TRUE GRIT

      Way back three months ago, during the blog season preview meeting, coach Dick Dodds mentioned that his team would be playing a whole lot of games at JFK arena during the regular season and specifically made mention that this would be important for his team given the NHIAA Division 1 semifinals would be held there in March.  Perhaps this seemed a bit farfetched at the time given the 11 departed seniors from the 2016-17 team and the wealth of inexperience taking the ice for the Marauders this year.  But here we found Hanover in the semifinals on a snowy, wet, dank night in the Queen City, squaring off against rival Bishop Guertin for the second time this season in front of a large crowd of BG supporters which conservatively outnumbered the Hanover fans 10:1.

Total Team Effort

      So again the boys from those small rural towns way up in the Connecticut River Valley with names like Hanover, Norwich, Lyme and Strafford took the ice against the large, private school in Nashua.   A school with the ability to recruit hockey players from anywhere, even across the state line into Massachusetts.  A school with a schedule that played teams out of state, perhaps so they would have more competition during the regular season in preparation to play against the in-state New Hampshire teams that can’t recruit. A team that started five senior skaters all looking to make the Hanover 3-1 victory 6 weeks ago look like a complete aberration.  This was going to be a green and gold stomping that would end with a trip around the corner to SNHU arena for a state title match-up on Saturday.

      And there were our local boys – townies really.  Kids who played together growing up in that old-school Campion rink.  Many of them and their families getting hooked on the game with the oh-so-enticing 8:00 am learn-to-play ice time (that’s how they suck you in by the way).  Kids who sometimes made the white team, sometimes the green team, and even occasionally the blue team.  There were tournaments in which they played knee hockey in the halls, invaded the hotel breakfast buffets, and lost more than once because of too much pool time.  And they played this weird thing in the spring called “Dick Dodd’s Spring Fling” which kept them on the ice through April and introduced them to the legend that would someday get them here to the Queen City on this dark, March night.

      So as the warm-ups concluded, the anthem wrapped up, and the boys got ready to start their first shift, the BG team with their mullets and mohawks were whacking their sticks on the boards in preparation for the Hanover hick beat down.  The Marauders (17-3 and 20-4 overall), well they didn’t yell and scream and bang their sticks, they just came out with a calm confidence as the action opened on the first of the Division 1 NHIAA semifinal games.  And perhaps they knew a few things that no one else did in the rink, namely:

1. We had Harris LaRock
2. We had Duncan Bailey
3. We had one incredibly gritty team

      As the starting five for both teams took the ice and an unusual line-up came out for the Marauders, there was one other thing that Hanover knew:

1. We had one heck of a game planning coaching staff

      As expected, BG came out big, mean, physical and skilled.  Really for the first two minutes of the game, the puck lived in the Hanover defensive zone.  It was only at the 2:00 mark that the Marauders were able to get their first shot on Cardinal goalie Colin Freitas and surprisingly, the net did not find its way off its stanchions.  With perhaps the confidence knowing that they would not be shooting on a moving target, the second Marauder rush of the night came up with the game’s first score.  With sophomore Owen Stadheim dangling around the net, he and linemate David Lehmann came crashing in on Freitas and with a quick forehand in the middle of the scrum on an assist from Stadheim, Lehmann put the Marauders out in front 1-0 at 2:30.  And it was almost as if a giant sucking sound could be heard coming from the BG stands as if to say –Holy moly, here we go, could a loss really happen?

      For the most part for the remainder of the first, it was almost all Cardinals, with Hanover holding on for dear life behind LaRock’s steady leadership in the net.  And the first period featured one of the key differences between Hanover and most of the teams in New Hampshire hockey this year – absolutely dominant special teams play.   Going a man down on (surprisingly) the only penalty of the first period, the Marauders killed off the stout BG powerplay beginning with 1:37 left and giving them the lead at the first intermission.

      Coming out to start the second, all the Hanover partisans knew that they just had to get through 23 seconds to finish off the man-down and then everything would be OK.  Well they did that, but then with 14 minutes left in the second, in what was one of the worst minutes for the Marauders this season, first Matty Gardner and then Braxton McNulty went down with leg injuries.   To add insult to injury, McNulty was called for a penalty on the play putting the Marauders once again on the man down.  Two injuries, needing a penalty kill, in a hostile environment, on the road.  Hanover needed something bad or their season would end on this night to a merciless Cardinals team sensing sudden vulnerability.  And then in stepped Bailey, and along with sophomore Sy Oberting, himself battling a hip injury, these two killed off the most important penalty of the year – true grit.  With the kill, Hanover suddenly had some spring in their skates and still clinging to the 1-0 lead, went up on the powerplay with 8 minutes to play.  But BG was too strong to go down two goals and on a clear from deep in their zone, 6’6” senior Doug Barker collected the pass at the red line behind the pushing Hanover D and walked in alone on LaRock to make it 1-1 with 7:40 to go. 

      So here we were, all of the momentum in BG’s favor, halfway through the game.  Hanover needed something, anything to break the cycle – enter Bailey.  Taking a pass from Rowan Wilson at the point, Bailey fired a rope from just inside the far blue line that will be the centerfold in this month’s edition of “Bar Down Magazine”.  The most important goal of the season to put Hanover up 2-1at 10:09.  And just like that, all of a sudden those nasty Hanover forecheckers – Elias Zinman, Charlie Plottner, Cameron Woods, Peter Warhold, Patrick Daly and Wilson came alive.  For the remainder of the period they were like a pack of mad dogs, nipping and biting at the Cardinals to keep them away from LaRock and the beleaguered defense.  And as McNulty and Gardner came back on the ice, each doing their best Willis Reed imitations, Oberting, Bailey and LaRock stood tall and kept the score in Hanover’s favor in the face of the BG student section’s well wishes coming from behind the net.  However, all of that hard fore- and back checking work paid off because it frustrated BG, and led to late-hit call that put Hanover on the power play deep in the second period.  With a play that has paid off more dividends this year than Berkshire Hathaway stock, Gardner found Stadheim on the far circle who fired across the crease to the waiting Lehmann who calmly rocked it past Freitas at the back door, just before the sophomore goalie knocked the net off the stanchions (yes, this did happen).  Not this time and Hanover went into the final period up 3-1.

      We’ll never know what was said or done in that Hanover locker room between periods – Torodol injections, team massage, playing of Herb Brooks’s miracle speech about being “our time” – who knows.  What we do know is that everyone in that rink tonight knew a dogfight would be on and as seemingly half of the Marauders team came out of the locker room behind nursing home walkers, it would come down simply to who wanted it more.

      Well for sure Harris LaRock wanted it and was not going to end his senior season watching BG celebrate over the Marauders in the playoffs for the second straight year.  Facing more heat than a Death valley summer, LaRock stared down every Cardinal blast thrown at him.  The most amazing part of his performance was the lack of rebounds he gave up as the big, BG forwards came charging in repeatedly.  As you may recall, LaRock’s only penalty of the year was in the first BG game when he introduced Barker’s facemask to his glove hand deep in the third.  But as the Marauders showed all year long, their restraint in the face of aggression was one of their greatest assets.  Not even at 8:55 gone by when BG closed to within 1 on a Liam Nye blast from the right circle that somehow found its way through LaRock, did he or the Marauders become rattled.  As the clock ticked down to the 5:40 mark, and the rink filled to capacity with the Bedford and Concord fan contingents here to watch the second NHIAA semifinal, Hanover found itself yet again on the kill when Bailey made a game saving slash to keep a 2 on 0 from coming in on LaRock.  With the game in the balance, the aggressive Hanover forecheck kept BG at bay and the defensive rotation continually went down to block BG blasts.  At 3:30 left the Hanover partisans breathed a huge sigh of relief only to nearly choke when a dubious hooking penalty on Lehmann had Hanover on the man down again with 3:14 left.

      This was the moment – the moment for why you wake up at 4:30 am to go to practice, the moment for why you don’t get your mullets, the moment for why you engender a spirit of inclusiveness and not egoism, the moment for why you play for your town, the moment for why you play hockey.  This moment will never be seen in the scoring sheet, but is the moment that won Hanover the right to play on Saturday.  Sometimes it is said that the best thing you can do late in the third when you’re up a goal and your team is running on fumes is to take a penalty, because at least then you can ice the puck and give your team a rest - David probably knew this all along.  So, as BG pulled their goalie for the 6-4, Hanover killed it off with tenacity, some luck, lots of deep dumps into BG territory, fortitude and most importantly, true grit.

      With the final buzzer, LaRock was mobbed by his teammates after turning in the most clutch performance this blogger has ever seen in a goalie - 31 saves, with 10 critical stops coming in the third.  But this was a team win through and through that was much more impressive than will ever be seen in the scorer’s column. It wasn’t a pretty win – far from it – but it was a great win.  It was a great win for the young Hanover Hockey kids in the audience, it was a great win for the parents and families, it was a great win for the Marauder alumni hockey players and especially last year’s seniors, it was a great win for the best coaching staff in New Hampshire hockey (What flavor gum was Rowan Wilson chewing Petterson?), it was a great victory for town hockey in a place where this still matters,  but most of all it was a great victory for those Hanover hick players who won this game because they wanted it a hell of a lot more than their opponent.  By the way, plenty of good hockey teams to play right here in New Hampshire BG.

      Said Dodds after the game “Tonight was a total team effort.  It was nice to get out to a one goal lead and Duncan’s goal right after Guertin scored gave the team a big lift because everyone loves Duncan. And of course Harris was huge tonight.”

      One could say that it doesn’t matter how this season turns out on Saturday at 12:15 at SNHU arena – it’s only one game, our players are hurt and tired, it’s been a long season, etc.  Except it does matter, to the players, to the coaches, to the families, to the school and to the town.  It will be the first trip to the finals for Hanover since 2011 – see you Saturday.