A Fond Look Back

By Paul Bruno

So, it’s not very often I’m asked by a Hall of Fame hockey official to provide some memorable content for his foray into the world of the website. But it’s Jack Lally asking me, so I couldn’t say no.

Regardless, the request was to reminisce on my career in this great sport of hockey, with all its speed, skill, and creative beauty. As a kid who lived and breathed hockey and the New York Rangers I was fortunate to finally have the opportunity to play collegiately in the early 1980s at Seton Hall University in the Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference.

It was at that time I would write up results from our games and have them published in the Pirates’ school newspaper. Probably where I started to find my niche for writing about hockey. Those old home games skating at old Branch Brook ice in Newark. Who remembers that nostalgic old barn?

Early in my senior year at Seton Hall I landed a gig as an intern in the Public Relations Department for the New Jersey Devils during the 1983-84 season, and that was a fabulous experience. Working under Dave Freed and Larry Brooks, the New York Post Hall of Fame writer who sadly passed away recently. I learned much from both of them. The players that year were a blast, too. Guys like Chico Resch, Dave Cameron, Mike Kitchen, Mel Bridgeman and rookie Ken Daneyko. I remember before some games riding the elevator with veteran defenseman Phil Russell and chatting a bit heading down to the locker room. He’d have a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other hand.

A few years later I was asked to coach Seton Hall in the Met League; and did so for the 1986 and 1987 seasons. Practices at then-South Mountain Arena at midnight, games against Kean, Montclair State, Wagner, Hofstra, William Paterson. We even got to play Rutgers one time at Continental Airlines Arena. We got blown out in that game by the Scarlet Knights, so not a good memory. I stepped away from the bench to take a job as a college and high school sportswriter at The Newark Star-Ledger (Dorf Feature Service) in the late fall of 1987.

I started covering high school and college hockey that winter of 1987 working under the late Rick Bliwise, a New Jersey High School Hockey Hall of Fame inductee who started the high school and college hockey rankings and coverage for the Ledger in the late 1970s. 

Years later it was Rick who had the idea to start a Hockey Hall of Fame for New Jersey players, bouncing the idea off of me in 2007. I thought it was a fantastic idea and with that Rick worked to make sure the New Jersey High School Ice Hockey Hall of Fame came to be, with the first inductees earning entrance in 2010. The event was held at the Prudential Center in Newark with the Devils’ backing. I was fortunate to be asked by Rick to be an original member of the HOF Board of Directors along with the likes of Rick, Harvey Cohen, John Magadini, John Warchol, Reynold Fauci, Tony DelTufo, Paul McInnis, Bruce Parker and Mike Giampapa. A true honor to serve in that role with those hockey legends.

As for covering hockey, whether it was for The Star-Ledger,  Steve Tober’s Sideline Chatter website, The Hockey Clan, Hockey Night In Boston or New Jersey Hills newspapers, there are so many memories. The superb athletes I was able to watch and write about as schoolboy players like the great Jim Dowd; and Kenny Blum, Derek Maguire, James and Trevor van Riemsdyk, Kevin Healey, Ned Crotty, Kyle Palmieri, Tim and Connor Clifton, Pat Verney, Brandon Doria, Kenny Agostino, Dan Pencinger, Bobby Jones and, of course, Johnny and Matty Gaudreau, to name a few of the many.

And all of the coaching talent this state has produced over the decades — Bob Auriemma, Cohen, Warchol, Magadini, Mike Reynolds, Bruce Shatel, Greg Toskos, Cory Robinson, Rich McLaughlin, John Kovacs, Chip Bruce, Ryan Carter, Bob Smith, Brian Day, Mark Janifer, Dan May, Pete Herms, Tim Fingerhut, Tom Levis and so many more bench bosses.

I was able to speak with Johnny Gaudreau again after his high school days for a short feature for New Jersey Monthly in 2014 while he was still with the Calgary Flames. I’ll never forget our talk on hockey in New Jersey. Also, I was fortunate to cover some of the New York Rangers’ playoff runs in 2013, 2014 and 2015 for the then-New Jersey Newsroom website. That was a lot of fun. Traveling up to Lake Placid to cover Princeton in the 1999 ECAC tournament at the 1980 Rink. Quite cold, but three days I’ll always cherish.

So many games and fun times covering the NJSIAA state tournament playoffs and championship games at Codey Arena, Mennen Arena, Continental Airlines Arena and the Prudential Center with my colleague and longtime good friend Mike Morreale. 

I’d have to say two experiences really stand out. The first would be covering the 2007 Public and Non-Public state championships with Mike Morreale. If my memory serves me the two games were switched from Continental to Mennen Arena in Morris Township due to a snowstorm. The Public final pitted Randolph against Bridgewater-Raritan. Randolph trailed by a goal before pulling its goalie and tying the game in the final minute. I vividly remember standing behind the Bridgewater goal watching the final two minutes with then-St. Peter’s Prep coach Joe Maione. When Randolph tied it he told me they would win it in overtime.

They did, on an OT goal by standout Kyle Krannich. Maione then went behind the bench for the Non-Public final, with his talented St. Peter’s club and standout Kyle Palmieri against St. Augustine Prep and their stud goalie Kevin Healey. Another classic game that St. Augustine won, 3-1, and capped its 23-0 season. Still the only team in New Jersey hockey history to finish a season with an unbeaten and untied record. Oh, and Mennen Arena was packed with approximately 2,500 and was standing room only around the glass.

The other one was the opportunity I had while writing for Steve Tober’s Sideline Chatter in 2014 during the Stadium Series, where Chatham traveled into the Bronx to square off against St. Peter’s at Yankee Stadium. Delbarton and Don Bosco Prep had also played there a day or two before.

I wrote a series of stories leading up to the game covering it from Chatham’s experience as the lone public school playing in that series. Then-Chatham coach Frank Gilberti gave me full access to his team the week leading up to the game. I watched their practices, interviewed the players and coaches each time, then traveled with the team on their bus to the Stadium to cover the game and write a final wrapup story the next day. That was an awesome experience I will never forget.

I had the honor of being inducted into the New Jersey HS Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 2024. I was extremely humbled but that was such an honor to receive that recognition.

I am still involved in the high school scene and have been covering Morristown, Park Regional and the Mount Olive/Hopatcong/Hackettstown hockey teams for New Jersey Hills newspapers since 2012-2013. Still keeping an eye on the pulse of hockey in the Garden State.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I forgot to mention the great Jack Lally, a NJ Hockey Hall of Fame inductee in his own right for his tireless work as an official and referee assignor all these years. Jack is the best, even if he is a Bruins fan.

Drop the puck!