Historic Headers Season Leads To Sunday's Title Game

Marblehead High School's boys' hockey team is looking to make the 2010-2011 season among the finest in school history. The finest since Marblehead High School students first laced up their blades in 1947.

With a win Sunday over the Westfield High School Bombers, Marblehead can claim their first state title in ice hockey. The recently crowned Divison III North champs will take on the Western Mass. champs Sunday morning at the TD Garden.

The Headers have played big tournament games in Boston in the past, but have consistently run into high school hockey legends that have succeeded in blocking their path to a title.

In the 60’s it was Needham High’s Robbie Ftorek, who went on to the WHA, NHL and then behind the bench as the coach of the Boston Bruins, whose Rockets ended Marblehead’s dream season.

Then, when the red and black made it back to the Garden in 1980, it was St. John Prep’s Bobby Carpenter who scored the goal that knocked the Headers out in the quarterfinals.

Carpenter, a Peabody star, would later be drafted third overall by the Washington Capitals in 1981, suited up for the Bruins and won a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils.

“When the team first took the ice in 1947, they were dressed in football jerseys and khaki pants,” Marblehead coach Bob Jackson said. “The 1947 team took on other area schools on ponds in the area, if the weather cooperated, before moving to the North Shore Sports Center in Lynn.”

“Lynn Arena was an outdoor facility at the time, but the program was moving up,” Jackson said. “Every hockey team played in the Division One tournament for years, we take pride in being competitive.”

Jackson played hockey for the Headers in the mid-70’s and now he coaches the sons of many of his former teammates. Consistency, he said, has always been one of the trademarks of Header hockey.

The 1974 team finished 19-1-0, while this year’s edition enters Sunday’s title match at 19-4-3, with a chance to become one of the most succesful teams in Marblehead High School hockey history.

“We’ve just got to continue playing the way we’ve been playing, the way that got us here,” Jackson said. “We’ve got to continue getting solid play from all three lines and be responsible in the defensive end and keep a good fore-check going.”

The players had team dinner at senior Chris McLeod’s house on Monday night and they’ll have another team meal Saturday night at the home of senior captain Ben Koopman and his brother Tom, a freshman forward.

“Just the guys Saturday night, no coaches,” Jackson said. “They’re going to see plenty of us (coaches Mark Tarmey, Tom Colby, Patrick Flynn, Gary Conn and Tommy Sullivan) at practice before Sunday’s game.”

The puck drops Sunday morning at 11:15 a.m., with the winner hositing up the Division Three state championship trophy.

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