Boston Junior Rangers provide straight shot to hockey hotbed
By Joshua Boyd, courtesy of USAJUNIORHOCKEY.com
Just about a mile from the Boston Junior Rangers’ home office in Tewksbury, Mass., lies the on-ramp to Interstate 93. That highway extends another 22 miles into downtown Boston. An Original Six city, it is one of the hockey hotbeds of America.
That, and its general vicinity includes most of the Hockey East Association Division 1 schools, as well as Harvard University, Bentley University and a wide array of Division 3 colleges offering men’s hockey.
So, when the Junior Rangers offer a “Road to College Hockey,” they essentially mean a left, a right and you’re there.
The Junior Rangers’ teams in the new Eastern Hockey League (EHL) and the Metropolitan Junior Hockey League (or MET) represent the top of a long hockey development ladder that starts with Mites. The youth organization has been around since 2007. After just one year as a junior organization, however, the Junior Rangers already sent 12 players to the college game, including two to Division 1 – Sam Bernard (Sacred Heart) and Chris Paulin (Niagara).
“We’re proud of what we have here. There’s a lot of work involved, a lot more that goes on behind the scenes than people may see when they see you on the bench or at practice,” said Mario Martiniello, general manager, head coach of the Jr. Rangers’ EHL team and part owner of the organization.
“I like working with the players at this level. They really try to push their careers forward,” said Martiniello, a former coach of the Valley Jr. Warriors and long- time area high school coach. “Most kids playing junior hockey strive to play at the collegiate level.”
Logan Brown committed to the State University of New York at Potsdam and he can’t imagine how he could have gotten there without the Rangers’ help.
“They did a lot. They called and put in a good word for me, they pushed pretty hard,” said Brown. “Mario was on the phone with [Potsdam coach Chris Bernard] and made it all go through really easily.”
“A lot of the college coaches are guys who have been around a long time,” said Martiniello. “I’ve had a relationship with many of them in the past, so I was not too surprised at how we did with our placements.” Kevin Airoldi committed to Babson to play lacrosse, but wanted to get back to hockey. He played a season for the Junior Rangers and is now committed to Stonehill for hockey.
Reentering the junior hockey world, Martiniello was able to see firsthand the benefits – young men furthering their knowledge of the game and taking that knowledge to the next, higher level – and the challenges.
“Entering Year 2 here, the biggest thing being involved with junior hockey has taught me is player management,” said Martiniello. “Back in the mid-to late-‘90s, when I was with the Jr. Warriors, you didn’t have all the social media stuff. A lot of it now is teaching kids how to present themselves to colleges and keep their noses clean.”
“You need to make them understand that something that’s a joke on Twitter or Facebook might get out there and negatively affect them in the eyes of a college coach,” said Martiniello. “On-ice, the game hasn’t really changed that much, so what is new for me is managing players off the ice.”
That said, it generally went smooth in Year 1 for the Rangers, which also happened to be the final season of the Atlantic Junior Hockey League. The Rangers finished fifth overall in the AJHL at 22-11-9-2, but were eliminated in two straight games by the eventual champion Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights to close their season.
“I think we had a very good season for our first year. We were able to surprise some people who may have thought we’d struggle out of the gate,” said Martiniello.
“Thanks to the help of coaches Chris Hills and Rich DeCaprio, we were able to put a competitive product on the ice. After looking at things we need to address, we struggled in the goal-scoring department, but we did very well in net and defensively.” In the MET, the Rangers won the Fracis Division in their inaugural season, going 32-10-0-3 and reaching all the way into the Keegan Cup Final. There, they fell to the New Jersey Rockets, but sent a message that the Rangers are here to stay and a force to be reckoned with.
Setting up the Ranger station
The Junior Rangers’ history runs intermingled with their top-of-the-line facility in Tewksbury, Breakaway Ice Center.
The Rangers were founded in 2007 while Breakaway was still under construction, mainly icing summer tournament teams right off the bat. Martiniello’s Superskills Hockey, a skill development company, built the first ink in 2004. In 2008, with the construction of the second sheet, the Rangers brought Martiniello aboard as a partner, in addition to his hockey operations duties. Martiniello maintains Superskills Hockey company as a separate entity from the Junior Rangers.
Once the two sheets at Breakaway were installed and up and running, the Rangers put together a full slate of youth hockey teams.
“At the youth level, we still run Mite through Midget, totaling 18 boys teams. We also have a girls program running from U10 through U19,” said Martiniello. “The next real step that we didn’t have to round out our program was a junior program.”
During the 2011-12 season, the Boston Junior Bulldogs were as much of a force as ever in the AJHL. However, longtime Bulldogs owner/general manager/head coach Mike Addesa was open to the idea of selling his junior empire. “There was a point at which we had talked with [Addesa] about the possibility of obtaining or starting up a junior program,” said Martiniello. “After a time, he was up for the idea and we started talking again and we went from there to negotiating a sale, purchasing the team from Mike last spring [of 2012].”
Now that they had the junior team, the Junior Rangers needed to bring players in.
The facility they call home was a big help in recruiting. Along with two NHL regulation size rinks and two locker rooms for the exclusive use of each of the junior teams on the premises, Breakaway Ice Center also includes a 7,000-square foot workout facility, Xcelerated Performance. XP prides itself on being the first gym in the Boston area with a skating treadmill, where players can work on their stride in place.
“A lot of teams have a weight training facility in their rink, but not a lot of teams have what we have. Pat Gigante owns and operates XP and he gives us a home right outside of our locker room,” said Martiniello. “The junior kids are constantly in there warming up before games. Pat sets them up with a routine. It’s another way for players to bond off the ice and out of the locker room.
“There’s really nothing we can’t cover in XP. There’s a shooting area on synthetic ice, a mini-track if kids want to do sprints and a basketball net for kids to loosen up,” said Martiniello.
“[Gigante] is always willing to help us out. I didn’t even have to go to a physical therapist for a shoulder problem because he knew what he was doing with it,” added Greg Stoya, the leading scorer for last year’s MET Rangers. He will likely move up to the EHL after a 56-point season last year. “Breakaway always has the ice for us. Rangers players have as much time as wewant,” Stoya said. “Last year, you [could pick out] the players who took advantage of that and those who didn’t. They make it easy for everyone who wants it, and hopefully, this year, everyone wants it.”
“It’s a great rink with good amenities to help you fulfill your goals,” added Tyler Theodoulou, a returning player for Martiniello’s top team and the incoming captain for 2013-14.
Guidance to the top
The Rangers work, work and work again on their game from August through March (not including the many summer tournaments they take part in).
“During the season, we run two days a week off-ice – Tuesdays and Thursdays – and we have practices on ice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” said Martiniello.
“If we have film work to do, we do that on Wednesday after practice. Friday is a light skate if we don’t have a game. “We have two hours of ice a day, and we’ll judge whether we’ll use it all or not, so if we only practice for an hour, that extra hour is open to players to work on their own individual skills,” he added.
The Rangers’ plan during the season certainly helped Theodoulou to pick up his game quite a bit.
“I played for the Bulldogs and Coach Addesa told me the Rangers would be a good place to play high-level junior hockey,” Theodoulou said. “Mario is a coach that is hard on you, but he’s looking to push you to continue to get better.
“One of the things I learned was that I was a good skater, but I never used it as fully as I could,” he added. “Coach [Martiniello] taught me how to drive the net and really use my feet. I went from third line at the start of the year to the first line and scoring more points by the end.”
“He’s ready to fill that [captaincy] role for us,” said Martiniello, of Theodoulou.
“He got to this point by working hard. Talent and skill are great, but if you don’t work hard, talent and skill can lose out. Tyler has both, and I couldn’t ask for a better kid to lead our team.”
Along with his experience coaching the Valley Jr. Warriors, Martiniello had years of experience teaching power skating through Superskills, and he also led high schools to state and regional championships in New Hampshire (Salem) and Massachusetts (Andover), respectively. He has worked as a scout in pro hockey and is a USA Hockey-certified Master Level Coach.
“Coach was able to sit down with me and point out the parts of my game I was able to improve upon to be a better team guy,” said Brown. Chris Hills, the EHL and MET assistant, has been an assistant coach at several different levels – from college hockey (Manhattanville, Framingham State) to high school (Acton-Boxborough, Mass.) to girls youth hockey (Assabet Valley, a regular national champion). DeCaprio, a high school star with Chelmsford (Mass.) High School and a Division 1 player for Niagara University, was the head coach of the Bulldogs’ M ET League team before the sale.
“When the sale took place, Rich and I met and I had a good feeling and that really turned into a good relationship,” said Martiniello. “Last year, Rich took our M ET League team to the finals and was one win away from the Nationals.”
“When the Bulldogs traded over to the Rangers, Coach DeCaprio remained so I felt comfortable,” said Stoya. “I had a bad leg break and the Rangers knew about that and were willing to take me to see how I would do with my skating. I came back and had a good year with the MET team.”
“He scored close to 40 goals with the MET team last year,” said Martiniello, of Stoya. “He’s really matured as a player and understood what it takes to play at the next level. I’m expecting a great season. His knock last year was his skating and that has improved dramatically, so I’m excited.”
There’s a lot to be excited about. There are 18 teams in the new EHL (and 27 in the expanded MET), so that means a lot of teams for a player to test himself against.
“I’m excited about it,” Stoya said. “It’ll be a lot more good competition in my final year.”
- See more at: http://www.usajuniorhockey.com/2013/08/a-conduit-to-the-college-game/#sthash.esmYmnVd.dpuf
