Barry Almeida closed his eyes, tapped the heel of his hockey stick on the ice three times and said, "There’s no place like home."
That’s all it took, and he was home again, back playing the ice game in his native state of Massachusetts. OK, he didn’t really channel his inner "Wizard of Oz." But Almeida, who competed in Europe for the Coventry Blaze (European Ice Hockey League) and HC Gardena (Alps Hockey League) last season, still champed at the chance to skate for a close-to-hometown team once he found out the ECHL’s Worcester Railers HC was going to play its inaugural season in 2017-18.
