St Sebastians School - Arrow Yearbook (Newton, MA)

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EMERGENCY Bruce leaves the cage to fall on a rolling puck against Sr. Clements. ,K L. U . , A 3 I.: K E Q REBOUND Deignan follows up Z1 Murphy bullet in the -if ,3jiim. game that gave us the first-half championship. OPEN SHOT Andy swings the de- fense to menace the St. Clement's cita- del.

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Trudeau rose to the occasion, however, and foiled the double try. In our cage, Bruce was superb and reached the height of his brilliance when he stopped Hart's penalty shot early in the night. It was the first time this year that the League had seen a shot of this kind awarded and it was given to the Waltham wing when Egan's attack from the rear prevented him from getting an open shot at Bruce. On the free try, Hart car- ried in as far as he dared and then scorched a low sizzler at the right side of the cage but Harrigan dropped in the nick of time to kick it aside and save the game. All during the battle, both defenses scintillated, with Boyle and Gibbons taking much of the pres- sure from Bruce. When the third buzzer sounded, it announced a scoreless deadlock that the spectators claimed was one of the finest contests of the year. On january 27th we made our first Mon- day appearance on Skating Club ice and the fact that we were opposing Malden made the gallery almost as large as it had been on past Saturdays. In getting ready for this meeting the coach tried to drive home lessons learned from the tie game of earlier in the season and warned the squad in particular that penalties could cost us the decision. We began earnestly enough, ap- plying real pressure and keeping the rubber in the enemy zone and these tactics paid off with the first goal of the night when joe Deignan rifled in a Bob Murphy pass from directly in front of the cage at 4:50 of the first chapter. From that time until late in the second stanza, the two goalies were equal to every crisis with Bruce having a VAIN THREAT joe Deignan takes a pass out that finds the Malden defense well prepared. decided edge on Dumas. When Malden laced in the tying score, it came like a bolt from the blue. Because of the effectiveness of our defense, Miller, enemy wing, elected a try from the blue line which Harrigan cleared with apparent ease but in a flash Smith pounced upon the puck and sent it past Bruce to even matters at 1-l. The final period found Malden capitalizing on its depth and skating the Red and Black lads off their feet. Using three lines in sequence, the Fellsway team took the lead at 4:42 when Donahue and Gubbins teamed up to enable the latter to push home the former's rebound. Two minutes later, the same pair did it more easily with Jack Boyle in the box and made their margin 3-1. Our for- wards threatened constantly until the game ended with Murph desperately trying a se- ries of long shots that kept Dumas on his toes. The reversal was our first of the sea- son and it served notice that Malden would be the team to beat for the League crown. We had a week to re-bound from the Malden defeat before taking on St. Pat- rick's of Stoneham in another Monday night contest. Since we were definitely out of the running for the second-half top honors, Coach Murphy saw in this game an oppor- tunity to experiment with different com- binations of forwards. Accordingly, Bob Egan started at center ice and Frank Hen- nessey climbed to a starting berth at left wing. When the action started, we noticed that Frank O'Grady, Stoneham wing who had been seriously hurt three weeks be- fore, was back in the line-up wearing a pro- tective mask. Taking advantage of an

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early whistle, Vin inserted Bob Murphy and, almost as soon as he appeared on the ice, the Red and Black leader hung up his first goal of the second half. The register was a solo affair on which Bob carried in close and whistled home the rubber. Before the period ended, however, the Green sex- tet evened matters, 'Dubber Doyle lighting the lamp on an assist from Foley. With the deadlock continuing late into the middle stanza, we realized that this game was not to be a repetition of our easy victory over the same team early in the season. We had further anxiety at 8:45 when the resourceful O'Grady back-handed a savage score that gave Stoneham a 2-1 edge. Then, to make matters worse, the Doyle-Foley combination rang the bell again at 3:30 of the final peri- od and our stock took a nose-dive. Finally, we did get something to cheer about, three minutes later, when Joe Deignan stationed himself at the enemy cage and sent home a Boyle-Egan pass to rack up our second tal- ly. At this point, in keeping with his ex- perimental policy, the coach shuffled his line-up, puttitfg Murph back on defense for a rest and moving Gibby up to the forward line. The move paid rich dividends in the closing seconds of the fray. We had been keeping the pressure on the rival citadel and Murph in particular had been bombard- ing the goalie with fierce drives that just failed to tally. There were exactly 15 sec- onds left when Jack Boyle let go a long shot that was stopped by the mass of Green and Red and Black players milling around the net. Suddenly, out of the crowd, Bill Gib- bons emerged with the rubber and had no trouble sliding it home from 10 feet out. Although it was his first goal of the year, it could not have come at a better time, for it saved us the humiliation of a second defeat and salvaged a consoling tie out of what threatened to be a stinging loss. The post- mortems among the fans brought out the fact that Mondays were certainly not our days-and they were more than able to sub- stantiate their statements. On February 8th we were glad to return to a Saturday night affair with St. Mary's of Lynn and to find it the breather that was expected. Without losing any time, Egan and Murphy spearheaded the attack, the former tallying with the aid of the latter and the latter registering unassisted at 3.42 of the initial session. Shortly thereafter, Lynn was awarded a penalty shot and, sur- prisingly enough, was able to convert it into their solitary score of the game. It was not of too great concern, however, because, in rapid succession, Boyle, Gibbons and Egan found the range and, when we skated off the ice at the end of the first ten minutes, Bruce Harrigan was the only starter who had failed to score. With a comfortable lead to work on, the reserves took over the fort in the second period and our only offensive gain was a Murphy register that swelled our margin to 6-1. Playing out the string, we picked up two more in the last chapter, Gibby doing a beautiful solo and Egan lash- ing home an opportune feed from jack Boyle. When the tiny diapers came on, it was a treat to watch the Red and Black de- fensemen set them up with passes time and time again. Although they failed to score, they came close time and time again, Mur- ray Regan being outlucked on several oc- casions. The regulation schedule reached its end when we faced off against St. Clement's and encountered the same alert opposition that gave us a hard time to win 3-2 in the first half. In many respects, the game took on the nature of a welcome tune-up for the play-off contest that had just been an- nounced for the following Monday. Dur- ing the pre-game locker room session, the coach asked for a quick-jump that would lessen the tension and afford our play-off rival scant consolation. As events turned out, it was fortunate that we did get an early lead, because St. Clement's fought hard all through the fray. Bob Egan start- ed the ball rolling at 1:27 of the first period when he tucked a Murphy pass high into