It’s a winter night in New England and this is an exercise in hockey memory.

These are memories of the last Mount Hermon hockey team—the team of Winter 1970-71, when I was a freshman at the school.  

Along with memories of that team, you’ll find other memories of hockey in New England in the early 1970s, and thoughts on how New England prep school and college hockey have changed since then. 

I was not a member of the Mount Hermon 70-71 hockey team. That year I was a member of what was known as the JL team—the freshman/sophomore team.  

The guys on the varsity—most of whom were PGs and thus 4 years older—were like mythical older brothers.  I had watched good hockey prior to arriving at Mount Hermon, going every Saturday night to the Eastern States Coliseum to watch Eddie Shore’s Springfield Indians play in the AHL, but watching the Mount Hermon Varsity in 1970-71 was my first opportunity to watch good hockey players who were within reach.  

They left me with indelible memories—because of who they were and because they epitomized the best of what Mount Hermon had always been about— a boarding school nearly devoid of boarding school snobbery, a boarding school in which every single kid had to have a “work job” on campus,  a place in which kids from all walks of life were truly welcome, a place where kids who wanted to live an adventurous life in the biggest world possible would be given encouragement without end.

I spent four years at the school, my world getting blown wide open. Most players on the 1970-71 team were at the school for only one or two years.  

But they made the most of their time.  And what follows is about their time.

When this gets posted and shared, I welcome from them and anybody else who was there any and all corrections, gaps filled, memories added, verifications made.   Because my memories may be indelible, but they are far from infallible.