Wakefield Native Joe Cannata Leads Merrimack College Hockey Rennaisance

As junior goaltender Joe Cerulo and the Wakefield Warriors look forward to an unexpected opportunity to compete for their first Div. 1 State Championship on Sunday, much of the focus of Wakefield rink rooters has been deservedly fixed upon Wakefield High and their standout goalie. Cerulo, however, isn’t the only backstop with Wakefield roots leading his team into uncharted territory this spring.

Wakfield native Joe Cannata, starting goalie for No. 7 (USA Today/AHM) Merrimack College, currently sitting in fourth place in the one of the country’s best college hockey conferences, Hockey East, has turned in the finest season of any Merrimack College netminder since the program went to a predominantly Div. 1 schedule in 1989-90, and has presided over its most successful season since 1988, helping the Warriors to an overall mark of 25-8-4, and a date with Boston College in the Hockey East Conference Finals tonight at TD Garden, after a 4-1 win over UNH last night in the semis. After never before being nationally ranked, Merrimack College have now been in the top 20 for 15 straight weeks.

“We’re excited,” said Cannata about the Warriors’ tourney run. “We know we’ve got a good team ahead of us, but we’ve played well all year. We had some success against them earlier, but we know its not going to be an easy game. If we stick to our game plan, we should have a good outcome.”

The junior backstop, boasting a miserly 2.41 goals against average, grew up near Wakefield High School, and is getting serious consideration for several top college hockey accolades. Cannata is a semifinalist for both the Hobey Baker Award, for the nation’s top college hockey player, and the Walter Brown Award, for the best player in New England. 

“It’s exciting,” Cannata said of the award buzz. “I definitely have the guys in front of me. I can’t say its just me, but it’s nice. I’ve worked hard, trying to get in off ice shape, and just getting older and seeing the game more has helped me, and again, we’ve got the guys in front of me, so that definitely helps.”

While Merrimack College has become a legitimate Hockey East contender this season, things were certainly not always this way at Lawler Arena. Prior to the 2010-11 campaign, the Warriors last winning season was in 1988-89, when they went 27-7-0, finishing first in the ECAC East.

This is, in no small part, down to head coach Mark Dennehy, who, since taking over bench duties in 2005, has engineered a complete turnaround of the program’s fortunes through shrewd recruiting and instilling a new mentality in the locker room.

Cannata has seen this change firsthand, as the Warriors won just nine games his freshman year before managing to prevail on 16 occasions last season.

“It’s just the mentality of the team,” he said. “It’s a winning mentality from the coach on in. They brought a lot of good recruits in and good players, we’ve got the skill ... our mantra has sort of been: work hard and attack and we’ve done that this year. We’ve earned making it to the Garden.”

A member of an MIAA Div. 1A Championship winning team at BC High in 2006-07, after transferring in from BB&N, Cannata compiled a record of 16-1-1, with a GAA of just 1.01 and was named BC High’s MVP and a Catholic Conference All Star during that championship season.

Despite being recruited by such traditional powers as Boston College and the University of New Hampshire coming out of high school, Cannata opted to go with Merrimack and the chance to play sooner than perhaps would have been the case at a bigger school.

“Junior year, when I was at BC High, the assistant coach there, who’s the head coach now, John Flaherty, he knew coach Dennehy,” explained Cannata about the decision to ply his trade in North Andover as a collegian. “They came and saw me, and just told me how much they wanted me to be here. Coach Dennehy told me I was going to play, and growing up in this area, you want to play hockey and be seen, it was pretty hard to pass up.”

Before joining the Warriors roster, Cannata spent a year with the USA U-18 team, and helped lead Team USA to a gold medal at the Five Nations Tournament. The talented net minder credits that experience with helping him adjust to the higher level of NCAA hockey coming from the high school ranks.

Cannata compiled a 16-14-3 record and a GAA of 2.56 with the US National Team Development Program.

“It was just the speed of the game,”  he said about the differences between the two levels. “The guys are bigger and stronger. Leaving BC High, and going to play out in Michigan was a big step for me, it was the US U-18 team. I got to play college games there; that was kind of like a freshman year early for me, so that helped me out a lot.”

Drafted in the 6th round of the 2009 NHL entry draft by the Vancouver Canucks, Cannata attended the club’s rookie camp in July of 2010.

The scouting report on Merrimack’s junior stopper, according to hockeysfuture.com, an online prospects resource, is that he is technically sound and possesses good athleticism, while playing extremely calm and not getting rattled easily.

Poise in the crease is something that Cannata has actively tried to make one of his strengths, and one of the main reasons that many people see a possible future in the NHL for the Wakefield native.

“I just try to stay as calm as possible,” said Cannata. “I don’t like to get rattled, because that will affect you later on in the game. I’ve always been that type of kid ... I try to make that one of my assets.”

Despite attending Dorchester’s BC High, the goaltender still maintains strong ties to Wakefield, as his family still resides in town. Cannata has two younger brothers, the elder one, Mike, is a defensman with the New Hampshire Junior Monarchs (EJHL), while also attending Wakefield High School.

Cannata will be pulling for Wakefield High in this Sunday’s Division 1 State Championship game against Marshfield at the Garden on Sunday, as in addition to his ties to the town, the sister of Wakefield senior captain John Sartell is a student at Merrimack and a friend of Cannata’s. Merrimack College’s all-time winningest Division 1 goalie thinks his home town team has a good shot at the title.

“It’s so exciting for them,” said Cannata. “John Sartell, his sister goes here, and I’ve been friends with her for awhile. Those guys have worked hard, and had their struggles this year, but if they stick to what they’ve been doing all season they have a great chance to win.

“Their goalie (Cerulo) has been playing great for them.”