Doherty building his pro career

HARTFORD — His peers voted him the top defensive defenseman in the ECHL’s Eastern Conference last year, a nice honor for a secondyear pro who had to earn his way onto the Worcester Railers’ roster a season earlier.

Former Sacred Heart defenseman Connor Doherty followed that up with an invitation to his first AHL camp, with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. He has practiced this week at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, where he played his last year of college hockey.

“Him being a Sacred Heart product, it’s pretty cool to come back and experience the pro game in the same building. It’s pretty unique,” said Mike Cornell, Doherty’s teammate and occasional defense partner in Worcester and his Sound Tigers teammate in camp this year.

“He has come a long way, and I’m happy for him, from where he started to the player he is now. You couldn’t ask for a better guy or a better teammate.”

Doherty has played 92 games the past two seasons for Worcester, next door to his hometown of Holden, Mass. He earned his first professional tryout with Utica at the end of last season, though he didn’t play for the Comets.

“It’s my first experience at an AHL camp, so it’s been a little different,” Doherty said. “I have some familiar faces from Worcester, which has made the transition a little easier.”

Doherty completed a fiveyear program at Sacred Heart, leaving with a masters degree. He’s excited to see the team making progress, earning its way to the Atlantic Hockey quarterfinals last season.

“It was a small community there. I got to know my teachers,” Doherty said. “That followed to the hockey team. We did a lot in the community. It was a closeknit group.”

The defensive defenseman scored one goal in each of his first pro seasons. But he scored one Friday, shorthanded, in Bridgeport’s 21 exhibition loss to Hartford at Trinity College, jumping up off a Wolf Pack turnover in the neutral zone to take a pass from Kyle Thomas.

Cornell has seen Doherty’s poise and confidence grow over the past two years.

“Coming into the ECHL as a firstyear player is a tough egg to crack,” Cornell said. “For him to kind of build his way into the lineup in Worcester and get a callup at the end of the season is testament to how much he’s developed. I hope he keeps on building.”

The teams meet again Saturday afternoon in a game closed to the public at Webster Bank Arena. It’s the exhibition finale for both. Their parent clubs, the New York Rangers and New York Islanders, play their own preseason finale there (open to the public) Saturday night at 7.