Bruce Lerch checks in with an opening-night tribute to a coaching legend by one of his former players:
Wednesday night was most certainly not your typical opening hockey night at the Ed Burns Arena in Arlington.
Visiting Wakefield was looking to get started on another run that could take it at minimum back to the Div. 1 state championship game, if not contending for a Super Eight bid. Host Arlington played its first game as a member of the Middlesex League and welcomed back one of its own as former AHS and Princeton star John Messuri stepped behind the bench for his debut as head coach.
But without question, the biggest highlight of the night was a visit from legendary Arlington hockey and football coach Ed Burns, the very man for whom the arena is named.
Burns took over as coach of the hockey team in 1947 and stayed for 50 years, compiling a record of 695-167-62. Under his guidance, AHS won a New England championship, eight state and Eastern Mass. titles and a whopping 28 Greater Boston League titles. In 21 seasons at the helm of the Spy Ponders football program, Burns’ teams went 110-64-10.
An annual winter retreat to Florida with his wife Betty was delayed, enabling Burns to accept an invitation to join Messuri behind the bench as the Spy Ponders honorary coach for the season opener.
“I usually go to Florida early and I miss out on all the games,” Burns said. “So if I can catch it on the television I watch it because I love to watch the kids and see how they are improving. It’s wonderful. I really miss it.”
Burns, looking 90 years young, spent much of the evening shaking hands and greeting men, women and children of all ages who stopped over to say hello. He took a spot alongside Messuri on the Arlington bench and was given a standing ovation by the crowd when introduced as the team’s honorary coach for the evening.
While catching up with Messuri prior to the game, he handed the current bench boss a slip of paper that contained the key tenets of his coaching philosophy: back-check, change lines every 20 seconds, take wrist shots instead of slap shots, watch how the goalie plays so you know which shooting angles to aim for, play the rebounds and get the puck to the open guy on the left to shoot at an empty net.
During the first period, the Spy Ponders appeared to be heeding those tenets and took a 1-0 lead when Remy Pontes tipped home a wrist shot from the point by Brian Jigarjian. Mike Greco also assisted on the goal.
“We got off to a good start,” Messuri said. “The kids were emotional and it was good having Eddie on the bench. Coach Burns is so special to the town and the kids really responded in that first period.”
“He gave me seven steps to the game,” continued Messuri, when asked about the piece of paper Coach Burns handed him in the arena foyer. “It was funny because the first thing was old time, no slap shots, and our first goal was a wrist shot. Then he talked about backchecking and I thought it was pretty cool that he wrote that up.”
The Spy Ponders couldn’t hold that momentum, however, as Wakefield scored on back-to-back power plays in the second with goals by Alec Brown and Joe McCleary less than two minutes apart. Brown also assisted on McCleary’s goal, and Warriors captain Kevin Doherty assisted on both. Both teams went scoreless in the third and Wakefield held off several good chances late to take a 2-1 victory.
While it was important to pick up the first win of the season, Wakefield coach Derek Edgerly was more than happy to be part of Burns’ return.
“It feels like I’m back in the ’80s at Stoneham High,” Edgerly reminisced. “Mr. Burns, I used to go to his hockey schools here and also Hockeytown back in the day. I had a good conversation with him for about 10 minutes. It’s good to see the old faces back in hockey.”
Current Arlington girls hockey coach Jeff Mead also played for Burns and was excited to see his mentor back on the ice. He even took time to share a funny story of his first on-ice ‘meeting’ with the coach.
“I got called up as a freshman to practice with the varsity,” Mead recalled. “I didn’t make the varsity officially until my sophomore year and I was skating around. I was known for my speed and I think I ran into him at the red line and I went down like a sack of potatoes. He just kept going, ‘Ah Mead, what are you doing?’ He probably didn’t know who I was because I was just a freshman and was excited to be out there and I was doing a couple of warmup laps and he just came right across and obviously I got the worst of it.”
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