future holds, Charrette will always have four consecutive state ski titles to his name. And very few ski legends can make that claim.

 

FINIS

The Ballad of Upright Hank

Feb. 28, 2025

I'm fortunate enough in my line of work, every now and then, to go walking down Memory Lane and write about it. This essay, originally entitled "The Man in the Stands," was written for New Hampshire Magazine,. It took me all the way back to my turbulent teens. I didn't realize then just how lucky I was to have so many people who cared so much for me. But I do now, and I can still honor them. 

Best, -Brion

PS ... Many thanks to colleague Peter Noonan, who created the accompanying cartoon!

 

The Ballad of Upright Hank

 

Last June, my cousin, Dr. Amy Paré, sent me a text. She was helping my uncle, Dr. William Paré, organize the large home he shares with my Aunt Marilyn. Amy’s text included a cartoon I drew on the envelope of a letter I’d written in the early 1980s to Uncle Bill’s father – our Grandpère.

 

Henry Paré immigrated to the Granite State from Quebec as a teenager, finding work with Public Service Company of New Hampshire. He married Laura Trudel, and settled on Manchester’s West Side, where they raised three children. As far as I can remember, I loved being with him. My father was a sports fan, but worked long hours. Grandpère, who particularly enjoyed baseball and hockey, became our sports muse.

 

He regaled his grandchildren with wildly exaggerated tales of his competitive exploits, assuming the nickname “Upright Hank.” It was perfect – silly and self-effacing. The cartoon I drew more than 40 years ago was of “Upright Hank,” skating down the ice, puck on his stick.

 

It was late winter of 1982, my penultimate year at the University of New Hampshire, when my Sigma Beta intramural hockey squad played for the ballyhooed campus championship. Comically, I wasn’t even a Sigma Beta brother. A couple of hockey-playing pals belonged, and they needed a goalie. I was recruited as a “social member.” That arrangement – all the benefits, no initiation – suited me fine.

 

After a competitive season, the title game at Snively Arena came down to our Greek crew against Congreve Hall, the dorm where I lived (one of my best friends, a Derryfield School graduate named Geoff Brown, was the other goalie). It was a spirited match. Knowing I was hobbled by a hamstring tear, my Beta teammates stepped up admirably. We won, 4-3, barely surviving a furious Congreve onslaught in the final minutes.

 

It was only the second title of any significance that I’d won (after Manchester Central’s city soccer championship in 1974). The madcap joy of the Beta boys far exceeded the game’s importance. But it was fun.

 

On the bench, as I slowly peeled off my sweat-soaked gear, I noticed a solitary figure sitting in the stands, taking in the mêlée. The older gentleman – maybe a custodian – was dressed in dark blue chinos, a dark blue shirt, and a gray sweater. I immediately thought of Grandpère, who often came to my high school practices and games. But there was a championship party to attend. I packed up and headed to Sigma Beta.

 

When I got to Beta’s front door, some big jamoke stuck his meaty paw in my chest and asked: “Who are you?” Smiling, I replied: “I’m the goalie.” The door opened wide, and the beer flowed freely into the wee hours.

 

The next day, though, the image of the older man in the stands stayed with me. All I could think of was Grandpère, watching me play during my short two years at Manchester Central. I didn’t recall the games, when JFK Coliseum or another local barn was filled with friends and family members. I thought of the after-school practices, when the building was practically empty except for the players and coaches on the ice. There was Grandpère, always, observing dutifully from the stands.

 

Afterward, I’d load my equipment into Coach Finnegan’s wagon, and Grandpère drove me home. He’d offer advice, and I would ignore it. I had become, like too many teenagers, far too smug. But by February of 1982, I’d matured a little. In hindsight, I saw how much being there meant to Grandpère. I realized how much it meant to me. I wrote him a short letter of thanks, including the aforementioned cartoon, to say how grateful I was.

 

Years later, at Grandpère funeral, Uncle Bill rose to speak. He produced my letter, apologized for not asking permission, and then shared it with the congregation.

 

“After all these years, just like when we were kids, he was still looking after his family,” said Uncle Bill.

 

I sobbed.

 

For the next 40 years, my cartoon stood on a cherished spot on Uncle Bill’s office desk. Thanks to my uncle’s generosity, it now graces my home office. It’s a wonderful memento. I only hope I can be there for my grandchildren, like “Upright Hank” was for us.

 

FINIS

Manchester's Melting Pot

Dec. 23, 2024

 

In the summer of 1974, my Mom uprooted my five siblings and me from our home in northeastern New Jersey, a stone’s throw from the George Washington Bridge, and relocated the clan to Manchester’s North End. For Mom, it was a homecoming. She was raised by my Grandmere and Grandpere Pare on Lafayette Street, on the city’s predominantly French-Canadian West Side.

 

Mom’s brothers – my Uncle Arthur and Uncle Bill – were a pair of studs, playing football and baseball for the Giant Killers of St. Joseph High School for Boys (now the co-ed Trinity High School). William “Bill” Pare later played football at Fordham, and was inducted into the Trinity’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. But it was my Uncle Art, who would go on to become a Jesuit priest, who would change the trajectory of my athletic life.

 

While a novitiate in Beirut, Lebanon, the future Father Pare was introduced to global “football,” the sport we call soccer. He was absolutely smitten. When Mom suggested that we were interested in football, Art quickly interjected: “Jane, you really need to have the boys play soccer.” It was a serendipitous moment in my sporting “career.”

 

In the early 1970s, New Jersey was a true social melting pot, an early hotbed for American soccer. My brothers and I were incredibly fortunate to meet a remarkable coach, Joseph Camilleri, a native of Malta who founded the Leonia Soccer Association a few years earlier. We had the O’Connors – the sons of Irish and French-Canadien parents – plus Italians, Greeks, Germans, eastern Europeans, Central Americans, and South Americans. The teams reflected the extensive ethnic diversity of Leonia, which I loved.

 

When we moved to New Hampshire, following my sophomore year in high school, I had no idea what to expect. Though we regularly visited Grandmere and Grandpere during my childhood, I didn’t know many other kids. I couldn’t wait for Central High’s soccer practices to start, so I could meet a few fellow students before classes began. Given my somewhat limited experiences with local teens, I expected a fairly lily-white turnout. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

 

School athletic teams, as anyone who has played knows, are microcosms, small groups within larger groups. We represent the schools we play for, but aren’t always representative. Manchester of 1974 wasn’t nearly as ethnically diverse as it is today, but our soccer team certainly was. It was like the United Nations. We had names from various and sundry backgrounds, including French-Canadian (Gelinas, Cusson, Chaput, Benard), Greek (Kaliora, Lekkas, Venagas), and Equadorian (Carachuelo). We had a Luce, Larea, Demenchuk, Zito, Witcher, Johnson, Hamilton, and Connelly. Our goalkeeper was a studious senior with All-American good looks named Doug Zesiger. But the unquestioned stars were a pair of Colombian imports – Jimmy Sierra and Henry Saldariaga – and a wonderfully talented and comical Haitian, Danny Lascase.

 

“My first experience with real soccer came the summer following my freshman year at Central,” says Steve Long, a fellow junior on that 1974 team. “I played a game on a team that was shorthanded, and mostly manned by folks from the Greek community. I credit those guys with my introduction to the sport, since they encouraged me to keep playing.”

 

While Central soccer teams had rarely been anything special, Coach Robert Veilleux and the rest of us quickly realized this squad could be dominant. Except for one early season hiccup against powerhouse Alvirne squad, we ran the table, capturing the city championship with a 12-1 mark. Meanwhile, I developed the useful talent of cursing in five different languages.

 

“Hey, No. 1,” a ref once snapped at me during a game. “Repeat what you just said to me. In English.”

 

“I can’t,” I honestly replied, smiling and running away. “I have no idea what it means.”

 

What we all knew, almost intrinsically, was that soccer was game that rewarded teamwork. When all 11 players were on the same page, working as a unit, we were all but unstoppable. And we enjoyed every moment.

 

“I agree it was a special group,” says Long. “As a young soccer player, I really admired the seniors on the team, and loved joking around with my peers.

 

“I also learned a lot about being a good team member,” he says. “The 1974 team was my first brush with ethnic diversity. That helped prepare me for joining the Peace Corps and meeting my wife-to-be from Mumbai in graduate school. As a provincial kid from a New Hampshire mill town, I wouldn’t have gotten very far without my exposure to the ethnic diversity that came from playing on that 1974 team.” 

 

Today, I can’t help but think what we could all learn from my 1974 team. A half-century after that magical fall, I still look back fondly on that collection of boys who took to the rocky pitch alongside Hillside Junior High to play “the beautiful game,” and played together beautifully.

 

FINIS

 

A version of this essay first appeared in the September 2024 issue of New Hampshire Magazine.

Magic Bus – My Adventures with Grandmere

Dec. 22, 2024

                            Illustration by Peter Noonan

 

During a recent visit to Boston, I squeezed down the crowded aisle of an MBTA bus before exiting. I felt badly for the customers waiting curbside, their faces masked in resignation. Boston busses are a mode of transportation, nothing more. They aren’t fun. The other riders weren’t reveling in the experience.

 

What a difference 50 years can make. Then, riding the bus was pure adventure for me, made all the more enjoyable by a special traveling companion, my Grandmère Paré.

 

Grandmère, my maternal grandmother, introduced me to the art of bus riding before I started school. Though I grew up in New Jersey, our family often made the pilgrimage to Mom’s hometown of Manchester, N.H., and my grandparents’ home on Pickering Street. Here, during the 1960s and early ‘70s, I learned the fundamentals of big-city public transportation.

 

My grandmother got her license late in life. She was almost 70 before finally taking her driver’s test, after my grandfather suffered a heart attack. Still, Grandmère rarely drove. Taking the bus downtown – to the Queen City’s beating heart – seemed more reasonable, more practical. She let someone else do the driving.

 

The best bus rides came during winter, with whispers of light snow snaking across the freshly plowed Manchester streets. Bundled in layers – it would take us forever to get dressed, with rubber buckle-up boots and heavy snow pants – Grandmère, my siblings and I would shuffle down to the bus stop on Webster Street.

 

At least two of us would hold tightly to Grandmère’s hands. She always wore fine black gloves that she somehow never misplaced. I remember the bright green woven cap that kept her coiffured silver hair in place, and a large black and green overcoat that brought the ensemble together.

 

Her cheeks, like the young faces of her entourage, turned a healthy red in the brisk winter gusts. Though well into her 60s, Grandmère had the energy of a woman a third her age, and our walk to the bus stop was more of a race. All five of us would typically tire well before she did.

 

Climbing aboard the bus, my stubby Irish nose barely rose above the coin box. Grandmère would converse cheerily with the driver while we fumbled for the change hidden in our mitten-covered hands.

 

I never questioned whether Grandmère actually knew the driver, or the dozens of passengers she would greet with a crisp “Hello” as she ushered us to an available seat. I just figured she must. Her dazzling, infectious smile was always returned in kind. The passengers probably weren’t elated about having these rambunctious youngsters interrupting the serenity of a quiet bus ride downtown, but Grandmère always won them over. Her exuberance was contagious.

 

Like Grandmère, I couldn’t sit still. Usually, I’d try to coax a neighboring passenger into light-hearted conversation, boasting about a new toy or inquiring about this and that as Grandmère tried to corral me back to my seat. Those were especially prized moments, when just the two of us – Grandmère and me – rode to town and back. I loved the powerful, steady hum of the bus engines, and the excitement of discovering a new city with Grandmère, with stores to explore and restaurants to sample.

 

In the 1980s, Grandmère still enjoyed remarkably good health. When she celebrated her 90^th birthday, she didn’t look a day past 70. She eventually moved from the house that my grandfather built to an apartment complex off River Road. But she kept riding the bus, maintaining a fabulous rapport with other passengers, bringing many into her ever-expanding circle of friends.

 

It’s been decades – a lifetime, really – since I last rode a Manchester Transit bus. We lost Grandmère in 1994, at the age of 98. I miss the sublime sense of adventure of those wintry days on the Webster Street bus. But I cherish the memories.

 

FINIS

 

This essay originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of New Hampshire Magazine.

 

Joyeux Noel!

 

December, 2024

 

To all our friends and family,

 

Happy holidays from 11 Homestead Circle in Hamilton. It’s been a busy, and eventful, 2024. 

 

The biggest “family news” is that we’ll be officially welcoming a new member 2025, as Maddi and her partner Kate are now engaged, and will be tying the knot next October. Can’t wait to get the entire family together. Maddi continues her admirable work at Hopeful Journeys with kids on the autism spectrum while pursing her master’s degree in special education. She continues to coach volleyball with a local elite program, and plays alongside Kate – a middle school teacher, Buffalo native, and a proud member of Bills Mafia – for Amoskeag Rugby (the squad had a great fall season, making it to their league’s championship game). It’s been a blast watching her playing this new sport! We love having both Kate and Maddi – as well as their wonderful rescue hounds, Alfie and Bruce – close by, and we get to see them fairly often, which is always fun.

 

Brynne marked her 2^nd anniversary as a full-time resident of Austin, Texas, where she’s keeping the locals happy serving up craft cocktails as a bartender at the high-end van Zandt Hotel as well as a new spot, Verbena. She and her playful Great Pyrenees named Mr. Reddington (“Red” for short) are always up for company, like a visit from Grandmom this past fall (photo below). She also joined Maddi and Kate in Colorado for the surprise proposal. Brynne’s gotten into running and continues to bike, which has been a great way to stay in and shape and expand her circle of friends. We plan to visit this February, shortly after her 26^th birthday, to cheer Brynne on in her first marathon. Miss that girl like crazy, but absolutely love the phone calls!

 

Here at home, Lauri continues to hold everything together (we celebrated 30 years of wedded bliss this summer!). While the loss of her father in late 2023 was a tremendous setback, Lauri continues to care for her family, her friends, and her Mass General Brigham patients with uncommon grace and dignity. I’m truly amazed how she manages to squeeze so much love and kindness into every day. Her faithful commitment to cycling has me concerned that when I do eventually get back in the saddle, I’ll never catch her. And at this time of year, I always delight in how Lauri transforms our little cottage into a winter wonderland. I’m forever grateful for having this beautiful woman as my partner in life. 

 

As for the pet contingent, our mousers Molly and Izzy turned 15 this year, meaning the local mice have much less to worry about. For outdoor cats, though, these sisters are impressive. Our rescue Hobey (“Hobart of the Homestead”) is still the same lovable, goofy hound he was when we brought him home in the fall of 2016. He’s great company for this work-from-home hubby.

 

Though I hit the Big 6-7 in October, I’m not quite ready to cash in my writing chips. Work continues to find me, thanks to a terrific group of editors, and I still love the act of writing (looking for work is another matter, but that’s different story). I’m trying to abide by my father in-law’s mantra to “do interesting work for interesting people.” That, and striving to get back on the bike and shedding a few extra pounds (OK, more than a few) in 2025, so I can resume my favorite pastime of chasing after my wife. We postponed my planned spine surgery in early October to a later date, giving me time to trim down and get stronger. Fingers crossed.

 

As for the New Year, our wish is that 2025 brings us all moments of magic that we can enjoy and celebrate – from simple Solo Stove fires on the back deck to long walks on Singing Beach to Myopia polo matches to spontaneous gatherings of family and friends – all reminders of the all-important ties that bind us together. We are living in uncertain times, which of course is when our faith in one another matters most. I hope we can see you all sometime soon. Joyeux Noel!

 

Lots and lots of love, with big hugs and kisses,

-Brynne, Maddi, Lauri, and Brion (and Hobey, Izzy, and Molly)

 

 

 

Denial ...

Hi gang,

Well, it's been a busy, busy year since my last post, and I need to make more of a concerted effort to tend to my blogs! In less than a month, I'll celebrate the first anniversary of the little "fluff and buff" I had on my right hip, which was necessity by 40-plus years of abuse on the ice and on the soccer fields. Little did I know, at the time, that the hip arthroscopy I had done a week before my 53rd birthday would force me to take a long, hard look at my Peter Pan lifestyle of playing sports into my second half-century.

I've always bounced back from surgery, starting with work on my lower legs (both) to relieve pressure from severe shin splints in college -- which spelled the end to my budding soccer career -- to more recent 'scopes on my knees. The hip work, however, proved to be considerably more daunting. Arthritis is like that. The surgeons can shave bone and repair torn labrums and clean up the frayed cartilege (which, I might add, was plentiful in the ol' hip joint), but there was no miracle cure for the arthritis. So I'm left with a small section of the hip that's bone-on-bone, facing the prospect of hip replacement somewhere down the road, and the very real possibility that my days of playing goalie might be over (the accompanying photo was taken in the spring of 2008, shortly after my team got spanked at a tournament at Lake Placid).

All of which got me thinking about a post I penned a couple of years ago about my brother Chris, and his decision to call it quits from competitive hockey ("competitive" in the most generous sense of the word) after another tournament in Lake Placid the following year. In the true spirit of denial, I revisit that post fairly regularly. In a weird way, it helps me to stay focused on my rehab, now going on 12 months and counting. It gets me worked up into a lather about how I won't give in to Father Time, how I'll keep tilting at windmills. Sure, I don't like my odds. But I've never been much of a betting man. And as long as there's hope ...

Hanging them up ...

May 17, 2009

Boston, late evening

I had a bad feeling the moment the email downloaded on my Outlook Express. The sender was my brother, Chris, and the subject line simply read: "Hanging 'em up ..."

I didn't want to open the email, to be perfectly honest. Chris is my younger brother, by 16 months, and we'd just spent a tremendous weekend playing hockey together at Lake Placid. True, our team didn't record a single win (or a single goal, for that matter), but being on the ice with my brother was a real treat for me. I'm one of six siblings, including five boys. Yet, due to myriad circumstances, we didn't get many opportunities to play alongside each other after elementary school, though most of us continued to pursue sports.

Later in life, after my older brother Sean became an accomplished orthopaedic surgeon, our gang of old jocks would joke that our family alone would ensure him a steady practice. And Chris certainly had his share of injuries. He suffered back problems as a kid, and blew up one of his knees playing indoor soccer in college. Recently, there were knee and elbow issues (admittedly, the injury roll-call becomes a blur after a while). But if anyone could overcome an injury, it was Chris.

The guy is built like a tank, and (unlike me) has a real focus and commitment to weight-training and stretching routines. During our old-timer hockey weekend, I marveled at his adherence to his pre-game stretching ritual. Me? I pre-medicated with a 800 mg of Ibuprofen and hoped for the best. Chris was one of the best players on our team that weekend (though I'm afraid I'm damning him with faint praise, given our miserable showing), and on the long drive home we talked about getting together to play again soon. Maybe even another tournament. That's why his email took me aback.

Chris was actually writing to a guy who runs a local pick-up skate, and he had blind Cc:'d me on it. The note was brief and to the point: "Several weeks ago in one of our Monday night skates I collided hard with one of my team mates and hurt my left shoulder. The shoulder won't need surgery but I've decided it's time for me to hang up the skates. One too many sports related injuries over the years, I guess."

I knew about the shoulder injury, but thought it was, at worst, a minor hindrance. That's either a testament to my brother's toughness, or my own willingness to ignore the severity of any injury. Maybe both. Regardless, I'm hoping this is only a temporary setback (I fired a quick reply, asking: "You sure?"), and not permanent. I can't imagine that Chris has played his last hockey game. Otherwise, I'd have to acknowledge that I might be one step closer to calling it quits.

Which brings me back to Lake Placid. We had two pairs of father-son tandems on our squad, and each had the tournament photographer take a separate photo of them after the team photo was taken. I briefly considered having him snap a photo of Chris and myself, but then thought; "Nah, we'll have plenty more opportunities." Little did I know. These moments are fleeting. That's probably why they're so special to us. Enjoy them.

Best,
-Brion