CT Whale finds its home in Simsbury
On Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks, Jim Calhoun’s Gym and more for your Sunday Read
SIMSBURY — The Connecticut Whale had its home state, but finding home ice was problematic. Stamford, Milford, North Branford, Danbury, nothing was permanent.
But Tobin Kelly, who led a group of investors in buying the franchise in May 2021 kept looking. By the end of last year new, local owners had taken over the once-glamorous International Skating Center of Connecticut and began repairs and renovations. “It kind of fell into the shadows,” said Kelle Becconsall, a lifelong Simsbury resident and one of the new owners. “It used to be the crown jewel of the town.”
It was much more than a hunch that these two must somehow meet and form a partnership, and on Dec. 9, the Whale will play the Minnesota Whitecaps on the center of Simbury with the ISCC its permanent home.
“It’s going to be really awesome,” said Taylor Girard, former Quinnipiac standout who skates on the Whale’s first line. “It’s cool to have a space to call home. Last year we didn’t really have that opportunity and a lot of female teams don’t have that. To be able to walk in here and know we’re going to have our logo at center ice, it’s going to be really special.”
The Premier Hockey Federation created a place for women to play hockey professionally after college, and its on its way to creating careers. The league, originally known as the National Women’s Hockey League, formed with the Whale as a charter member in 2015 and a salary cap of $270,000 per team. Most of the players hold down fulltime jobs off the ice. Some, like Girard, are personal trainers, some teachers, some coaches.
This wasn’t a problem for Mallory Souliotus, 26, who is starting her fifth season in the league, her first with the Whale. Souliotis played at Yale, where she earned a degree in biomedical engineering, and later got her master’s in bioengineering from Maryland. She works in oncology research at Merck Serrono. Though she helped the Boston
Pride win two championships, beating the Whale in the Isobel Cup final last year, Souliotis, who plays on defense, liked what Kelly was building in Connecticut and made the move.
During her time in the league, the salary cap has been increased five times and is now $750,000 for the 21-player rosters and there is a TV deal with ESPN.
“There’s really no words to describe how the league has grown,” Souliotis said. “From the players’ experience, the salaries have gone up, adding more teams, that means more girls are playing and earning a lot more money than we used to playing a sport/we love. The private ownership steps we started to take have been huge. Each team now has a dedicated owner that is willing to do what it takes for that team to get really good players and treat the players like professionals.”
Women’s sports has long been a passion for Kelly, who coached the girls hockey team at Needham High in Massachusetts. His wife, Margaret, plays field hockey for the U.S, Masters Team and his daughter, Kenzie, at Wesleyan.
“In my family, my wife and daughter are the real athletes,” he said. “But I’ve also watched the challenges they went through, trying to play the sports that they love and then I faced it as a coach, trying to figure it out, too. Seeing that and being at a point in my life where I might be able to do something about it, and seeing that the league was moving to private ownership, I actually wrote the league out of the blue.”
Kelly rounded up a total of 20 investors to join him in purchasing the Whale. He met coach Colton
Orr, who played 13 NHL seasons, and it quickly became apparent that their visions for the franchise aligned, They just had to find the community.
“It’s not just about bringing a pro team into a space that we’re using,” Kelly said. “We’re embedding ourselves in the community. So we’re the first team that has a youth program coordinator so we can attract some sponsors to support those efforts, and it’s about our players living and being here. We found these folks and this place.”
The ISCC is reclaiming its role as a place for world class figure skaters to train. The Whale’s home ice will be surrounded by seating for about 700, with premium seating rinkside, suites overlooking the ice and new dedicated locker rooms behind. The Whale will play 24 games, nine in Simsbury.
“Just having this home base where the community can come together and cheer for us,” Souliotis said, “and also a place where we can feel welcome.
This is our home, we’re not sharing a rink with another professional team. This is all ours. It’s pretty awesome.”
Thibodeau’s team
The Knicks (3-2) lost at Milwaukee Friday night but through five games look a lot more like a Tom Thobodeau team than they did last year.
Thibodeau, a New Britain native, got the chance to coach the Knicks, his dream job, two years ago and led them out of the mire in which the franchise had been stuck for years and into the playoffs. Then an inexplicable thing happened as the roster was reconfigured in ways counter to his concepts. The chance to bring Kemba Walker home was too enticing to resist, but the ex-UConn star was done and the Knicks’ front office should have resisted it. Walker, 32, was waived by Detroit on the eve of the season.
Thibodeau won more personnel battles for Year 3. The current team, though playing faster and giving up more points than a Thibodeau team usually does, is more in its coach’s image, with Jalen Brunson at point guard raising the basketball IQ and ball movement. This is how it should be. You hire a coach for certain reasons and give him the chance to win or lose with his kind of team.
Jim Calhoun’s court
The gym at the University of Saint Joseph will be named the James A. Calhoun Gymnasium, in honor of the Hall of Fame coach who came out of retirement to start up the men’s basketball program and create an instant winner.
The ceremony, to be staged Thursday, will have star power from Calhoun’s championship years at UConn, including Emeka Okafor, Donny Marshall and Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell. There will be other Calhoun guys who left marks outside of basketball, like John A.
Cavolowski, who played for Calhoun at Dedham High, and is director of the transformative aeronautics concepts program at NASA, and J. Keith Motley, who played for Calhoun at Northeastern and has had a long career as an educational leader, including a tenure as chancellor at UMass Boston.
Calhoun, 80, is still an everyday presence at St. Joe’s, where he is involved in the Legacy Fund and its goal to help students, and frequently drops in at UConn.
Sunday short takes
* Dan Iassogna, 53, who went to UConn and began umpiring with an introductory course taught by former baseball coach Andy Baylock, has reached a new milestone. He’s crew chief at the 2022 World Series. Iassogna’s UConn classmate, Jim Reynolds, is also an MLB crew chief.
* New York, especially The Bronx, has always been a tough place to play, but the angst at the ballpark as the Yankees were eliminated ignominiously by Houston seemed more intense than ever before. With 12 playoff spots available there are plenty of places a player can go and have a chance to win every year. It’s fair to wonder if the Yankees will have problems keeping or attracting players.
* Key to Giants’ 6-1 start? Not asking players to do things they can’t do. They are exquisitely coached.
* Former Husky James Bouknight played 17 minutes against the Knicks this week at the Garden, scoring 13, and 26 minutes vs. Orlando on Friday, scoring 11, so the Hornets aren’t sitting him in response to his recent arrest on DWI-related charges. Then again, they are paying him.
The last word
Is there anything sillier than the NCAA’s “secret scrimmages” in college basketball? You don’t want to let fans in, fine, but what’s the harm in allowing them to be reported? Let’s imagine the UConn men scrimmaged, oh, say Virginia on Saturday. Fans make the emotional and financial investment in the Huskies might like to know how it went.