Bill Conboy
SHS Class of 1977
One of the notable aspects regarding the evolution of hockey in Scituate is the role specific neighborhoods played in building up interest in the sport. For some reason, interest in hockey was localized whereas interest in other sports like baseball, basketball, and football was broad. Certain neighborhoods in North Scituate, in particular, played an outsized role in creating that hockey interest. One of the best examples of this is Minot.
The Minot area of Scituate - Hatherly, Gannett, Glades Road, and Bailey’s Causeway - formed a rough square that was home to a number of great young athletes in the 1960s and 70s. The names are Coady, Donahue, Smith, Scott, Silk, Gibbons and many others. These athletes harbored a certain intensity that was infectious to the younger neighborhood kids and it was a key reason that ice hockey took root here.
Bill Conboy has an enormous amount of passion for hockey, specifically Scituate hockey. Though he’s not a Scituate native, he’s got deeper roots than more than a few townies. Billy’s parents moved the family to Scituate when he was eight. They lived in Roslindale at the time, but they had a summer house in the Egypt area of Scituate. In 1968, they bought a year-round residence in Minot.
He didn’t know it at the time, but he was about to grow up in one of the best neighborhoods in the entire South Shore for an eight-year-old boy. There were tons of other kids growing up in the neighborhood and he wanted more than anything to fit in. Sports, hockey in particular, was the way he would do it. Not large in stature, young Bill had to find a way to outhustle rather than overpower the other kids. He was in awe of the older Minot boys, and had to adapt quickly if he was going to be accepted in his new neighborhood. It was not easy. If there’s anyone who earned his way into the neighborhood, it was Bill Conboy.
Here’s how he remembers it: “I didn’t put on a pair of skates until I was ten. I don’t think I saw people skate on a pond before 1969. I was new to the game. I was ten years old but the neighborhood had a ton of guys who could skate. Guys like Kevin Donahue, Jackie Donahue, Kenny Gibbons, Sean Coady – these are the guys I watched skate and play hockey. I realized I had to come up with a plan so I could be part of it, so I could skate like them.
“Musquashicut pond was big in these days. When it froze in December, it was where everyone went. To those of us in Minot, that pond was like an NHL rink. If you were a good hockey player in Scituate in the 1960s, sooner or later you played on Musquashicut pond. Guys came from all over – the Lydons, The Donahues, the Coadys, the Griffins came over from Sedgewick Drive, the Breens and many more from the Minot neighborhood. They played pond hockey after school and pretty much every weekend.
“The older guys put two pairs of green boots down on the ice a couple hundred feet apart and that was the game right there. If the ice surface was good, there would be three or four games going on at the same time. Now, you have to understand that the game you got into depended on your ability. You were never directly told to play in one game or the other. What happened was you made your way over to a certain game because that was where you knew you belonged. New to the game at the age of ten, I was in awe of what was going on. Playing right in from of me are Sean Coady, David Silk, Robbie Griffin, Kevin Donahue, his brother Jackie…I was starstruck. I thought I was watching the best hockey players in the world. I felt right then that I needed to find a way to do this. I had to be out there playing with these guys.
“My cousins, the Scotts – Jimmy, Mikey, Kenny, Stevie – they all played hockey on Musquashicut. They grew up on Country Club Circle. I watched them play on the pond when I was nine or ten. I wanted to be out there, but I couldn’t skate. I didn’t even own a pair of skates. One of them finally gave me a pair of skates to put on and see if I could stand up. My ankles just folded. The kids all laughed at me. I thought ‘I’m never trying on a pair of skates again.’
“But something happened. I found some motivation. I didn’t tell anyone, but what I did next was walk over to the stream on the eleventh hole at Hatherly with those skates and tried again. The streams that fed the ponds on the golf course would freeze first. The ponds took a little more time. It was right around this time I got a pair of Rally Bobby Orr hockey skates for Christmas. I made sure no one was around and I put those skates on over at that stream and taught myself to skate back and forth. By myself. I had no stick or puck. I went back and forth on that stream all winter until I felt confident that I could skate. And I could.
“In the winter of 1970 I went back out onto the pond with my skates and my stick and I tried to get into one of the games that was then going on. These were mostly older kids who had been playing hockey on the pond for years. I couldn’t get in the game that day though, at least not the first time I tried. I’m on my skates watching the other kids playing right there in front of me. But they didn’t look at me. I had only one thought in my mind that day – I’m going to get into a game with these guys. I can skate now. I just need to get in there and show them. To me, watching these older kids was like watching the pros play. That’s how good they were. At least to me.
“I heard around this time that Ed Taylor was starting a hockey program at the Cohasset Winter Garden. It may have started the year before, I don’t know for sure. I remember going up there and walking into the Winter Garden. It was like Mecca. I was in awe. I couldn’t believe I was there. As it turned out, Mr. Taylor was simply trying to manage the large number of kids who had an interest in playing ice hockey. Bobby Orr had an enormous influence on hockey, especially in Scituate. Everyone wanted to play hockey and pretend they were Bobby Orr. The timing was just right - you had Bobby Orr, the Cohasset Winter Garden, and Ed Taylor all at the same time. It was awesome. I couldn’t wait to get on the ice. I remember there were four recreational teams that year for my age group – red, green, blue, and yellow. This was the Winter Garden house league. My cousins and I got on the red team.
“I have to point out that Ed Taylor had a huge influence on all of us in those days. We owe all of it to Ed Taylor. He was a tough guy, a World War II guy. He gave us our first real chance to play hockey on a real rink. Mr. Taylor put us through two weeks of instructional drills to see who could really skate. Then the teams were made up and we scrimmaged and played against each other. Just the four teams. It was a blast. I remember I had a three-dollar Hespeler stick, which was all my parents could afford, and I used it all year. Other kids had Kohos and Northlands, but not me. I had that stick for a long time. I had so much fun playing, I didn’t even care about the stick.
“One year later, there was talk about joining the Scituate Braves. I knew that the Griffins and the Donahues were playing Braves hockey at the Winter Garden. I had to know more about it. I would have been about twelve or thirteen - seventh or eighth grade. I seem to remember that Mr. Taylor ran the Braves, and that first year of instruction – the hockey drills - was to get kids like me skilled enough to join the Braves.
“By then I was too old for Peewees. I started late – I must have been thirteen. My first team was the Bantam B team. Guys like Joe Sullivan, Bubba Fallon, and Garry Hebert were Bantam As. They were unbelievable. These guys could really skate. They had been in the Braves program a lot longer than me. Ed Taylor had these guys when they were much younger. By the time they were fourteen, they were really skilled.
“I have to say something about the Scituate Braves. To have a Scituate Braves jacket, that patch, that emblem…that was my goal. You were a hockey player if you had that. I only had one Braves jacket, some guys had a couple. But I felt like a professional hockey player when I wore that jacket around. The Braves were very special to me. I was very proud to be a Scituate Brave. Wearing that insignia around was huge. It meant so much to me at that age.
“There’s one thing that still stands out clearly in my mind about Bantam hockey that year. There was an invitational hockey tournament in Canada coming up. This was 1971-1972. The Scituate Braves were going to send a Bantam team to play there and I thought that this could be a chance for me. I thought that I was good enough to go. I wasn’t on the A team, but they would have to take a couple of kids from the B team because they would have expanded the roster or kids were sick and couldn’t go or something. But I wasn’t picked. I was devastated.
“Guys on that team told me I was good enough to go. I remember Johnny Powell telling me ‘I can’t believe you’re not on the team. You’re good enough to play on this team.’ They went without me though, and the stories they told when they got back motivated me to be a better player. The motivation worked - I did get better. And the following year I went on that trip. I went to play hockey in Canada. It was an unbelievable experience. Garrett Reagan was the coach. I loved Coach Reagan. I really wanted to play for him. He was the first coach who believed in me.
“Tom Burnell was another coach I need to mention. When I was a freshman in high school, I thought I was as good as anyone in my peer group. Paul Croke was at Thayer at the time. Sean Mahoney was in the eighth grade – he hadn’t come up yet. But we had some very good hockey players that were my age or a year older – Paul Devlin, Mike O’Brien, Boonie Dillon, Frita Griffin…there were several others. I knew I could play with these guys. We had a hockey meeting at the high school before the season started that year. I was paying very close attention when Coach Paul Johnson told the room that there would be no freshman on the varsity that year. I was good enough to play, but I took the medicine and played junior varsity that year. I was hurt, but I got to be coached by Tom Burnell, who I really liked. He was a great coach.
“We had a really good junior varsity team. We had a full schedule that year – we played every other jv team in the OCL. And we were good – real good. I really had only been playing hockey for two years by then. I’m not a natural athlete, but I worked at hockey more than anything else. I really think I was better as a freshman than I was as a senior. I played better and enjoyed hockey more when I had good coaching. I can’t say enough about Tom Burnell – after our one loss that season, he storms into the locker room after the game and just absolutely lets us have it. He shouts, ‘I can’t even say Conboy played a good game tonight.’ I took that as a compliment.
“I played jv again my sophomore year. Michael Breen was a year older than me and played varsity. He was a phenomenal hockey player. We were at the Cohasset Winter Garden one day and after practice Michael asked me if I wanted to stay and practice for another hour. I was shocked. Not only because he asked me to skate with him after practice, but also because my Hespeler was literally falling apart. I had it taped up, but it was near the end for that stick. Michael looked at it and said, ‘I’ll be right back.’ He walks into the pro shop and comes back out with a brand-new Northland Pro. I was dumbfounded. He hands me the stick and says ‘here, take this.’ Now a brand-new stick, especially a Northland Pro was a big, big deal in those days. Michael Breen’s a special guy to have done that for me. We instantly became good friends.
“I practically lived over the Breen house my junior year in high school. Michael was like a brother to me. His dad was very welcoming. I was at an age where I needed supervision and I wasn’t getting it at home. My dad was a World War II veteran and was very stoic, very tough. Never talked about the war. He was always busy working and just didn’t spend much time with me. Never showed an ounce of affection. The Breens were completely different. They had a father-son relationship that I had never witnessed before. It was a real benefit to spend time with Michael and his dad. Sean Coady had a huge influence on me growing up, a very positive influence I should say, but I learned to be a better man because of my time with Michael Breen and his father Jim.
“The Old Colony League in the mid-1970s was loaded with talent. Nearly every team we played was good in 1975-1976, my junior year. Hingham, Marshfield, Randolph, Silver Lake, and Scituate were all good. Any one of us could have won the OCL. The crowds that turned out for games that season were huge. It could have been standing room only. For our games at the Winter Garden, cars were parked way down 3A. You know how big that parking lot was, right? Well that entire parking lot was full for our games with another three dozen cars on the side of the road."
That 1975-1976 team was, in fact, one of the most talented Scituate teams ever. Looks at these names: Mike Breen, Bernie Durkin, Mike O’Brien, Paul Croke, Paul Devlin, Billy Higgins, Boonie Dillon, Rich Reynolds, Sean Mahoney, John Reidy, Mike Sousa, Jon Stanley, David Magill, and Bill Conboy. John Kilcoyne was the number one goalie. Andy Marhoffer, a freshman that year, backed him up.
Billy continues: “The other thing everyone forgets is that there were a ton of other kids from Scituate who didn’t even go to Scituate High. Here are some names: Garry Hebert, Alan Litchfield, Mark Stupinski, Jay George, Kyle Vietze, Johnny Powell…they all went to Thayer or Archie’s. I don’t think any other town in the OCL had as many talented hockey players go to private school as we did. Rod Langway – why didn’t he go to Archie’s or Thayer? He’s got two Norris trophies and he’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And I had to play against him.
“We started that 1975-1976 season 1/2/1. We had only one win in the first four games. Then we ran off ten straight. Think about that. Ten straight wins in that league. The toughest league in the state. And we beat them all. We won the league – we were Old Colony League champions. We went to Ridge Arena to play Avon next. Coach Johnson played the first two lines most of that game. Late in the third period, he sends us – the third line – into a 4-4 game to make something happen. I’m a defensive forward, playing center. My wingers are Jon Stanley and Mike Sousa. We need a goal to advance. I win the draw and the puck gets pushed down into their end of the ice. I go after it and end up with the puck behind the net. Jon Stanley’s right there in the slot looking at me. I put the puck right on his stick. I scream at him ‘shoot the puck.’ He does. Right into the back of the net. We win the game 7-4 and it’s on to the Boston Garden. No third line – no Boston Garden.
Scituate was down 4-3 to Avon after two periods in this quarter-final game. At 6:36 of the third period, Paul Devlin tied the game on a pass from Billy Higgins. That set up the game winner by Jon Stanley at 9:49. This goal hurt Avon. They never mounted a challenge after Scituate went up 5-4. Paul Croke added to their pain with two more in the last ten minutes of play. Croke netted four goals that game.
“We go to the Garden to play in the Massachusetts High School Hockey tournament. We won the Old Colony League and this was where the winners went. All the best Eastern Massachusetts teams were there. And they were good…real good. Like a team made up of Michael Breens, Paul Crokes, and Sean Mahoneys. I thought, ‘where are the grinders…the guys like me?’ There weren’t any. All the best skaters, the best playmakers, the best shooters, and the best goalies were there.
“Stepping onto that Boston Garden ice was something I’ll never forget. How could you? It was an unreal experience for me but not easy to fully explain. I grew up playing pond hockey and six or seven years later I’m in the Boston Garden. The home of Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins. But we worked hard all season as a team and this is what it got us. We deserved to be there at that tournament after the schedule we had. We ended up losing to Acton-Boxboro 8 to 3. I was disappointed in the result, but for our group to get that far was just awesome. It was March 3, 1976. A huge day for Scituate High School hockey and a day I’ll never forget."
Years after high school, Billy Conboy played with a number of other Scituate guys in a Sunday night league at Hobomock Arena in Pembroke. They ran three lines and two sets of defenseman. The team was heavy on centers and wings so Billy found a spot at right defense. A left-handed right defenseman. When team jerseys were being handed out in the locker room before the first game, Billy waited a bit for the number four jersey to be offered. The only words out of his mouth were “I’ll be wearing that this season.”
Down by a goal late in one game, the Scituate team had an offensive zone faceoff. His center drew the puck back clean to Billy. As he took pressure from the left wing, he turned counterclockwise in one tight smooth circle, puck on his backhand. The wing chased the puck and before he knew it, Billy was away from him, top of the circle, putting a hard wrist shot to the goalie’s glove side just below his knee. Someone jumped on the rebound and fired it into the net. It was the classic Bobby Orr spin move, perfected on Musquashicut pond years before. A cheer came off the Scituate bench. Coach couldn’t hide his smile.
Bill Conboy lives in Scituate. He volunteers with veterans groups, plays golf occasionally, and considers himself very fortunate to have grown up in the greatest neighborhood in the world. He also possesses a unique perspective on the profound impact the game of hockey has had on him, the strides he’s made toward personal self-improvement, and an intense loyalty to friends he’s known for over five decades.
Edited March 7, 2019