In the fall leading up to the high school hockey season, Xaverian senior Shane Spinale wasn’t sure his team would even get a shot at playing this winter.
Due to the far-reaching effects of the coronavirus and the subsequent onslaught of government-mandated restrictions that came with it in the months prior to opening night, the thought of a true season playing out in 2021 was bleak.
Rinks were shut down, leagues were canceled and thousands of players, like Spinale, were left with nothing but time awaiting the eventual go-ahead.
“For a while, I wondered if we were going to have a season at all,” said Canton, Mass., native Spinale. “I was just hoping for any type of games, anything.”
After months of discussions amongst the schools, league administrators and state officials, however, hope slowly began to re-emerge as tentative plans were made, shifting the idea of having a somewhat-normal winter season from a fantasy to a reality.
The one ray of certainty through it all: The season, if it were to happen, would be a unique one. For the Xaverian boys hockey team, that held true and then some.
The Hawks didn’t just have a season, they won their first league title in over half a century, going 6-3-1 over the course of their 10-game, one-month regular season to end a 53-year drought, capturing their first Catholic Conference crown since 1968.
The Catholic Conference, one of the MIAA’s top high school hockey conferences, is made up of six teams in eastern Mass., including traditional powerhouses BC High and Catholic Memorial.
Xaverian’s regular-season finale against Catholic Memorial doubled as its annual Hockey Fights Cancer game, a tribute and fundraising effort for the Reo Todesca Memorial Foundation, founded in 2017 for the mother of Xaverian assistant coach Paul Todesca, who was diagnosed with stage 3b squamous cell lung cancer.
Catholic Memorial edged Xaverian in that regular-season finale, 2-1, but the Hawks had done enough in the compact regular season to earn the Catholic Conference title.
“We were all in shock at first because nobody really understood,” Spinale, 17, said of the realization. “And then we kind of processed it and we were excited. I mean, no one likes losing, but we were all so excited because we had just won the league.”
In the postseason tournament, Xaverian beat Malden Catholic in the semifinals then exacted revenge over the CM Knights in the final, winning 2-1. Junior Braden O’Hara and sophomore Joe DiMartino scored the goals for the winners, with senior goalie Kevin McGrath turning aside 25 CM shots.
For Xaverian head coach Dave Spinale, hired by the Westwood, Mass., program in 2001, it was a special season for more reason than one.
“It certainly wasn’t a normal season, but it was a lot of fun,” said the elder Spinale. “That was kind of the focus: Let’s play one more day together. I feel fortunate that in this crazy year we had something to play for. That really motivated the guys. We were slow out of the gate, a little frustrated maybe, but we played well, competed hard, and to win a title for the first time since 1968 just meant a lot to this group. It meant a lot to the school and to the alumni, so we’re just so happy that everybody got to enjoy that. The outpouring has been amazing, and we’re all just so grateful.”
Above all, he got to share it with his son — a captain on the team.
“It was a storybook ending,” Dave Spinale said. “You just dream about stuff like that. Like, you can’t make that stuff up. To coach your son’s last high school game and win the league title is just what you dream about. I’m just super appreciative and humbled by it. It was awesome, it really was. We enjoyed the moment, for sure.”
Shane, who spent all four years at Xaverian under his father’s tutelage, knew the feeling of how long the team had been lusting over the crown.
“That was pretty special,” Shane said. “I’m pretty sure I saw all that through the smile after we beat CM in that last game. I’ve never seen (my father) so happy. He has been a huge part of my hockey career and I’d be nowhere near the player I am today without him. He’s made me into who I am.”
Unlike Xaverian teams of the past that have featured one or two high-end skill players, such as Ryan Pomposelli, Matty Ryan or Josh Barton — guys who put up off-the-charts numbers in their time at the “X” — this season’s team was different.
It was more of a combined effort that led the group to its historic campaign, Dave Spinale said, and even after their sluggish start to the year, which took the Hawks four attempts to secure their first real win, the players were able to right the ship.
“I think not having a go-to guy put it on everybody to go out and contribute, and the good news was we could only dress 20 guys, so all 20 played,” the coach said. “And having to play halves — you can’t roll three lines playing halves because it’s a longer period — I think they were excited to know that when they put that jersey on, they were expected to contribute and to play, and I think that changed the mindset.
“Once we got the lines, the ‘D’ pairings and the goaltending figured out after a few weeks, it all just started to click, and they started to play with a ton of confidence.”
As an integral component of the senior class, Shane agreed it was a unique group, one that made the most of each opportunity it was given, especially after all of the offseason uncertainty.
“We didn’t have the locker room, we couldn’t really do team dinners — we had to do them after practice in the parking lot — but even with all that stuff keeping us apart, I feel like this was the closest the team’s ever been in all of my years here,” Shane said. “I just think we’re all so alike. Like in the gym, we were all pushing each other to work harder, and in past years we haven’t always had that. This year, everybody had the same goal. We were all willing to work for it, and that brought us closer.”
Coach Spinale said this year is certain to go down as one of the most memorable in his 20-plus-year career of coaching at Xaverian.
“That’s what we kept saying. Like, ‘Guys, we’re creating memories here,’ ” he said.
“We had a couple minor shutdowns where we had to pause a few times, and yeah, it was frustrating, but we understood it. I just give all the guys a ton of credit because they did it, and they did it the right way. We kept asking them to obey curfew, and to their credit they did. They didn’t have to, but they did, and all the sacrifices they that made really helped us (win that title), so I really hope that they never forget it.
“I know I certainly never will.”
