This story is from the December issue of the New England Hockey Journal. Subscribe here.
If he’d been a hockey player a generation earlier, he would have clipped out the notification and posted it on the locker room wall for all to see.
Instead, when Matthew Manning and his Worcester State teammates saw the preseason poll in the MASCAC on the league website — with their team picked for sixth out of seven teams — they posted it to a more modern bulletin board.
“One of my teammates was on the website,” said Manning. “The first thing he did was take a screenshot of it. Then he sent it into our group chat.”
Motivation. For any generation, it can do wonders.
Heading toward Thanksgiving, Worcester State looked like anything but a sixth-place team. It owned a 4-1 overall record and stood 3-0 in the MASCAC heading into a battle against defending champion and perennial pace-setter Plymouth State.
“Can’t complain about winning all our league games,” said Manning. “We’re happy, but we’re not 100 percent happy. We still want to improve.
“A couple of games, we haven’t been too happy about how we started, but it shows that even if we’re down a couple goals, we can come back.”
There’s a tenacity to this team, personified by Manning, a 5-foot-7 junior whose skating and shooting ability are eclipsed only by his fervor to compete.
“It’s hard to explain to kids nowadays,” said Jerry Domish, his junior coach with the Philadelphia Junior Flyers. “You can be 6-foot-4 but if you don’t want the puck as much as he does, he’s definitely going to take it from you. He’s like a pit bull.
“If that kid was 6-feet, he’d be playing in Hockey East.”
The MASCAC is suiting Manning just fine. He’s got 54 points to his name in 56 career games, with his production increasing every year. A left-handed shot, he’s centering brothers Tim and Kevin Drevitch on the Lancers’ top line, and serving as a team captain.
“Obviously, impressed with his work ethic, his attention to detail and his overall commitment to the program,” said Worcester State coach Shayne Toporowski, whose own playing career included a short stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs. “He plays bigger than he is. He’s very good in his defensive zone, very good on the power play and very good on faceoffs.”
If Manning’s road to Worcester State had a title, it might by “East by Northeast.” After starring in high school in his native Michigan — his dad, Tim, starred at the University of Michigan, leaving as the top-scoring defenseman in program history — he played a season for Domish with the Junior Flyers.
“I’m from Michigan, so I follow high school hockey there a lot,” said Domish. “He’s just a heavy-duty competitor. He competes hard on every play and his ice awareness is amazing.”
A relationship between Domish and Worcester State assistant John Coughlin Jr. put Manning on that school’s radar. He liked the school and the program, the renderings of the new Worcester Ice Center that would be opening down the road, and the chance to be part of a rebuild.
He adjusted to the physicality enough as a freshman to rank third on the team with 18 points. He upped his production to 12-19-31 as a sophomore as the Lancers finished above .500 and 8-8-2 in conference play.
“When I’m playing well, I’m a hard worker, a guy who gets pucks to linemates and defensemen,” he said. “I don’t see myself as a huge goal scorer.”
The Lancers aren’t going to wow anyone with their goal production. They’ve got a good top line, and experienced defensemen Nick Patullo and Colin Whitt who are tough to play against.
The question now is whether Worcester — and a few other teams in the league — have shrunk the gap that separates them from Plymouth, the team that annually tops the league’s preseason poll.
“I definitely think it’s a manageable gap,” said Manning, “and every year, it’s whoever shows up on a nightly basis.”
“I’m real excited,” said Toporowski. “We’re young but we’ve got a good core. There’s a lot to grow here and we’re going to keep building it. … I’m excited about the future of Worcester State hockey.”
And if the other teams want to give them more material for their group chats, even better.
“Seeing that definitely gave us a spark,” said Manning. “We want to prove the people wrong who voted us in that spot.”
@MikeZhe603
