Hockey Veterans Play Hard at Bay State Games
 Courtesy photo |
Despite playing three games in a two-day period, the Olde Crabs looked surprisingly spry before their final game against Axiom/Bradway Financial. The Crabs looked more like excited kids than grown men going through the grind of playing four games in a span of just over 48 hours.
"There's not a lot of hitting," Crabs player Jack Foley said. "There's a little bumping and grinding, but that's about it. It's all about fun.
"The knees are probably what hurts the most after a weekend like this."
Foley is a four-year member of the Olde Crabs, a team from Danbury, Conn., which has won the Bay State Games twice in the past five years. The Masters Ice Hockey tournament is open to any team, regardless if its members are from Massachusetts or not. Foley and fellow team organizer E.C. Hoffman, a 15-year veteran of the team, said the location of the Bay State Games is a big draw to the Crabs participating in the event.
"It's a three-hour drive from Danbury, so the proximity is good," Hoffman explained.
After five years of participating in the Bay State Games, the Olde Crabs are seasoned veterans when it comes to making a good weekend out of the event. They usually stay at the Holiday Inn and always enjoy a team dinner on Saturday night. With 14 teams competing in the Masters Tournament, there is an easy way to explain why restaurants like the Freight Yard Pub and The Hub were so crowded on Saturday night.
But Foley insists the weekend is really about hockey, and the friendships you make on and off the ice.
"We're trying to stay in shape, and it's fun," Foley said. "You make a lot of good friends from it, and you stay in touch with them."
Hoffman said the Crabs play in about six or seven tournaments a year, traveling to such places like Ottawa, Ontario, Syracuse, N.Y., and Bethlehem, Pa. They also host their own tournament in Danbury, with all of the proceeds being donated to charity.
The Crabs weren't very charitable this weekend, however, outscoring their opponents 16-4 in their first three games before Sunday's final. Although there are different teams with different skill levels, Foley said most of the players just like competing against each other, regardless if the scores get out of hand or not.
"You're supposed to have fun," Foley said. "Sometimes the scores get out of hand, but overall its a gentlemen's game and everyone is here to have fun."
One team that was on the wrong side of the scoreboard was the Berkshire Nordiques. The local team founded by Mark Pasquariello of Windsor was competing in its first-ever tournament over the weekend. The Nordiques got off to a rough start, losing their first two games in the Over 40 Division by a combined score of 18-1. That didn't derail the Nordiques, however, who came back strong in a 3-2 loss to Reils Rentals on Sunday morning.
"Everyone who plays on our team plays in some fashion or another in [Berkshire] County," Pasquariello said. "These are all guys that we play with or play against during the season.
"I think the skill level in general of the first two teams we played was much higher than ours. I don't think it was so much that this is the first time we've been playing together. I don't think that was as much of an issue as we're just playing much better players. There were some guys that we played this weekend that you can tell play a lot. They're faster and more skilled."
 There were at least two teams from the Berkshires playing in the Masters Ice Hockey tournament: the Berkshire Nordiques and the Berkshire Blizzards (in blue above playing Teddy Bear Pools, which took the gold in Over 40). |
"We got killed the first two games, but the third game was competitive," Pasquariello said. "It was a good, hard-fought game until the end. We got caught on a line change and that allowed them to score their third goal. There was nobody on defense, myself included."
Pasquariello was also excited about the play of goaltender Paul Donovan, the oldest player on the Nordiques roster this season.
"Paul Donovan played exceptional for us in goal," Pasquariello said. "He could have played on any of these teams this weekend."
Donavon is a doctor of sports medicine at North Adams Regional Hospital, so there is a chance some of the players he was playing against over the weekend could be patients in his office sometime soon.
Don't count on Hoffman being one of those patients, however. Asked when he thought he would hang up his skates for good, Hoffman answered, "When they steal my bag and I can't find it before the game."
The Olde Crabs took the silver, losing 8-1 to Axiom/Financial in the final game Sunday morning.
