Powers Hand, East Catholic watch seasons end early due to COVID-19

For the second year in a row, senior boys hockey players at Daniel Hand High in Madison stepped off the ice for the last time in their careers without knowing it.

The Tigers beat Guilford 7-1 in the first round of the Division II state tournament last season. The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference canceled the remainder of the postseason due to COVID-19 concerns the next day.

This year, after playing Guilford on Tuesday, Hand learned it will need to quarantine for 14 days, which will sideline the Tigers through the end of the Southern Connecticut Conference tournament.

“You can’t even put it into words,” Hand coach Brian Gonsalves said. “The reality is, for the majority of them, their careers ended in the blink of an eye over a Zoom phone call.”

The Tigers, who will have spent 56 days in quarantine by the end of this final one, were shut down four times this season and competed in just five games.

They played the first six days of the season and went into quarantine. They returned, had two games and two practices, then went into another quarantine. They returned from that, played one game, then went into yet another quarantine. They then played two games, had one practice and went into one final quarantine.

“That’s what we’re focusing on primarily as coaches and as a school: the kids’ mental states in this process,” Gonsalves said. “I’ve always said that as a coach, it’s bigger than hockey and it’s life lessons for these kids. But this is beyond life lessons ... this is borderline tragedy that these kids are dealing with.

“It was basically told to us that no team in the country at any sport level has dealt with this muchquarantine in comparison.”

Gonsalves had spoken with athletic director Craig Semple several times on the phone Wednesday and joked that Semple wasn’t allowed to call him after a game because it “hasn’t gone well so far this season.” The first few calls were nothing but good news. They discussed the upcoming postseason and talked about the pride in potentially hanging a championship banner.

The last call, though, was the bad news Gonsalves dreaded.

“I fell to my knees,” Gonsalves said. “I think my coaches had the same reaction: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. No way. There’s no way this is real.’ ”

Hand, one of the state’s top programs over the last three years, lost in the Division III state semifinals in 2019. Gonsalves told a group of disappointed sophomores that they’d have two more chances to make it back and contend for a ring.

They never got that chance.

“To never even get another shot, it’s just devastating for these kids,” Gonsalves said. At East Catholic, a familiar sting was felt. The Eagles, who were 9-2 and atop the Central Connecticut Conference North standings ahead of next week’s league tournament, learned Wednesday that they’d need to quarantine for 14 days, effectively ending their season.

Head coach Joey Trenholm was with his wife and her family when he got the call. He rounded up his six seniors for a Zoom call at 9:30 p.m.

“They had no idea what was coming,” Trenholm said. “While people were coming into the meeting, they were joking around, and I’m sitting there in the back of my mind like, ‘Man, this is going to completely blindside them.’ ”

Over a 45-minute call, the players went through a cycle of emotions — shocked, angry and, ultimately, sad. East Catholic’s seniors had been part of a 0-20 squad in 2018 but won nine games each of the last two seasons. Finally, in a COVID-19-shortened season, it appeared that everything was coming together for the Eagles.

And then everything came apart.

“You can do all the right things and it can still happen,” Trenholm said.

With a week remaining in the regular season, he began to think that East Catholic had avoided a shutdown.

“It’s one of those things where you expect it, and you just hope it doesn’t happen to you,” he said.

East Catholic had lost in the first round of the Division I state tournament last year prior to the CIAC’s cancellation. Its season was over regardless. It didn’t quite know the sting of losing until now.

“This is the first time where it’s really been a punch to the gut,” Trenholm said.

Both Tr en holm and G on salves are salvaging the positives. The Eagles had at least played 11 of their 12 regular-season games and won eight straight to end the season. Unless a team wins a state championship, Trenholm said, it means the year ended with a loss, but the Eagles went out on top.

Gonsalves knows that even if they played just five games, the Tigers (4-1) were one of the top teams in Division II. He also thinks that this season — this past year, really — will make his players, and all high schoolers impacted by COVID-19, that much more mentally tough.

“All these kids, we’re going to see them in 10 years being the most successful individuals that we know,” Gonsalves said. “Because nothing else is going to affect them the way this has.

“We’re going to see CEOs, people at young ages doing amazing professional things. ... We’re going to see that with this group.”