Harbormen Take Over Fenway in Unforgettable Night

“Team 88” poses in front of the legendary Green Monster before their game against Marshfield.

January 12, 2023 – Story and photos by Joshua Ross

“It’s an unreal experience,” says senior captain Chase McKenna after the game. “I’m speechless. I mean, there’s really no words that can describe it. Going on that ice, it’s pretty big. Seeing all those people, it’s something special and I’m super happy I got this experience.”

And what an experience it was for everyone involved, present company included. From the moment they stepped off the bus in front of Gate A donning Hingham Baseball uniforms (thanks Coach Niles) to the after party at the Cask ‘n Flagen, it will be night no one forgets.

The NHL and Boston Red Sox have been using the rink ever since the Winter Classic on January 2nd. College games, high school games, charity games and family skates have all taken place over the past few weeks. The schedule is tight, as one can image, it was luck that the Harbormen didn’t have any games this week and a spot was open for a high school game.

Senior Evan Doherty didn’t miss an opportunity to take full advantage of the experience.

Head Coach Tony Messina has played in an alumni game and watched as a parent, but never coached a game in Fenway on the ice. He’s glad everything worked out and his team got a make-shift “break” midseason.

“It kind of feels like that,” Messina said. “This week we didn’t have any games so when they said this was our day, it worked out great. And Marshfield was open too. Tomorrow we are headed to the Bruins game for the Kraken game (thanks Matty Beniers) so it feels like a team building week and we’ll be back to work on Friday, but these two nights will be great.”

McKenna agrees that this week can be the catalyst they need to finish the season strong.

“It’s weird have a scrimmage in the middle of the season,” explains McKenna. “But it was an awesome experience and all the guys loved it, everybody having a good time. So I think it definitely was a huge team building experience.”

And everybody means everybody. All 32 players on the roster dressed, as well as team manager Tommy Kennedy, who almost scored.

Senior Liam Burns takes an extra minute before exiting through the visitors dugout to take it all in.

“We’re just happy to see the kids have such good time out there,” Messina went onto say. “They were so excited for it. And to get everyone on the varsity team, we had 33 skaters out there, which is hard to do. I think everyone had a good time and everyone played well. It was a good experience for them.”

In between all the hoopla, there was a hockey game played. Hingham won either 4-2 or 3-2. There seems to be some controversy on whether or not the empty netter went in before time expired. Regardless of the final score, the crowd of almost 2,000 got to see a good hockey game in a historic venue.

Link to HHS hockey game at Fenway can be found here.