Torrington has a rooting interest in U.S. women’s hockey

Dylan Skarupa was a senior at Thomas S. Wooton High School in Rockville, Md., when his younger sister, Haley, was a freshman. Both were outstanding athletes.

“She was good enough to play on the varsity boys team when she was a freshman, and in fact Dylan and Haley skated on the same line,” their father, Torrington native Tony Skarupa said from his Boston home early this week. “He was a good athlete and she kind of chased him around. As a girl she always played on the boys’ teams.”

Haley was named to the U.S., Olympic womne’s hockey team, which will play in Pychonchang, South Korea. The Olympics begin in mid-February. Parents Tony and Penny Skarupa, who have traveled extensively following their daughter’s exploits — some 70 trips las year — will, of course, be going. So will Tony’s mother, Barbara, who lives in Torrington. Dylan is an account manager for a research firm in Washington. Tony’s father (Dylan and Haley’s grandfather), who had been a hockey player, died more than a decade ago.

“We’ve been twice to Sweden, once to Finland and allover the place in the United States and Canada,” Tony siad. “We almost never miss when she’s playing.” Tony’s wife, Penny, is from West Hartford.

Torrington people who pay attention to local sports remember Skarupa as a skilled second baseman for Coach Ezio Bonetti’s Torrington High baseball team. He graduated in 1980 and enrolled at Boston College. “As a baseball player, I’d say I was okay-to-good,” he said. “:But at BC I realized fairly quickly that I wouldn’t be anything special. So I concentrated on my studies. It was a great time to be at BC, the Doug Flutie era. I graduated in 1984, Doug the year after.”

It was at BC that he met Penny. She was from West Hartford. Skarupa graduated with a degree in accounting and computer science and launched a brilliant career in business. He is currently COO for a firm called Access Information, after years working in the Washington, D.C. area and living in Roxkville, Md. for 25 years.

Haley followed her parent to B.C. She made a terrific hockey record there, finishing with the secondhighest individual scoring

record, men or women, in BC history. As a senior, she was also a member of only the second team in Eagles history to go undefeated in the regular season.

Her experience with the U.S. team in the World Championships is extensive; gold must be her favorite color because, with the U.S. team, she won the

top (golden) prize in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Her participiation in the Four Nations Cup produced a gold and two silvers.

Torrington has a claim on Haley Skarupa as legitimate as Rockville, MD, Chestnut Hill, Mass., or anywhere else, I’m thinking, because of her dad. Tony has climbed the high mountains, and everyone around T-Town is as proud of him as it’s possible to be without bustin all the buttons

off numerous shirts. In the office, he’s Mr. Skarupa, and should be. But he’s still “Skrups” to a certain collection of classmates who came through Torrington High with him.

I refer to the gang of Skrups’ contemporaries who, through the years have remained part of a brotherhood. They gather each spirng — this year at Cape Cod — for a three-day golf outing, during which laughter predominates, stories are told, some them true, new memories are made, later distored and no one gets a break, not even COOs of companies.

But bet me, when the time comes that when these stalwart grass assassins assemble in the evening to consume various healing waters and speak of their remarkable children, the name Haley Skarupa will be heard again and again.