Joe Gately

1956-1957 Junior Team Coach

In 1956-1957, a “junior” hockey team of Scituate High School hockey players was formed as a precursor to the next season’s first true varsity hockey squad.  Joseph Gately of the Scituate VFW offered to coach this team.  It should not be forgotten how instrumental Joe Gately was in getting hockey accepted as a varsity sport in Scituate.  Nor should it be forgotten how generous he was with his time, significant considering the fact that he did not then have a son in the program.

A little background on Joe Gately provided by his son Mike: “My dad was originally from Watertown.  He was the son of Irish immigrants.  His father was Fire Chief at the old Hood Rubber Company in Watertown, a long-since shuttered rubber shoe and tire maker which employed hundreds of immigrants during the first half of the twentieth century.  His parents owned a summer home in Minot.  Shortly after I was born in 1948, we moved to Captain Pierce Road and then to Jackson Road in 1955.

“My dad learned to skate in Watertown.  He was a member of the Watertown High School hockey team, graduating in 1939.  After high school, my dad played for the old Boston Olympics hockey team in the years before the war.  He was really passionate about hockey.  After the war, he officiated high school and junior hockey games when he wasn’t playing or coaching.”

Skip Fryling: “My first recollection of meeting Joe Gately was on Greenbush pond.  There were a bunch of junior high and high school-age guys playing our usual game of shinny hockey.  We had no nets, just sticks or boots for goal posts.  It was not uncommon then for adults to join us in a game of pond hockey.  One day, Mr. Gately, as I remember him, asked if he could join us.  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘absolutely.’  As kids learning to skate and handle the puck properly, we felt that we had a lot to learn from both the older kids and the adults who skated on the ponds in those days.  The more exposure we had to experienced hockey players, the better it was for us.

 
“Mr. Gately would give us tips on skating, passing, and shooting.  Of course, on the ponds, there were no nets or boards.  We quickly learned to pass the puck very well because a bad pass would end up across the pond somewhere or over the dam.  The more we played, the better we felt we were getting.  As time went on, the desire for us to have a Scituate High School team grew.  We went to the school committee asking for their approval and funding for a hockey team.  Because of the tight budget for high school sports, they suggested that we start a club team with the kids interested in the sport and if we could make a success of it, the committee promised to consider our request the following year.

“Mr. Gately was following these developments and let our parents know that he would love to coach this “club” team.  He worked as a manufacturer’s representative and would make time from his job to coach us.  I should point out that Mr. Gately was the Commander of the Scituate VFW Post.”

Mike Gately: “My father was a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps in World War II.  He was a gunner on a B-52 on his 35th combat mission to bomb a railroad bridge in Perugia, Italy when his plane was shot down.  The crew bailed out and upon landing, my dad and the plane’s navigator were taken prisoner by Italian Fascists.  As his unit was being transported between prisoner camps in Italy, their train was bombed.  He and some of the other escapees traveled from town to town in Italy hoping to make contact with Allied Control.  My dad recalled in an interview he did for the Red Cross how wonderfully the Italian people treated them.  The Italian villagers kept the soldiers hidden from the Germans in small villages even as posters were put up offering 6,000 lira for escaped Allied prisoners.  Eventually, my dad was turned over to a New Zealand Red Cross outfit and then was reunited with the Allies on the island of Corsica.  He was a member of the VFW for years.” 

Skip continues: “Without funding from the school committee that year, we would need money for equipment and ice time.  Not surprisingly, Mr. Gately persuaded the VFW Post to sponsor our new “club” hockey team.  We were all in.  Mr. Gately immediately began lining up other South Shore junior varsity teams for us to play.  He was even able to schedule our games at the new “Roofless" Salt Arena in Weymouth, where many other high school hockey teams played.  We were all pretty excited, as this was our first exposure to a rink with boards.  We had a very successful season at 10 wins and 1 loss.  Pretty good for a “club” team.  Coach Gately deserved much of the credit for this success.

“Mr. Gately’s steadfast support combined with the excitement and encouragement we received from the community convinced the school committee to fund a varsity boy’s hockey team for the next season.  Mr. Gately was ecstatic.  Naturally, he approached the school committee to apply for the coaching position.  Unfortunately, his dream of being a varsity high school coach was not to be as the school department had a rule requiring coaches to have a college degree and work in the school system. 

“Undeterred, Joseph Gately continued to follow our development and offered support to us through our high school years and beyond.  He had a real passion for hockey.  We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for starting Scituate High School Hockey.”

Edited February 18, 2019