What did you do during quarantine?
As the weeks and months of living with COVID-19 present throughout the United States continued, Jake Adkins and Andy Walker wanted to make sure that they would be able to provide a most unique answer.
While living together in a South Boston apartment, the rising UMass Boston sophomores planned an inline skating journey that would raise money for the American Cancer Society and take the pair — now known as the “Men In Blades” — from their apartment on the Boston harborside campus to Walker’s hometown of Mason, Mich.
Yes, nearly 900 miles in less than a week and a half.
What started as simply purchasing pairs of Rollerblades to help the Beacons forwards stay in shape before a possible return to the ice in the Division 3 New England Hockey Conference at some point this winter turned into one of the summer’s feel-good stories, landing them on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and numerous other news outlets around New England and near their respective homes.
“We had our hands tied and boredom really set in during the quarantine, so we wanted to stay on our feet and ordered Rollerblades,” Walker said. “The whole thing kind of just took off one day and I asked Jake how much it would take to go to Los Angeles. That was pretty unreasonable, but that kind of transpired to going to my hometown for a cause.”
Such a trip was never on a bucket list for Adkins and Walker, but the idea of this ultimate ride on wheels came up quickly to benefit a good cause in the midst of the world’s current trying circumstances.
The cause of choice was cancer, which has touched the families of both players, adding extra motivation to organizing and completing the journey. Adkins’ mother is in remission after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014. Walker’s grandfather passed away from cancer when he was young.
The Men In Blades completed their journey in increments of about 80-100 miles over 8½ days and have raised more than $28,000 (and counting) for the American Cancer Society on a GoFundMe page that is still actively accepting donations.
Before Adkins and Walker left Boston and headed west on July 13, there was lots to plan. They mapped out roads for them to Rollerblade on as they moved from Massachusetts through New York, Pennsylvania (where hilly roads presented some of the greatest obstacles), Ohio and into Michigan. An RV with family and medical support followed them every stride of the way.
“If you would have told me a year ago that I would have done this over the summer, I would have told you, you’re crazy,” said Adkins, a Centennial, Colo., native who played his junior hockey for the EHL’s New Hampshire Avalanche before arriving at UMass Boston for this past season.
“I would never have imagined something like this, but I think Walker and I are very, very driven and always aspire to be something great. When we were presented with an opportunity like quarantine to do something nobody has ever done before, we started taking it more and more seriously. It definitely paid off.”
There certainly were some doubters at first, and the hot and humid weather along the way took a toll on the body, causing heat exhaustion and a temporary loss of vision at times, and created some sleeping habits that were still being re-adjusted more than a week after the trip was complete.
Even Beacons head coach Peter Belisle (Manville, R.I.) had some questions for Adkins and Walker when he learned about their prospective travels. Though the 15th-year bench boss joked that such a trip on “Blades” was not part of the team’s summer workout program, he was nothing but proud after hearing the detailed plans that were established and their excitement to help the greater good.
“I remember they called me and I kind of braced myself after they said, ‘Coach, we’ve got something to tell you,’ but it was awesome,” Belisle said. “I thought, ‘You guys are crazy! Is that even possible? Are you going to Rollerblade on highways?’ But they had a really good plan.
“They’re two really bright, smart kids that are just an absolute pleasure to coach. In this day and age, those guys are almost old-school souls.”
While the “crazy” moniker was thrown around in a joking manner a lot, Belisle’s initial tone was unique among all of the conversation that Adkins and Walker had with those around them.
Talking to Belisle, “It was the first time that someone actually expressed concern toward our well-being and wasn’t just calling us crazy,” Adkins said. “I guess that was more expected from an adult than someone our age, but I think that was also the first call where someone was more excited than we were about what we were doing.”
That support for the “Men in Blades” was felt before, throughout and after their journey to the Great Lakes State — from their Beacons coaching staff and teammates and the entire hockey and college athletics communities.
“We really learned how close and how tight the hockey world is, and I think we really proved that student-athletes can be a part of something bigger and send out a strong, positive message,” Walker said. “That was our goal, not just to raise money for cancer. It would be a shame if we didn’t get to have a season, obviously, but this is something we could do to get through this time together as a community.”
As Walker touched upon, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding a return to play for the Beacons and their conference rivals in 2020-21, even as the start of a new academic year approaches in September.
UMass Boston was among the first Boston schools to announce that it would both hold its entire fall semester online and cancel its fall sports seasons. The NEHC, in which the Beacons men’s and women’s hockey teams both compete, already has delayed conference play until at least the start of the new calendar year.
While the vast majority of the news has been negative for weeks and months, Adkins and Walker provided a welcomed distraction for all of the Beacons as they continue to hope for some semblance of an upcoming hockey season.
“More and more schools are following along those lines now, but we felt like we were the first ones, maybe the only ones that were going to,” Belisle said. “As a hockey team, and their coach, we really needed it. We were down. It’s been a bummer. Seeing what Jake and Andy did was a pick-me-up that I’ll never forget, that’s for sure.”
NOTE: This article appears in the August/September issue of New England Hockey Journal. Read the issue at https://hockeyjournal.com/issues/august-september-2020/.
