SHREWSBURY – A former Shrewsbury player’s child needed help. So Colonials of all ages laced up their skates.
Over 30 former Shrewsbury girls hockey players – and crowds of supportive friends and family members – reunited at NorthStar Ice Sports on Dec. 22 for the program’s inaugural Alumni Hockey Game and Benefit. A fundraising success, the intra-squad contest raised over $2,000 on behalf of Ryla, a 3-year-old girl fighting kidney cancer and daughter of 2012 Shrewsbury hockey alum Breana Monroe.
“I had been wanting to do the Alumni Game for a few years, and I thought about doing it this year. Then, unfortunately, this situation came up. It was one of those nights where I stayed up and I couldn’t stop thinking – and I was thinking that it was time to finally tie this together,” said Shrewsbury Head Coach Frank Panarelli.
The effort first involved a call to Ray Monroe, Ryla’s uncle and Panarelli’s assistant coach of eight years. Though Ryla couldn’t make it to the event, Ray Monroe performed a ceremonial puck drop alongside Tess Parks and Alyssa Ineson, Panarelli’s first captains. Raffles and T-shirt sales were manned by volunteers outside the rink.
Having coached the team for the last 17 years, Panarelli then reached out to his hundreds of alumni. While many were eager to help, there was a hesitancy among a few of the older players about returning to the ice – for some, it might’ve been years (or a half-decade, in some cases) without being in skates. With the encouragement of their one-time coach, players from throughout Panarelli’s tenure showed up for a night of fun and fundraising.
“I said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be all fun. Everyone’s going to have fun,’” said Panarelli. “A lot of them are married with kids. They have their own lives going on. It is really good to see them come back. We’re going to have some laughs. We’re going to try to raise as much money as we can. It will be a fun night for a good cause.”
The feel-good story and sentimental value didn’t take away from the exhibition game’s competitiveness. Players were split into two teams – “Team Blue” for college-aged alumni and “Team Gold” for adult-aged alumni – while current Colonials sat on the bleachers to cheer on their predecessors.
Taylor Breen and Kaci Ryder, a pair of 2022 graduates, led “Team Blue” to a 2-0 victory.
“No, I definitely didn’t expect to be [playing for the Colonials again],” said Ryder, a junior forward at Utica University. “And this was so much fun. I’m glad that we actually got to put in two big teams and get everyone back together. It was fun to get to be back with some people who haven’t played in a while, and also getting to play with Delaney [Couture], who played at Providence College. It was really cool.”
“It was a lot of fun. Where we are – a 2022 graduate, in the middle of everyone – we got to play with people who we had just played with and people we haven’t seen in a while,” added Breen, who plays at Nichols College.
And with alumni fiercely competing for bragging rights, the question had to be asked: Was it stressful out there?
“Yeah, there was a little pressure,” Breen said while laughing. “I was a little more stressed than at my games now.”
Looking to support Ryla? Find the link to her GoFundMe here.
