BY RYAN O’CONNORSitting at a youth hockey conference, watching what was likely to be another boring prerecorded training video, Kermit Brunelle sighed. On the screen, Don Lucia, coach of the national champion University of Minnesota ice hockey team, was giving a speech. “A lot of people think I have the best job in hockey, and I tell ...

The New Hampshire Avalanche Squirt ’98 AAA team rolled through the Metro Boston Hockey League regular season, posting 35 wins without a loss. The postseason was no different. The top-seeded Avs, coached by Mike Potvin; his assistant coaches, Joe Silva, Mark Leach and Gary Saklad; and goaltender coches Bill McWhinnie and Bryan Ash, ...

BY MATT SCHOOLEYThe puck from the Division I boys ice hockey championship ended up where it spent a great deal of the game – with Bishop Guertin goalkeeper Dave O’Brien. O’Brien notched his eighth shutout of the year to lead his team to a 3-0 victory over Bishop Brady, stopping 23 shots as the Cardinals won their second straight ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORHome ice is nice, but Goffstown head coach Peter Bedford is more focused on the hot product skating on the cold surface. “I don’t care where it is, it could be in the pond out back … To me it’s an opportunity,” he said. Going into the final game of the season, the Grizzlies knew their ...

BY JERRY LIPTAKJust prior to Bishop Guertin’s inaugural NHIAA contest, the girls hockey team head coach, Mark Karaska, said he and his assistant, Myia Yates, were nervous and excited. No surprise there. Yet, after losing to host Concord on Jan. 2, 5-0, the post-game mood of a more relaxed Karaska was at least as excited, despite the ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORIt was a year of near-misses and so-closes on the 2007 Bedford sports landscape, though there were a few spot-ons mixed in. While dozens of local teams and individuals competed for the top prize in their respective class and/or division, from the youth level through high school and sometimes beyond, many went home empty ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORIt may have been the consolation game of an exhibition tournament, but the West and Central offenses hardly looked frozen on ice. After losing in the first round of the second annual Queen City Hockey Jamboree the week prior – a 3-2 setback to Trinity for West and a 4-1 loss to Memorial by Central – the two ...

BY MATT STOUT It’s a Sunday afternoon in late January, and Colleen and Bob Nagri plan to eventually settle in for the night to catch the New England Patriots’ playoff showdown with the Indianapolis Colts. Their Dodge Durango – its back windshield plastered with eight metallic silhouettes of different athletes, representing the ...

BY MATT STOUTThere was little Gary Bishop knew about Zach Musgrave before this season. In fact, even “little” may be pushing it. Where Musgrave was from, where he played the year before, what he could bring to this Bishop Guertin hockey team, the Cardinals’ 17-year coach said he knew nothing of the shaggyhaired junior ...

BY MATT STOUTIn looking back on one of the few silver linings in his team’s 2- 15-1 season, West hockey coach Phil Croasdale said the Blue Knights’ 7-1 win over Manchester Memorial on Jan. 27 – easily the squad’s most decisive victory, both moral and actual – wasn’t unlike many of the other games the group ...