It didn’t count
Burrillville High softball head coach Bill Lacey recalls the time when the school’s hockey team staved off elimination, took Toll Gate to OT, and settled for a 2-2 stalemate
BURRILLVILLE — The upcoming big game was all Gary Cahill could think about as he walked into Yogi’s Diner in Harrisville on a Tuesday morning in March of 1995.
The task was a tall one for Cahill and the Burrillville High hockey team. On deck was Game 4
of the Broncos’ Division I quarterfinal series against future U.S. Olympic goalie Sara DeCosta and Toll Gate
While enjoying his breakfast at Yogi’s, a few patrons came up to Cahill and congratulated him on a solid season. That caught him off-guard since wasn’t over yet.
It then dawned on Cahill. A number of folks must have left Levy Rink early Monday night in Game 3 of the aforementioned series against DeCosta and the Titans. For those who stayed until the final buzzer following a scoreless overtime, they witnessed a comeback for the ages that ranks as the favorite game of current Burrillville softball coach and 1996 Burrillville High graduate Bill Lacey.
“Now that you point that out, it’s interesting that my favorite game doesn’t even count,” said Lacey, who was on the bench to witness one of the great comebacks in the storied history of Bronco hockey. “Even 25 years later I can still see myself standing on the second row – back when the benches were more square than they are now – and I remember every moment like how I remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”
Lacey’s favorite game went down as a 2-2 tie with the Titans, meaning the contest didn’t count and thus the same two teams had to get ready to play a Game 4 at Thayer Ice Arena for the right to play Bill Belisle’s powerhouse Mount St. Charles squad.
Why is the tie Lacey’s favorite game? Because of what happened in the final 27 seconds of the contest when the Broncos, a squad whose core of seniors were two years removed from winning the Class B title, trailed by two goals and appeared to be cooked.
“I would love to tell you for sure I thought we were going to tie it up,” said former Bronco and current Medfield coach Toby Carlow. “All I could think at the time was how it sucked that this was the end of my high school career.”
Being down two goals with 27 seconds left in regulation seems almost impossible against any goalie. The Titans, who were 6-9 that season, didn’t just have any goalie.
The Warwick-based public school featured one of the most decorated female goalies in the history of hockey in DeCosta, who was one of the reasons why the U.S. women’s hockey game captured the gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
In the first 134 minutes and 33 seconds of the series, the Broncos scored just three goals.
Cahill, in his first year in charge of the Broncos, had to dig deep into his bag of coaching tricks to find a way to beat DeCosta. He decided to channel his inner Gordon Bombay.
“During a timeout he brought up the movie the Mighty Ducks – I hate that movie,” Carlow said, “but we knew we had to throw everything at the net and there were six of us and five of them.”
“I just saw coach Cahill a few weeks ago and we were talking about it and he basically tells the seniors to do a Mighty Ducks’ Flying V and just go to the net,” Lacey said. “We won the face-off pulled the goalie and did the Flying V toward their net.”
With just 15 seconds left in the game, Carlow appeared to score a simple consolation goal when he came from behind the net and wrapped a shot inside DeCosta’s post.
“After I scored the first goal, I’m thinking it was a hell of a ride but it all depends on winning the face-off,” Carlow said.
Mike Heroux won the ensuing face-off and that’s when the Broncos received a bit of luck from the referees.
A Burrillville defenseman clearly iced the puck, but the call wasn’t made. Burrillville rushed into the zone and with the possibility of just seconds remaining in the season, Carlow found space in the slot.
He rifled a shot past DeCosta to send the game into overtime. Neither team scored in either five-minute session, thus a series that appeared to be over shifted back to Thayer Arena the following night.
“At the end of the game the kids were flying 30 feet off the ice,” Cahill said. “The next day the kids were psyched and ready to go. I told the principal to take it easy on the kids the following day because of everything that happened.”
The Broncos, who were smashed 6-1 in Game 2 at Thayer, secured a 2-1 victory to earn their first trip in the state semifinals in over a decade. The victory earned Carlow bragging rights over future UMass-Boston teammate and Toll Gate standout Matt Anthony.
“That game comes up and Matt and [former Toll Gate standout and current Smithfield coach Rob Jackson] don’t like to talk about it much,” Carlow said. “You throw a couple of shots in there.”
The comeback and series victory were great accomplishments for Cahill, a Burrillville resident who taught special education in North Smithfield for 32 seasons.
Cahill, like most kids who grow up in Burrillville, had hockey in his blood. Unlike most kids in Burrillville, he didn’t go to Burrillville or Mount, but rather Our Lady of Providence a defunct Catholic school in Warwick Neck. Cahill started the school’s hockey program in 1974.
He coached at North Smithfield High for 20 seasons – winning titles in 1985 and 1991 – before taking over a senior-heavy Burrillville squad in 1994.
“I was a relatively new coach with the group and I kind of burned them hard at practice,” Cahill said. “I ran a strict program and wanted everyone to be on the same page. I put the pressure on the seniors all year long and I made them work hard.”
Cahill had a soft place in his heart for Lacey, who was a hard-working defenseman. He even named a practice drill after Lacey – but it’s not a positive honor. The Broncos did a drill in practice where they have to crisscross the ice and the point is to make sure you’re skating with your head up.
At one practice, Lacey collided with a teammate and had to be taken out of the rink in a rescue, hence it became known in Burrillville hockey lore as the Lacey Drill.
“Billy was a hard-working kid who would do whatever you asked of him. He gave you everything he had,” Cahill said.
Just three days after beating the Titans, the Broncos made the familiar march up Broncos Highway to Adelard Arena to face a Mount team that was ranked No. 7 in the country.
All Burrillville did in the first game was secure a 1-1 tie before the series shifted back to Levy Rink the following night.
“It was fantastic to play Mount. When you were playing them, you were playing at the highest level,” Cahill said.
“I knew coach Belisle and he was good to me. It wasn't a friendly rivalry, but as coach you have to respect the program. You like to challenge yourself and the team because Bill Belisle would never tell his team to stop putting the biscuit in the basket.”
“We weren’t intimidated by them because a lot of those kids were from Burrillville and we grew up playing on the same team,” Carlow said.
Mount – as the Mounties did in back in the day – responded with an 8-1 victory in Game 2 and a 5-1 victory in Game 3 before beating Bishop Hendricken in three games to clinch their 18th straight title.