Drury-Wahconah Hockey Game Canceled
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Due to ice conditions at the Boys and Girls Club, the planned season finale between the county rivals was canceled, and it was uncertain as they left the building whether a makeup could be arranged.
“You can’t control the ice conditions,” Wahconah coach Matt Risley said. “People weren’t 100 percent sold on it, so you’d rather be safe than sorry.
“Hopefully, the [athletic directors] and the schools can get together and we can get these seniors one more game in their high school hockey careers.”
Thursday was the cutoff date for the regular season for Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association schools. But neither Wahconah nor Drury figures to make it into the 32-team Division 4 state tournament field; the teams are ranked 45th and 48th, respectively, in the latest MIAA power rankings.
Neither team made it into this week’s four-team Western Mass tournament bracket either, which allowed them to be matched up in one of the non-qualifier games for teams who did not make that tourney.
The arrangement allowed Wahconah to promote the bonus regular season rematch as a “County Championship.” Drury split with Mount Everett in their two meetings this winter; Wahconah beat the Eagles; Drury won its only regular season meeting against Wahconah on a disputed last-second goal.
Round 2 drew a healthy crowd, but about 15 minutes after the planned faceoff, rink officials announced that the game was canceled, sending fans out of the stands and past the players – dressed and ready to go – on their way out of the rink.
Drury coach Derek Durocher said the final decision to call off the game was made by the coaches and officials consulting together.
Durocher said he was not planning to give his squad an end-of-the-year speech quite so soon or under those circumstances. But he did have some thoughts about the process his players have gone through this season.
“We got a lot of youth exposed to this and acclimating to what this is,” he said. “I’m very proud of them.
“Five seniors who led them during that process, and it was very much an entire group. There are 28 of us - varsity and JV. But we don’t think of it as varsity and JV. It’s all of us. And a lot of kids got an awful lot of education this year, led by the senior group, really.”
Risley’s thoughts were on the challenges all his players have faced in their high school careers, including an entire 2020-21 season that got canceled for county icers.
“I just feel like the seniors are getting robbed one more time,” he said. “The kids have had a lot taken away from them, through no fault of anybody – just the pandemic and everything. I think we should try to make this happen for them. We’ll do our best, one way or the other, to let them have one last game.”