For 17-year-old, hockey-loving Tabor Academy junior Jack DesRuisseaux, the night of Nov. 6, 2021, started as a typical Saturday night.
With fall hockey winding down and the return of prep school hockey on the horizon, he was on the ice with his split-season team, the GBL Bruins, playing the Boston Junior Eagles in an 18-U contest at Dorchester’s Devine Memorial Rink.
The game got underway and everything seemed par for the course. Until it wasn’t.
Between periods, his coach, Bret Tyler, pulled him aside; Jack’s mom, Colleen, had received a phone call that no family member of a firefighter ever hopes to get. His dad, Manchester (N.H.) fire captain Steve DesRuisseaux, had been severely injured while battling a fire trying to rescue residents trapped in a multi-family apartment building. He was being flown to Mass. General for surgery after suffering second- and third-degree burns to more than 40 percent of his body.
