Steve Parker

Growing up on Cudworth Road near the junior high school, Steve Parker started skating at the age of six or seven on whatever ponds were frozen and within walking distance of his house.  In the winters after school, he and his friends would walk to Greenbush pond, the town reservoir, and especially Chessia’s pond.  Chessia’s pond was located in the woods off of Kane Drive on property owned by the Chessia family.  Hockey wasn’t his only sport, however.  Steve played baseball and tennis into high school.  But when the Cohasset Winter Garden opened in the late 1960s and Ed Taylor began putting together bantam and pee-wee teams, it was lifechanging for this Scituate native.

 

Steve explains: “All of the neighborhood kids would skate and play hockey when I was young.  Mike Driscoll…Eddie Crowley...that whole crew from Kane Drive and Thomas Ave. skated nearly every day on Chessia’s pond.  This was an extremely shallow pond that usually froze early and produced a nice sheet of ice.  I slid my skates onto my stick and walked down Beaver Dam Road from my house every day after school.  My father bought me a nice pair of Hyde skates from a sporting goods store in Brockton.  I was the oldest, so I didn’t have hand-me-down skates.  My brothers did, but not me.  I played pond hockey every day in the winter with my friends from Central School.  It was good competitive hockey and it was a blast.

 

“My father played some hockey in Cambridge, where he grew up.  My mother had season tickets to the Bruins way back.  She was a big Bruins fan.  It must have been in the late-1940s or early-1950s.  Both of my parents loved hockey and they passed that love of the game on to me.  I played baseball and tennis too, but hockey was my favorite sport when I was young.  My mother knew I loved to play pond hockey and she signed me up for pee-wee hockey when I was in the sixth grade.  The Cohasset Winter Garden had just opened and she took me right up there.

 

“My parents were very involved in getting me into sports.  My father and Mr. Gluck, Steve’s father, coached baseball when we were kids.  My parents also drove me to tennis tournaments all over the place.  I’m very fortunate that my parents looked after me this way.  They knew I was interested in sports and helped me every step of the way.  When the Cohasset Winter Garden opened in 1966, I really became interested in ice hockey.  It seemed like everyone did.  It was a big deal when that new hockey program got started up there.  Bobby Orr was in his rookie year and a lot of kids weren’t paying attention to the Bruins yet, but the chance to play ice hockey in a new rink close to home was just unbelievable.  They started a youth hockey association in the first or second year after it opened and I went right up and joined.  I was a pee-wee.  My first team was the Blackhawks.”

 

Established in 1966, the Cohasset Winter Garden Youth Hockey Association was dedicated to the promotion of youth hockey in the towns of Hull, Hingham, Cohasset, Scituate, Marshfield, and Norwell.  Turnout was massive right from the beginning.  There was huge interest in ice hockey on the South Shore and the completion of a new rink in Cohasset was the spark that ultimately got hundreds or even thousands of kids from these towns on the ice.

 

Steve continues: “I played for the Blackhawks and my first coach was Mr. Dillon – they called him ‘Boonie’.  Joey Milan, from Southie, was on my team.  He went on to play at UMass.  Bobby Shakespeare and Mike Gadsby were teammates on the Blackhawks.  In the beginning, there was a wide range of ages playing pee-wee hockey.  They took every kid between the age of six to eleven or twelve and made them pee-wees.  Bobby Dillon, Mr. Dillon’s son, was at least three years younger than me but he was on my pee-wee team.  He was pretty talented.  You could just tell he was going to be good.  Chuckie Harrington, Chris Sullivan, Dave Weeks, and my brother Chris all played on that team. 

 

“There were about six different pee-wee teams up at the Winter Garden that first season.  Mike O’Connell played for the Maple Leafs.  So did his brother Pat.  John Grayken from Cohasset played.  Kevin Coughlin, another Southie kid, played for that team.  Richard and Tommy Hamel from Hingham.  Dirk Lyons from Scituate was another good hockey player on the Leafs.  Drew Murphy from Hingham.  There were a few Murphy brothers playing pee-wee hockey in those years.  They were all good.  Other Scituate kids playing that season were Kyle Vietz…Nicky Fairclough…Kevin Monahan…Mike Sullivan.  They all played that year.  And they were all good.

 

“There weren’t any tryouts or anything.  The guys at the rink were literally just signing kids up to play ice hockey and, as it turned out, everyone showed up and wanted to play.  The Braves program hadn’t started yet.  But it was very well organized.  And it was very much parent-driven.  The parents were very involved.  I remember we played our games on Saturday nights.  My whole family would go up to the Winter Garden to watch me and Chris play.  They’d be a bunch of games one after another and we’d make a night out of it.  It was a family event.  After the game, my father would drive us up to Papa Gino’s in Queen Anne’s Corner and we’d have pizza.  It was a blast.  I loved it. 

 

“I remember that Joe Gately was very involved in coaching.  He was a very good instructor.  He was patient with kids.  He showed me how to play defense.  Showed me where to position myself…how to defend against the forwards coming down…how to lift their stick and prevent them from getting a rebound.  I made the pee-wee All-Star team that first year.  Donnie Marshall’s dad was the coach of the All-Stars.  He put cones on the ice for skating drills.  It was the first time I had ever seen cones on the ice.  Mr. Marshall had us skate through and around them.  It was a great, great experience.  The crazy thing is that I still see some of these guys years later.  I played in that pee-wee league over fifty years ago and I still bump into those guys around town.  It’s unbelievable when you think about it.

 

“Donnie Marshall was from Hull.  He was two years younger than me.  He was very talented when he was young.  Could skate like the wind.  Donnie played his high school hockey at Archbishop Williams.  He was the second line center.  The first line center then was Ralph Cox.  Donnie went on to play college hockey at Union and then BU.  The Marshalls were big in youth hockey. 

 

"I remember some kids came down from the Boston area to play in the youth hockey leagues at Cohasset.  Dukie Walsh from Cambridge played in that league.  He was probably the number one schoolboy hockey player in the state a few years later.  He went to Matignon High School then went on to play at Notre Dame.  I think he’s the all-time leading scorer in Notre Dame history.  Mike O’Connell, of course, played.  He was a great center...bigger than most of the other kids.  I played bantam hockey with Mike.  He went to Archie’s and played first line center as a freshman.  He then left Archie’s and went to play for the Braintree Hawks as a sophomore, then he went to Canada his junior year in high school.  Of course, he ended up playing professionally with the Chicago Blackhawks, the Bruins, and the Red Wings. 

 

“It’s amazing how many of these kids from this league turned out to be competitive hockey players.  And I played with most of them.  Joey Milan...Dukie Walsh...Bruce Thompson...Jimmy Dillon from Hingham.  All these kids somehow ended up becoming very talented hockey players.  And we all played together for that year or two in the Cohasset Winter Garden pee-wee league.  That first season of organized hockey was special.  It really ended up having a huge impact on me.  It set the hook.  Being on that All-Star team and going through those hockey drills gave me the foundation that I needed to become a hockey player.  Most of those other kids had been playing for a couple years already and I was really only in my first year.  But I improved quickly and I have Mr. Marshall and those other coaches to thank for that.  It really made an impact on me.  I became obsessed in a way.  Obsessed with becoming the best hockey player I could be.  Even at that young age.

 

“The next year, 1968-1969, my mother told me that she was signing me up for a new team playing up at the Winter Garden.  This was the Scituate Braves.  A bantam team.  It was a lot more skating than I was used to.  Two practices a week and one game.  The first time I stepped on the ice that year, I see Nicky Fairclough and Tommy Basso sitting on the bench.  They were both a year younger than me.  Tommy made some comment about me as soon as he saw me, but I didn’t pay any attention.  I was there to play hockey. 

 

“My coach that year was Ed Taylor.  He started the Scituate Braves program and ran the practices.  You cannot say enough about this man.  He’s the sole reason that Scituate became a hockey hotbed in the 1960s and 70s.  It was all him.  He’s responsible for developing all these Scituate kids into hockey players.  And, of course, some of them left Scituate to go to private high schools and prep schools and college.  Mostly for hockey.  That was Ed Taylor’s influence.  Jimmy Breen, Peter Breen, and Eddie Breen did their part up there too.  You can’t forget them.  They had a lot to do with getting kids into hockey.  Peter was running the learn-to-skate program which was how the youngest kids got interested in hockey.

 

“On that Braves bantam team, we had the two Spences – Billy and Richard.  We had the Faircloughs – Nicky and Biff.  Kenny Moylan.  Jeff Baldwin.  Billy Morse.  Hoby Taylor.  Bobby Ferriter.  Jeff Sullivan.  Tom Bell.  Mike O’Connell and his brother Timmy.  Bobby Dwyer and Steve Bogusz were goalies.  Garry Hebert was always up there.  Dave Silk was up there.  They were both younger than me but very talented.  Dave could stickhandle in a phone booth and Garry was one of the most talented skaters in the whole Braves program.  Just an unbelievable skater.

 

“As the Braves program grew, Ed Taylor’s real talent came through.  He was charged with developing all these hockey programs for multiple age groups, scheduling ice time, and compiling rosters so that his teams could travel all over the state and play against the best competition he could find.  He had to find the right mix of kids, and parents, who were interested in practicing and playing multiple times a week.   His son Hoby was skating fifteen times a week.  The Spences played every game they could.  I couldn’t do that.  I wanted to practice twice and play once a week.  Mr. Taylor never pressured me to play more than once a week.  He’d say to me, ‘I need a defenseman - do you want to play?’  If I couldn’t play, he’d ask somebody else.  He always gave you the option.  Never told you that you had to play.  And, in those days, he had a lot of options.  There were so many talented kids playing hockey in those days, Ed would find the guys he needed.”

 

As he got closer to ninth grade, Steve began to realize that not all of his hockey friends were likely to go to Scituate High School.  More than a few of them had an alternative to their hometown high school.  And this was mostly due to their hockey talent and experience. 

 

Steve remembers: “Ken Monahan and Billy and Richard Spence went to Archbishop Williams High School.  Hoby Taylor went to Thayer Academy as did Biff and Nicky Fairclough – although Nick did come back to Scituate.  Other kids from the youth hockey program began to head in different directions.  Donnie Marshall...Bob Ferriter...Paul Allen...Jeff Baldwin...Kyle Vietz...Jay George...Sean Coady – they all went to either Archie’s or Thayer.  As a result, a lot of room opened up for other kids to try out for Scituate High hockey.  Naturally, a bunch of kids that played pond hockey went out for the hockey team as freshmen.  Everyone wanted to play hockey.  This was 1969-1970.  Bobby Orr was becoming a star and kids noticed.  Ronnie Lackey was my partner on defense my freshman year.  He would have been a great high school hockey player if he stayed with it.  He was 160 pounds as a freshman.  He was physically bigger and stronger than the other kids.  But he wanted to work after school so he didn’t play much after that year. 

 

“The high school had a freshman team and a varsity team.  No j.v.  Tom Burnell coached us but we didn’t play more than a handful of games.  We mostly scrimmaged.  But I did get to practice with the varsity.  I practiced with them and I got to play in a few games.  The ’69-’70 team varsity hockey team won the Old Colony League for the first time ever.  But the league wasn’t strong then.  Randolph and Hingham were really good but the rest of the league was weak.  Randolph was our main rival.  We played South Boston in the original Boston Arena my freshman year.  That was a big hockey game.  I remember some guy had been drinking and got on our fan bus, the one that took the Scituate fans into Boston to see us play, and started a brawl with a Scituate teacher.  That stills sticks in my mind.  I remember Brockton had a good team that year.  We played them at least once in Brockton when I was a freshman. 

 

“We had some really talented upperclassmen on that ’69-’70 team.  Rob Healy was on that team.  He was very good.  Richie Butterworth...Raymond Brown...Danny Shakespeare.  Danny was the real deal.  People couldn’t touch him.  Tommy Moylan too.  Tommy was a great stickhandler.  He would set up Danny and Marc James.  Tommy was a prototypical center.  Quarterbacked the football team.  Marc James was a tough kid.  Good hockey player.  Jake Basso and Dick Gerry were two really good defensemen on that team.  They were both a year older than me.  They played in the Braves program.  They were a great defense pairing for three years.  Dick Gerry was a tremendous teammate.  Dick went to St. Anselm’s.  Was captain of the hockey team when he was there.  I was very fortunate to have played on that team as a freshman.  Those seniors – Marc James, Rob Healy, Richie Butterworth – were very good to the underclassmen.  They treated us as equals.  Everyone was in it together.  We were a team.  I’ve never forgotten that. 

 

“I played with Greg Coady my sophomore year.  Greg was probably 175 pounds that year.  Tough defenseman.  Kevin Mahoney was another tough defenseman.  Coach Johnson put me on left wing that year.  I scored six goals sophomore year as a second line left wing.  I didn’t have an overpowering shot, but I could pick the corners.  I was in very good physical shape that year.  I mossed that summer after my freshman year and I got myself into really good shape.  Jim Mullin, Tommy Lazarovich, Harry Kent, Ted Handy, and I mossed all summer.  It was hard, physical work and it helped me get fit going into that sophomore season when I knew I was going to get more ice time.

 

“I was named a co-captain with John O’Brien my senior year.  John is underrated as a hockey player.  He was an excellent center and won a ton of draws.  He had one of the best snapshots I have ever seen.  Very quick.  Very accurate.  And he could score with it.  And Billy Dummer, a junior that year, had a half slapshot that was as good as a full slapshot.  Billy skated the wing – he was big and fast - and just let that shot go.  It was low, hard, and fast.  Gordon Flett had a tremendous slapshot.  He played left wing and could score from outside the blue line.  That’s how good his shot was.  We had a pretty good team.  Our first game was against Marshfield.  I played first line defense with Steve Gluck, one of my closest friends.  Steve and I played hockey together for years.  Robbie Griffin, a sophomore that year, also played defense.  Phil Young and Brian Powell were our goalies. 

 

“Hockey was very important to me, especially in high school.  After my senior year, I started thinking about what to do next.  John O’Brien and I decided to go to New Preparatory School in Cambridge and continue playing hockey there.  New Prep was attracting all kinds of top high school hockey players.  They were loaded in those years.  The talent at New Prep was top-notch and the competition to make the team was stiff.  This was a prep school competing against college j.v. teams.  It was good hockey.  I went out for the team, but I had a really bad ankle injury which hurt my chances.  I also had a bad collision in tryouts and hit my head on the ice.  I knew then that my chances of making the team after my head injury were not good.  They simply wouldn’t let me play.  I left the school and came back to Scituate.”

 

Steve caught on with the Hobomock Chiefs, a junior team playing out of Pembroke.  Mostly 19- and 20-year old kids with high school hockey experience.  It was good, competitive hockey.  But he still had to think of a way to get into college. 

 

He explains: “Eddie Connors, who coached at Hingham High School, went to Bridgewater State College to try to build up the hockey program.  He was trying to create another Salem State College-caliber hockey program, then the best state school hockey program in Eastern Massachusetts.  Salem State was at the top of Division II with Merrimack and UMass Lowell.  This was during the time when Lowell had Craig MacTavish, a future Bruin.  Eddie took over the program at Bridgewater State and tried to improve it - get it to the next level.  That was the idea.  The problem was that the athletes didn’t get any support from the administration.  If they fell behind academically, the administration didn’t reach out.  There was no support there.  I knew that Worcester State and North Adams State and Framingham State had a support system in place for athletes who weren’t keeping their grades up.  But there was none of that at Bridgewater then and Eddie left after two or three years.  It was too bad because Eddie was an excellent coach and I really liked him.  I ended up staying four years and played hockey each year.  There was some real hockey talent there.  My defense partner was Paul Kelly from Weymouth.  He was a captain at Weymouth North High School.”

 

After four years at Bridgewater, Steve came back to Scituate and continued to play hockey.  He was 23.  Steve explains: “I wanted to keep playing hockey, so I put together a team at the Cohasset Winter Garden in the Sunday night men’s league.  It was full speed, full contact hockey.  I did that until I was 30.  I had some Bridgewater guys, some Hingham guys.  I had Bruce Thompson, Matt Gillespie, P.F. Hurley, and Ron Valicenti on that team.  We had some Dorchester guys.  These were some really good hockey players.  It was a very talented team.  It ended for me when I hurt my knee in a playoff game against Weymouth.  I was up against the boards when someone hit me from behind.  It felt like my kneecap broke and that was it.  It was the end of my hockey days.  The Winter Garden closed sometime after that and the league moved up to the Hingham rink, where it continued for years.  It was a sad day when the Cohasset Winter Garden closed.”

 

Like a lot of Scituate kids, Steve spent a good deal of his life from age nine to thirty at the Cohasset Winter Garden.  It was just a ten minute drive from his house and he did it hundreds of times through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.  Things would certainly have turned out far different for him had the Winter Garden never been built.  Fortunately, it was built and he took full advantage.  It goes without saying that the game of hockey has left an indelible imprint on Steve Parker and he knows it.

 

Steve explains: “The happiest time in my childhood was playing hockey, especially at the Winter Garden.  I spent countless days in that rink.  I played youth hockey, Scituate Braves hockey, Scituate High School hockey, and men’s league hockey in that rink.  I loved hockey then and I still do today.”

 

Steve Parker lives in Minot with his wife Lauren.  They have four children – Michael, Craig, Jake, and Maeve.  Michael (SHS Class of 2007) and Craig (SHS Class of 2009) played for Coach Breen on the 2007 Division II State Championship team.

 

Edited March 4, 2020