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Having begun playing hockey at the age of 6, Millis’ Jared Pitman was looking forward to lacing up the skates for the high school team. Unfortunately for the incoming freshmen class, there would be no hockey on the high school level that year. Millis, which had been in a co-op hockey program with Tri-County Regional, was in its last year of the program before the Cougars went their separate ways, leaving Mohawk hockey players with nowhere to play.
“With the co-cop program ending, no freshmen were allowed to join the team that year,” Pitman said. “That was a very different type of season; watching from the sidelines, seeing what high school hockey was all about. I definitely gained a new perspective of the sport.”
The question now facing all of the incoming hopeful hockey players was would Millis join forces with another local school that also didn’t have the numbers on their roster to take to the ice? Jared and his hopeful teammates could only pray that Athletic Director Chuck Grant could find a willing partner so that they could once again play hockey.
“My older brother Kyle (who is four years older than Jared) had been playing hockey and when my parents signed me up, I began playing. Playing Tri Valley Hockey was not only a learning experience for me, but allowed me to try to follow in my brother’s footsteps,” he said. “Growing up, I had always wanted to play high school hockey, but that first year was tough.”
When Grant was able to hookup with Hopedale to form a hockey team (which is now joined by players from Douglas and Whitinsville Christian as well) Pitman basically found himself starting from scratch on the ice.
“I had taken a year off before high school, so when the team started up in my sophomore year I had not played for two years, and going from the Tri Valley to high school hockey was a big change,” Pitman said. “In order to succeed on the high school level, I was going to have to get better because the game was much faster, the players were much bigger and hit much harder.”
Playing right wing on the fourth line gave Pitman very little opportunity to see the ice. While he did get to skate for the team once in a while, it was basically another learning season. By his junior campaign, he was moved up to the third line where he saw more playing time and was starting to figure things out. Pitman would net four goals that season for Millis-Hopedale.
This year, the senior winger believes he’ll once again be on the third line, but his coach sees things a little differently.
“Jared now has some of that varsity experience under his belt and may see some time on the second line where he can contribute more to the team,” Coach Greg LaBossiere said. “He’s a hardnosed, gritty player that will be in the mix, getting regular shifts on one of our top three lines.”
Pitman doesn’t care where he plays as long as he is able to help the team get into the tournament.
“I definitely want to play a lot, so if it’s on the third line again, I’m ok with that,” he said. “Being my senior year I would like to help lead this team into the tournament. If I can score to help the team out, great, but my main focus is winning.”
One way LaBossiere believes that the senior winger can help the team win games is his ability to play on the penalty kill.
“I feel it is one of my strengths, and if Coach LaBossiere has faith in me that I can handle it, I want to prove him right,” Pitman said. “When I’m on the ice for a penalty kill, I have to adjust my mindset to a defensive one to keep them from scoring.”
Pitman is hoping that his teammates can pull it together and earn themselves a spot in the State Hockey Tournament, where as other Millis teams have shown, anything can happen.
“The team looks good, we’re well rounded and have potential, “he said. “There’s nothing more that I would like do than to get this team into the tournament and secure the schools hockey program for the future players.”