The Cushing Academy boys varsity hockey locker room is tightly nestled underneath the purple seats in Theodore Iorio Arena. It’s a large dressing room, with individual stalls, cushioned seats and a massive Penguins logo in the middle. There’s a whiteboard big enough for the whole room to see. It rivals almost all college hockey and NHL dressing rooms.
But getting into that locker room requires walking through a gauntlet of messages such as “RELENTLESS POSITIVITY” and “TOGETHER WE CAN” pasted on the walls.
The biggest one comes plastered on the door to the locker room: “If You Are Not Prepared to Put The Team First TURN AROUND.”
Those messages aren’t for looks — Cushing lives by it. Last season was Paul Pearl’s first as head coach. He saw it, especially with the older players.
“What I really liked about last year’s team was there were a lot of upperclassmen, who’ve since graduated, who really bought in to the whole ‘team’ notion that we try to establish here,” Pearl said.
Last year’s team took that message on the locker room door to heart and ran with it.
Cushing went 17-7-3 in Year No. 1 under Pearl, a Winthrop, Mass., native. That team mentality was on full display in the Cushing dormitories when the squad found out it was headed to the NEPSAC Elite 8 playoff tournament.
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Just days earlier, after a 5-2 loss to New Hampton, Cushing thought its dreams of scoring a spot in the Elite 8 were cooked.
“We’re not going to make it,” Cushing defenseman Ryan Philbrick remembered thinking.
But then Cushing beat Governor’s Academy, 4-1, in the final game of the season, and a few other teams in contention for the Elite 8 lost. That paved the way for Cushing to get the No. 7 seed. Most of the players were together when they found out.
“The group chat was blowing up,” Cushing defenseman Zach Rizzo said.
Less than a week after experiencing the excitement of making the Elite 8 as a team, Cushing went through a much different emotion as a team.
The Penguins traveled to No. 2 Avon Old Farms in the quarterfinals. Avon Old Farms had the place packed and scored 13 seconds in, never looked back and knocked Cushing out with a 6-0 thumping. “I caught myself tearing with 10 minutes left in the game,” said Landan Resendes, a Boston College commit. The team was shocked by such an ugly loss.
“I never want to feel this way again,” Cushing forward and UConn commit Ethan Gardula thought to himself in the moments after the loss.
Gardula wasn’t the only one who had a sour taste in his mouth. Rizzo spent the offseason hearing about it.
“It was definitely really embarrassing,” he said. “I hear about it from my friends back home who play at prep school, too.”
When the returning players gathered shortly after the loss, the message was clear: Cushing will compete next year and we don’t plan on losing in the quarterfinals again.
Danny Resendes, Landan’s father, didn’t know much about the hockey scene when he laced up his son’s first pair of skates and saw the young boy skating around with a smile. Danny still didn’t know much about the sport when he took Resendes to try out for the Assabet Valley Patriots when he was 7 years old.
After the tryouts ended, coach Travis Tucker brought all the parents into a room and announced the names that would be on the team. Resendes’ name wasn’t called. The 7-year-old didn’t take it well, crying as Danny delivered the news to him in the car ride.
What Danny did know was from that point forward, he would do whatever it took to make sure Resendes was in a position to succeed on the ice.
“It was the first step to realize a ton of kids play hockey and nothing is guaranteed in life or anything,” Landan said. “Just working hard and always persevering through whatever the outcome may be and getting (the most) out of it.”
Resendes spent that summer skating and playing at nearby New England Sports Center. Tucker took notice and gave Resendes a spot on the team he initially didn’t make. Resendes never looked back and returned the favor to Tucker, staying with Assabet until he was 14.
“Me and my dad would always be getting told, ‘You should switch to the (Eastern Hockey Federation)’ but we just stuck with it,” Resendes said. “My dad always told me, ‘If you’re good enough, they’ll find you.’ ”
Early on at Assabet, Resendes got extra ice time as an alternate with the Minuteman Flames’ ’05 team. On the Flames, Resendes met and began playing with a left-shot forward from Princeton, Mass., named Ethan Gardula. The boys later started at Hillside School the same year as well, with Gardula entering as a sixth-grader and Resendes entering in Grade 5.
A byproduct of Gardula growing up in central Massachusetts was attending a couple of Cushing hockey games every year. When it came time for the highly regarded prospect to pick a prep school, four were in the mix: Pomfret, Groton, Lawrence Academy and Cushing. Gardula opted for the local choice.
“Definitely the right choice,” Gardula said.
While Gardula went to Cushing in 2020-21, a year severely impacted by COVID-19, Resendes spent his season playing with the Junior Bruins. He knew prep school was on the horizon. Steve Jacobs, then the head coach at Cushing and now the program director, was from Hudson, Mass., and knew Resendes. Jeremy Wilson, Resendes’ skating coach, went to Cushing. And, like Gardula, Resendes attended Cushing hockey games growing up. All signs pointed to one place.
“It was a no-brainer,” Resendes said. “I’ve dreamed of playing here.”
Resendes’ move to Cushing meant he and Gardula were reunited. The two were linemates last season and produced immediately. Resendes notched 13 goals and 24 points in 24 games; Gardula posted six goals and 26 points in 24 games.
“He sees the ice so well,” Resendes said of Gardula. “Just getting open when he has the puck is what I try to do, and when I have the puck, I’m trying to find him as well.”
Both stat lines drew attention from multiple Division 1 college hockey programs.
UConn stood out for Gardula. On his first visit, he was sold, but his parents told him to take some time to think about it. “All right, I’m done. This is the spot for me,” Gardula remembered thinking after his second visit, and that was that — the playmaking wing committed to UConn on Sept. 1.
Resendes took a slightly different approach. He always had his sights set on Boston College throughout his childhood. He was close with former BC captain Teddy Doherty, and in 2014, the Eagles defenseman brought 9-year-old Resendes into the locker room after they won the Beanpot. Resendes even got to hoist the trophy.
“It was really surreal,” Resendes said of that Beanpot. “Just talking to the guys and them introducing themselves, I wanted to be here when I’m older.”
So it probably wasn’t a surprise when Resendes committed to BC on Aug. 15.
“I like what they do with small players like Johnny Gaudreau,” Resendes said. “He’s my favorite player. Obviously super talented, just growing up watching him. … The community there and just the culture — the hockey culture is just insane.”
With both freshly committed, the focus turned to this season.
When Zach Rizzo was in sixth grade, he was given an assignment called the I AM project. The goal was to get Rizzo and his classmates to write about what they envisioned their futures looking like. It required a lot of projections, such as top three colleges, top three jobs, the person you admire and a letter to your 30-year-old self.
Rizzo wrote about how he wanted to play hockey at prep school, play at a Division 1 school and even make it to the NHL.
The odds were stacked against Rizzo, but not in the normal way. Yes, of course, the odds are stacked against anyone wanting to play Division 1 college hockey and heavily stacked against those wanting to play in the NHL. But Rizzo was from Atlanta, which was far from a hockey hotbed.
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He was fortunate to have parents hailing from hockey-crazed places. His father, John, is from Buffalo, and his mother, Kathy, is from Michigan. John wanted his son to play hockey, so when Zach was 3, he laced up his first pair of skates.
“He’s been the real driving factor,” Rizzo said of his father.
Rizzo also was fortunate to grow up in the vicinity of The Cooler, the only ice rick in Alpharetta, Ga. The Atlanta Fire, one of the top teams in Georgia, played out of that rink, and Rizzo was a mainstay. The team played all over the country, so growing up, Rizzo became familiar with places up north like Boston and even locations out west such as Phoenix.
“I wanted to just keep pursuing hockey,” Rizzo said. “It was everything.”
The president of the Atlanta Fire was ex-Cushing head coach Steve Jacobs’ son, Steve. Once he knew Rizzo wanted to go to prep school, Cushing became the perfect fit. “Coach Jacobs down there told Coach Jacobs up here and they got me here,” Rizzo said.
In the fall of 2020, Rizzo touched down in Boston and began his first school year at Cushing. It was in the heart of COVID-19 restrictions, he couldn’t leave campus and the team played six games that winter.
“Definitely was my first time being away from home, so it was tough,” Rizzo said. “I was definitely homesick.” Alongside Rizzo at the time was Nikita Belik, a sophomore forward from Vinnytsia, Ukraine, and Luke Rizzello, a freshman goalie from Zurich, Switzerland.
“I feel like they really got me through it,” Rizzo said of the overseas duo.
At the same time, Philbrick was dominating the high school circuit in New Hampshire. The Concord, N.H., native was playing the role of hometown hero for Concord High School. In March 2020, his squad made the state championship game but was denied the ability to play due to COVID-19.
In his third and final year, Philbrick went out on top. Not only was he the first Concord High defenseman to register 100 points in a career, but also he led his high school to a coveted state championship.
Then came the tough call to move on to prep school.
“I kind of knew I was going to be leaving,” Philbrick said. “I didn’t know what year, but I was preparing to leave. It was definitely tough. All of my childhood friends are there. I played hockey with them growing up and then three years there. … It was one of the best times of my life playing with those guys.”
Philbrick toured Cushing virtually. He talked with Jacobs. It didn’t seem to matter that he never got a chance for an in-person impression of the campus. “I knew right when I got off the call that I was coming here,” Philbrick said.
One of the best decisions of Pearl’s inaugural season last year came when he paired Rizzo and Philbrick on defense. Rizzo posted four goals and 19 points in 24 games, while Philbrick scored four goals and had 16 points in 26 games.
“I think we play really strong together,” Rizzo said. “We know where each other is going to be and we break out the puck very easily. We’re able to see the ice well together.”
Shortly after the season ended, Philbrick announced his commitment to the University of New Hampshire, his home-state school. “I just felt that it was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss,” Philbrick said.
And as for the decision to go to Cushing?
“I think it’s the best decision I ever made,” Philbrick said.
Resendes gazes around the Poti room that overlooks the Iorio Arena ice. Named after Cushing standout and longtime NHL defenseman Tom Poti (Worcester, Mass.), the room has individual cushioned chairs for families and scouts to watch games in. Behind them are tables with chairs and a 70-inch television mounted on the wall.
But around the room, it’s a shrine to Cushing’s past. A Keith Yandle (Milton, Mass.) sweater hangs framed, commemorating his 1,000th game. A table is draped in a banner that congratulates Conor Sheary (Melrose, Mass.) for his two Stanley Cup wins with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017. Countless former players have frames dedicated to them on the wall.
Resendes is asked about the possibility of someday having his picture or jersey hanging from that same wall.
“That’s the goal,” he said.
It’s a big goal, but doable for the 5-foot-8, 141-pound right wing.
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“He’s just a super-dynamic player,” Pearl said. “His engine is always going. He’s tough, he plays physical. He’s not a small guy anymore, he’s grown. Good shot, good nose for the net and just really, really can score.”
As of now, the plan is for Resendes to head to the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the USHL before going to Chestnut Hill.
Gardula also will head to the USHL, but with the Sioux City Musketeers. His game is one centered around his intelligence and hockey IQ.
“He’s got a great hockey mind,” Pearl said. “You give him a concept, he understands it. … Not to mention he got bigger, stronger and faster over the summer and he is a really good playmaker, a really good penalty-killer and defensive player — a two-way guy.”
One area in which Gardula must improve is shooting the puck more, according to Pearl.
“He can score,” the coach said of his playmaker. “He can. He just has to shoot in order to do it.”
The 5-foot-11, 174-pound wing is eligible for the NHL Entry Draft in June. In the latest preliminary players to watch list from NHL Central Scouting, Gardula was given a ‘C’ rating. “That would be really awesome,” Gardula said of being drafted. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do but yeah, if I hear my name called, that’s amazing.”
Along with Gardula and Resendes, Philbrick and Rizzo will go their separate ways next season.
Philbrick was drafted by the USHL’s Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in May but had his rights released earlier this season. It’s still up in the air where he ends up next season.
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Rizzo is looking to play hockey in college, which is why posting a great campaign is so important for him. It’s the second full season colleges will get to judge for themselves if they want Rizzo coming to their school. Pearl likes Rizzo’s game. He just wishes Rizzo would craft more of a two-way role for himself. “He’s got a lot of the great attributes that make a good college defenseman,” the coach said.
So there’s a premium placed on making the most of this group’s swan song at Cushing.
What would it be like if Cushing were to win the Elite 8?
“That would be really special,” Gardula said. “I can’t even put it into words. It’d be super special for us. This is probably a lot of the guys’ last year, so it’s kind of one last ride.”
The team has a day-by-day approach instilled by Pearl. But there’s a real belief that this team intends to prove itself.
“You want to be back on the ice again, you want another crack at it and just staying motivated and using that in the back of your head throughout the season,” Resendes said of last year’s Elite 8 loss.
Can Cushing get back and win it?
“Yeah,” Resendes said without hesitation. “100 percent.”
