Fischer Never Far From Brother, Bulldogs
February 6, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Connor Fischer couldn’t imagine a better design. He immediately knew his brother Ryan would have loved the jerseys Grandville’s hockey team will wear Saturday against top-ranked Detroit Catholic Central.
The Grandville “G” on the front is patterned after Captain America’s shield, with the American flag trimming the bottom and stars and stripes on the shoulders.
There’s definitely a superhero quality to the sweater, fitting for a game played to remember Ryan, who died unexpectedly in his sleep 11 months ago the night before Grandville took on DCC in an MHSAA Semifinal. He had a heroic make-up; Ryan was truly an all-American kid, set to begin at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the fall, who excelled in class, on the ice and football field and was gifted with a big-picture understanding and personality that drew others to him.
Connor sees his brother a little simpler – just a great guy with a goofy laugh, who like Connor clicked his heels when he walked. But to his younger brother, Ryan continues to mean so much more.
“Growing up … I realized I wanted to be like Ryan. I strived to be like him. He was my building block, my stepping stone,” Connor said. “People who knew Ryan, know Ryan and I are different in a lot of ways. Undoubtedly there are a lot of similarities, and if people are able to compare me to him in any way it’s the greatest compliment I could receive. Because that’s how I want to be. Who better to be like than Ryan Fischer?”
The “Captain America” comparisons used to get on Connor’s nerves a bit, but now he sees those comparisons as positive – ways others help his brother live on – just like he and the Bulldogs will this weekend when they play to help raise money for a pair of scholarships in Ryan’s name.
Grandville will face Detroit Catholic Central at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Van Andel Arena, home of the Grand Rapids Griffins, a minor league affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings. Tickets cost $15, with a portion of proceeds donated to the scholarship fund that bears Fischer’s name, and one ticket gets fans into both the high school game and the Griffins’ game against the Rochester Americans at 7 p.m.
Grandville has a mighty following. The Bulldogs have drawn crowds as large as 1,400 this season – but they’re hoping for more than twice that many fans as they recall both a painful memory and a beautiful friendship formed with Fischer’s untimely passing.
Fischer was a co-captain of last season’s team and a leader in various capacities – he served four years on Grandville’s student government executive board and was a member of the MHSAA’s Student Advisory Council, among other duties. A senior forward, he played a main role in helping the Bulldogs to their first MHSAA Semifinal since 2001.
Fischer never woke the morning of March 7, an examination showing he died from an enlarged heart. At the urging of his parents, Scott and Roni, Grandville did face DCC that night. The Shamrocks won 3-0, and in one of the most memorable gestures of sportsmanship in many people’s memories, skated to surround the Bulldogs as they knelt after in front of their net while fans pointed both index fingers into the air to symbolize Fisher’s number 11. (See video below.)
Connor, then a freshman, was not on varsity last season; he is the only sophomore on Grandville’s top team this winter. He didn’t see last year’s game – but the significance of Saturday’s rematch is not lost on him.
“The first thing that went through my mind is DCC is a great hockey team, the best in the state. It’s a great chance to go out there, play a high level of hockey, play great competition,” Connor Fischer said. “But look past that, they’re people from across the state that really do care. They see something bigger than a hockey game, just as I do, just as my family does and the whole team does.”
Building brotherhood
The Fischers were not a hockey family until Ryan, at 3 or 4, saw a hockey game and thought it was “the coolest thing ever,” Connor said. Soon Ryan and Scott were building rinks in the yard every winter, and when he was about 4, Connor joined his brother on the ice.
Their friendship was rooted as much in lemonade stands and playing Star Wars in the backyard as in sports. But athletics definitely provide a strong family tie. Older sister Kelsea is a sophomore gymnast for Division III power University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Ryan also was a captain of Grandville’s football team, and Connor plays the same sports as his brother and has taken up lacrosse in advance of this spring’s season.
As younger kids, Connor was a tattle-tale. Ryan would get mad at him. “But when I was in middle school and he was a freshman, he realized I would be the only brother he was going to have. I’m beyond thankful for that, beyond thankful he realized that at such a young age,” Connor said.
“When he was with his friends, he’d say, ‘This is Connor. He’s the coolest brother ever.’ … It made me feel special, just like he always made everyone feel special.”
In Connor’s words, Ryan was a little bit more personable, Connor is more conservative but laid-back.
But they shared a similar way of thinking. Connor lives situations now that Ryan did a few years ago, and without always knowing for sure, he’s pretty sure Ryan handled them in similar ways.
Ryan’s death has made Connor grow to be much older than his 16 years. Like Ryan, Connor has early thoughts of following his parents into the military – both did ROTC at Michigan State University and were officers in the U.S. Army, and Connor is considering a similar route. But he feels no expectations to be Ryan, only to grow as himself.
“His maturity is well beyond his years, and he’s absolutely sincere in everything he does with it,” Scott Fischer said. “He’s had his own legacy, his own path, as much as he’ll always support the legacy of his brother.”
Among those Connor leans on are friends who are more like family. Grandville hockey coach Joel Breazeale lives just down the road, and the Fischers and Breazeale’s three sons have been friends since most of their lives.
The hockey team has become an extended family as well. Breazeale has coached nearly 30 years, and experienced losses of players from other teams. He’s watched as certain trigger points this season have brought raw emotions rushing back. But he’s also seen something like he’s never experienced with others he’s coached – a bond so strong that the competitive juices that might rule a locker room have been replaced by tolerance and understanding of each other’s personalities that point to the former teammate whose influence remains strong.
“It’s through the grace of Ryan and what all of these boys have shared,” Breazeale said. “They embrace each other, embrace the challenges they’ve faced together, and they move forward. They take on challenges with another perspective. They’ve just grown tighter, and those traits were synonymous with Ryan.”
Always with us
Saturday’s game will be one of the final scheduled fundraisers for the Fischer scholarships, which will be given annually. Response has been tremendous and allowed for two awards – the original, which will go to a hockey player from the Ottawa Kent Conference this year and be expanded for players statewide in 2016, and a second for a Grandville High School senior. Both are for $2,500, and Scott hopes that as the fund grows, the scholarships also will grow to keep pace with increases in cost for higher education.
The hockey community has played a huge part. Grand Rapids Catholic Central coach Mike Slobodnik and former longtime East Kentwood coach Ron Baum piloted the scholarship foundation. When Breazeale mentioned the possibility of playing Saturday’s game at Van Andel, the Griffins’ management jumped at the opportunity to help and will open up ticket sales at the gate to give fans plenty of opportunity to attend.
There was never a doubt who Grandville hoped to play – from competitive and personal standpoints. The Bulldogs are 14-2-2 and ranked No. 8 in Division 1, with a chance to see how they match up with Regionals a month away.
“This made so much sense,” Breazeale said. “This is a big deal, that DCC made this investment to play Forest Hills Central (tonight) and then play us, and we appreciated that. Obviously our program has come a long way in the past 4-5 years, and for us to have become as competitive as we have been, it’s a nice acknowledgement that we’re moving into that realm. … No matter how the score ends up, it’s big for our program.”
A plaque commemorating Ryan was placed in Grandville’s football locker room this fall, near the door to the field. A similar smaller plaque hangs in Grandville’s hockey locker room at Georgetown Ice Arena; Connor and Thomas Breazeale are the last to hit the ice every day and always make sure to give it a glance.
Connor was ill at the start of this week, his temperature reaching 103 degrees. There was no way, he said Wednesday night, he wouldn’t get on the ice for at least a few seconds Saturday. But that’s it as far as personal goals for what will be a titanic matchup for his team.
“I don’t want to score a goal in his honor, nothing like that,” Fischer said. “Ryan always looked at the team before himself. There’s no better way to honor him than to help to win that game.”
Connor can’t say that it feels like this year has gone by quickly or slowly. He’s not sure how to describe it. The little things spin his mind to his brother – saying the pledge of allegiance, going past his old stall in the hockey locker room, or seeing the clock read 11:11.
He admits he was a little scared joining the varsity hockey team this winter, entering that locker room for the first time. But his teammates embraced him, and he embraced them. And Ryan’s No. 11 jersey hangs in Georgetown’s rafters, another reminder to all of them he isn’t far from their hearts.
“It’s the same coach, the same players. I feel like he’s never gone,” Connor said. “He’s never going to be gone.
"It’s amazing to know that.”
Click to order tickets for Saturday’s Grandville/Detroit Catholic Central game and enter the promo code FISCHER. Also, click for more information on the Ryan Fischer Legacy Scholarship.
PHOTOS: (Top) Connor Fischer taps a plaque commemorating his brother Ryan before a junior varsity football game in the fall. (Middle) The jerseys Grandville will wear Saturday include a number of patriotic symbols including trim of the American flag. (Below) Clockwise from left, Connor Fischer, Ryan Fischer and sister Kelsea Fischer. (Bottom) Ryan Fischer was a captain for Grandville's varsity hockey team last season. (Photos courtesy of the Fischer family.)
Hockey Owns Long History in Michigan HS Lore
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
March 2, 2019
By the fall of 1974, there were 80 “bona-fide high school teams” playing hockey in Michigan.
Growth since 1972 had been spectacular. During the 1972-73 school year, according to Michigan High School Athletic Association assistant director Warren McKenzie, there were 32 high school teams playing varsity schedules. In 1973-74, there were 56.
With increased popularity came the desire for championship competition. By late 1972, several school administrators were clamoring for the MHSAA to consider adding a postseason hockey tournament to its sports menu.
In May, October, and November 1973, the MHSAA Hockey Study Committee gathered in Lansing to explore that possibility, and examined the pros and cons of a tournament, the need for a standard set of rules, for limits on number of games in a season and to establish a uniform time of season.
“We see that hockey has come a long way, and due to recent growth, we wish to provide a state tournament,” said McKenzie later that school year. “Before we can provide a state tournament, there must be uniform rules.”
With things in order, in November 1974 the MHSAA announced plans for the first championship tournament, sketching out details for a two-tiered postseason, scheduled for March 1975.
To little surprise, high school hockey has a rich history in Michigan. In self-christened “Hockeytown,” the sport dates back to the late 1920s in the Detroit Public Schools.
With the largest enrollments in the state, Detroit schools offered a wide array of athletic options to students. The Greater Detroit Prep Hockey Loop in these early days played games outdoors, on public rinks at Kronk and Bradley Parks in Detroit, Redford Park in Redford, at Playfair Park in Hamtramck and in Highland Park. Of course, this being Michigan where winter weather is far from predictable, Mother Nature could play havoc with a season.
Schedules were mapped by week of play, but the actual days and times of the games weren’t announced until weather conditions dictated if and when actual play could occur.
Hockey arrived at Detroit Catholic Central in 1934, started by Father Robert Lowrey. Also dependent upon outdoor rinks in those early years, games were played with Country Day School, Cranbrook School and area club teams. During the 1940s and 1950s, if outdoor conditions were poor for ice, the varsity Shamrocks would sometimes travel to Canada for practice and games at Windsor Arena. Built in 1924 as the Border Cities Arena, the wood-constructed stadium sat 6,000 and for a season served as the original home of the NHL expansion Detroit Cougars, later renamed the Falcons, then finally the Red Wings. Equipment costs, as well as this need to rent indoor ice time, meant the sport was expensive. Still, hockey was among Catholic Central’s most popular athletic offerings.
Hockey was also a fixture during the 1920s in the section of the Upper Peninsula known as Copper Country. There were only four indoor rinks in the Upper Peninsula at the time: the Palestra in Marquette, Gouin Street Arena in Sault Ste. Marie and two of the oldest continually operating rinks in the nation, the Calumet Colosseum in Calumet and the Amphidrome (later renamed Dee Stadium) in Houghton. But the popularity of basketball in the U.P. led to the disappearance of high school hockey by the 1940s.
Hockey vanished in the Detroit Public Schools in the late 1930s, but still remained strong in the Detroit Catholic schools.
Poking around newspaper archives and old yearbooks, one will inevitably unearth the name James O’Reilly Enright. Sports fans in the metro Detroit area knew him best as Father Enright, C.S.B., head coach of the varsity team for 21 years at Detroit Catholic Central and a longtime assistant with the school’s baseball teams.
Born in Detroit, but raised in Toronto, Enright earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, then joined the staff of Detroit Catholic Central in 1948 as an algebra teacher and head coach of the hockey team. In 1949, he went to Texas, working as a history and English teacher at Houston St. Thomas. While at St. Thomas, Enright revived a dormant hockey program and served as the school’s coach during his two years there. After completing his theological studies and entering the priesthood in June of 1951, he rejoined the staff of Detroit Catholic, where he again became the school’s hockey coach.
“We had been playing hockey at Catholic Central for several years, but we were forced to play only exhibitions inasmuch as no league was in operation,” Enright told the Detroit Times in 1960. “We would play some of the high schools in Windsor and Chatham, Ontario, where hockey is a varsity sport. Or anyone who would play us.”
In the fall of 1958, with the help of Fr. John Lee, the two worked to create a proper high school league. In its initial state, the International High School Hockey League was comprised of eight charter members: Catholic Central, Detroit Catholic schools St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, and Benedictine, Harper Woods Notre Dame, the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills (with its own rink, opened in January 1957), and Ontario schools Windsor Riverside and North Essex.
Catholic Central won the league that first season finishing play with a 13-1 record while topping Notre Dame in the standings. The coming years saw entrances and exits by schools. North Essex departed after the first year. St. Anne of Tecumseh, Ontario, was briefly added to the mix.
The International League was split into two divisions, first and second, and in later years, North and South. Each February beginning in 1962, teams would compete in the annual Mayor’s Cup tournament, hosted at Cobo Arena near the Detroit riverfront or at Olympia, the old red barn, that served as home for the Red Wings. Without an MHSAA postseason hockey tournament in place, an IHSHL playoff was hosted each March. Winners often would lay claim to state championships. Catholic Central annexed state titles in 1959, 1961 and 1968.
Ann Arbor High School joined the league in 1962-63. A season-opening crowd of 3,500 was on hand at Michigan Hockey Arena on a Saturday in late November for the team’s debut. The Pioneers wore varsity football jerseys in that opener against Detroit Catholic Central (and for the early part of the season), as they didn’t yet have regular hockey uniforms. George Wolski posted a hat trick, scoring three goals for the Shamrocks, as Fr. Enright’s squad defeated Ann Arbor, 5-3.
Detroit Cathedral Catholic also joined the league beginning with the 1962-63 season. A strong team, the Wildcats fell to the Windsor Riverside Rebels, 2-1 and 3-2, in the league’s best-of-three championship series at Windsor Stadium in the 1963 playoffs. It was the second consecutive IHSHL title for Riverside.
By the mid-to-late 1960s the teams from Canada had departed, but continued growth of hockey programs in the Metro area led to additional expansion.
Headed by Hockey Magazine prep All-American Phil Wittliff’s 37 goals during the 1964-65 regular season, Port Huron Catholic posted an 11-2-1 regular season mark in its first season of varsity play in the IHSHL. Finishing second in its division, the team then rolled past leader Ann Arbor, with 4-3 and 7-6 wins in a best-of-three series, to advance to the league championship game. Before a crowd of nearly 700 at McMorran Sports Arena in Port Huron, the Warriors topped Cathedral Catholic, 7-4, to claim league and state championships in a contest that was ended early because of several fights. Wittliff, a junior, finished the year with 47 goals including three goals and three assists in the season finale. Following graduation, he played hockey at Notre Dame and in hockey’s minor leagues, then became head coach and team executive with the Milwaukee Admirals of the old International Hockey League.
“There are more than 200 amateur hockey teams in the Detroit area and the figure could easily double if there were enough playing rinks to go around,” stated the Detroit Free Press in March 1965. “The organized leagues begin with the Squirt Division for boys under 10. The Pee Wee under 12 group follows and then the Bantams. The Juvenile and Junior Division cover the high school age group.”
Ann Arbor (winner of IHSHL tournament titles in 1966, 1967 and 1971), Detroit Benedictine (champion in 1969 and 1970), Detroit Cathedral Catholic, St. Clair Shores Lakeview, Ecorse, Fraser and others emerged as strong opponents during the seasons and showcased their skills in tournaments hosted at Olympia Stadium, Cobo and various suburban rinks sprouting up during that span.
“High school hockey was abandoned in the Upper Peninsula some 25 years ago,” noted The Associated Press in an article from November 1969 announcing that Calumet, Hancock, Marquette and Houghton were prepared to sponsor the sport. That winter, the schools joined Eagle River, Wis., to form the Lake Superior Hockey League.
Sault Ste. Marie began play in the winter of 1972-73. Too far from Copper Country for competition to be practical, it joined the Schoolboy High School League “with seven Canadian teams across the (St. Marys) river.” Beginning in 1972, Alpena operated the V.F.W. Allstar Midgets hockey team, playing older teams, with the goal of adding hockey as a varsity sport with the 1973-74 season.
In Flint, Ainsworth, Bentley, Carman, Kearsley and Powers Catholic high schools joined Grand Blanc and Mt. Morris to launch teams and form the Genessee County High School Hockey League during the 1972-73 school year. Games were played at the Flint IMA Sports Arena and strongly supported by fans. Attendance averaged 1,500 per contest, with 3,500 packing the arena for the league championship between Powers and Grand Blanc. Flint Northern and others followed with programs the next winter, bringing league membership to 20 schools spread across two divisions.
“In February of 1973, there was no indoor ice in Grand Rapids. A year later… there are two indoor rinks, 18 youth teams, 18 men’s teams and close to 500 participants.” wrote United Press International reporter Richard Gosselin while covering the rapid growth of amateur hockey in Michigan in early 1973. “Saginaw was much the same way…From zero hockey last year, Saginaw now has a program of 17 teams with over 300 players.”
According to a series of articles written by Howard Hoffman for the Port Huron Times Herald in 1974, four high school hockey leagues existed in Michigan, each operating with its own set of rules.
Besides the Lake Superior Conference in the U.P., and the Genessee County League, high school-sponsored teams played in the Suburban Hockey League and the Michigan Metro League. The SHL began in 1972-73 and included “four Livonia schools, two from Southfield and Wyandotte Roosevelt.” The Metro League was the former International High School Hockey League. It had been rechristened following the departure of the Canadian schools and, according to Hoffman, now included 21 teams, “mostly private schools in Detroit and suburban schools in affluent cities such as St. Clair Shores, Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills.”
Four additional club leagues, each without high school sponsorship, operated in Saginaw (six teams), Kalamazoo (six teams), Lansing (eight teams) and Grand Rapids (10 teams). In Lansing, the club teams were sponsored by the Metro Ice Arena, which paid coaches and officials, and supplied the equipment to the teams. In the Kalamazoo and Saginaw areas, the squads depended on families and/or friends of players to fund operations. Grand Rapids teams operated with funding from the local Amateur Hockey Association and the Grand Rapids Ice Arena.
In January 1975, the MHSAA finalized the field for that first postseason. Director Allen Bush stated that club teams, not officially representing a high school, would not be eligible for the playoffs.
In this first year, all teams immediately advanced to regional action. Eligible teams were grouped into two classifications, based on hockey experience, size of the school and type of feeder programs in the area. Tier I, featuring 47 more experienced teams, would play semifinals and finals rounds at University of Michigan’s Yost Arena. In Tier II, 33 teams would battle it out for the right to compete in the semis and finals to be played at Veteran’s Arena in Ann Arbor.
“It was the best way we could figure out to get started and it seems to have worked out well,” said McKenzie. “At least there haven’t been too many complaints.”
St. Clair Shores Lakeview downed Calumet 5-1 behind a hat trick by Keith Zoldak in the Tier I championship, to finish the season with a perfect 31-0 record. Calumet ended the year at 25-3. Greg Tignanelli and Dan Reeder also scored for the Huskies, while Duane Nordstrom scored the lone goal for Calumet. In a time when most college hockey players came from Canada, Zoldak would later star at Ferris State and Tignanelli excelled at Northern Michigan, then was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens.
In only its second year of existence, Lansing Catholic topped previously unbeaten Portage Northern for the Tier II title, 5-3 before a crowd of 1,200. The Cougars ended the year 28-2-1, while Northern, which had beaten Catholic earlier in the year, finished 20-1. Junior goalie Buddy Heagen stopped 44 shots as the Huskies outshot Lansing Catholic, 47 to 27. Randy Williams, who finished the year with 52 goals, scored in both the first and second periods to lead the Cougars. Trailing 4-2, Northern cut the lead to a goal with 3:49 remaining on a Doug Eckert goal, but winger Cam Corn sealed the victory “when he backhanded a rebound past goalie John Wright” with just over a minute to play.
“It was a success, a real success, said McKenzie to the Lansing State Journal on Monday following the tournament. “The entire tournament went through without one major problem. We had no major altercation on the ice. I think we proved you can play hockey without fighting, without violence. We had the true hockey fans. They got excited, they cheered…their fans were perfect ladies and gentlemen. They paid the respect due to a winner. They applauded…it was a great example of sportsmanship by the players, coaches and fans alike.”
“The (roughness and fighting) was a big concern in those early days,” said Rex Luxton, hockey coach at St. Clair Shores Lakeview for 19 years. “There was always concern about that. For one year at Lakeview we had a kid fresh out of college coaching the hockey team. He was too close in age to the kids playing to (control it). I had been the football coach, so the athletic director came to me and said if we don’t clean it up the school will shut us down. I didn’t know anything about hockey, although I had a young son playing recreation, but I was a disciplinarian. I recruited a Canadian from my neighborhood, and he helped me to run things for two years.”
The MHSAA Tournament returned in 1976, with a few minor tweaks. This time 94 schools sponsored teams and Michigan State University played host to the final rounds. Again, competition was split into two classifications based on experience, with 45 teams placed in Tier I and 49 in Tier II. Eight regionals were held in each tier, with winners in Tier I scheduled to play the semifinals and finals at Munn Arena, and Tier II victors booked for games at MSU’s Demonstration Hall.
Trenton downed Lakeview, the reigning titlists in Tier I, 4-2. It was Trenton’s third victory over Luxton’s Huskies on the season, and avenged a 7-6 loss to Lakeview in the tournament’s semifinals in 1975. A crowd of 2,107 attended the championship contest. Matt Dubois finished with a goal and two assists for the winners, who ended the year with a 28-2-1 mark.
Lansing Catholic Central repeated as Tier II champ, downing Flushing, 4-1, to finish the season undefeated with 29 wins and two ties. The Cougars’ last defeat dated back to January 1975.
The tier format was also used for both the 1977 and 1978 tournaments. In 1977, the Tier I final rounds were again hosted at Yost in Ann Arbor, while Tier II played out at the IMA Sports Arena in Flint.
Marquette, behind a pair of third-period goals by Ted Sharkey and top-notch goaltending by Dale Carrier, earned Tier I honors, downing the reigning champs from Trenton 3-2. Marquette finished with a 21-4-1 record, while Trenton ended the year at 23-5-2. Jackson Lumen Christi blasted Flint Ainsworth 10-2 in Tier II. Tim Comperchio and Chris Dykstal each finished with two goals and two assists for the winners.
Travel, ice time and equipment expense inherent to the sport continued to mean fluctuations in the schools competing during those days, as some dropped hockey while others added it to their athletic offerings. For the 1977-78 season, the MHSAA moved the Tier I semis and finals to Michigan Tech at Houghton. This time just 38 schools were assigned to the state’s top class.
John Manzella scored two short-handed goals and notched a third for the hat trick as St. Clair Shores Lakeview seized its second title in three visits to the Tier I championship game with a 9-2 victory over Sault Ste. Marie.
“That was an interesting trip,” recalled Lakeview coach Luxton. “Those were the days when the quarterfinals were played on Wednesday. Our athletic director was on top of things, so we headed north to the U.P. on Thursday. That was a long trip. We played the semis on Friday and the finals on Saturday night and then left for home. The bus driver never turned off the bus the entire trip – the engine ran the whole time.
“We had hockey cheerleaders then. The wind was blowing strong when we started heading across the bridge – the Big Mac – about two in the morning. When the bus started to list with the wind, the girls were on the bottom of the bus with their coats over their heads. Then by the time we got close to home, the bus engine started missing. ‘I guess we need fuel,’ the bus driver said. Fortunately, he found a place. We almost had run out of diesel by the time we got back on Sunday.”
The final rounds of Tier II remained at the Flint IMA. Robert Thomas scored a Finals record four goals as Lumen Christi topped Ecorse, 6-4, to repeat as Tier II champion. Tom Mourgut scored twice for Ecorse, which finished with a 17-10-0 mark. A total of 59 schools had been assigned to Tier II action.
With the sport still growing, and with four years of existence under its belt, the MHSAA’s Ice Hockey committee chose to use enrollment numbers to break the tournament into Classes for the 1978-79 season. A total of 53 of the 102 schools that indicated sponsorship of the sport fell in Class A. The remaining 49 were grouped into a second Class B-C-D grouping. The format would serve the sport for the next 21 years.
Enright had retired following the 1973 season. In 1974, Detroit Catholic Central claimed the last of the state’s pre-MHSAA titles and in 1983 the Shamrocks made their first appearance in an MHSAA championship game. In 1994, they won their first MHSAA postseason hockey title.
Just after the completion of the 25th annual tournament, the MHSAA announced that tournament play would be reclassified into “three nearly equal divisions of approximately 43 schools each” starting with the 1999-2000 school year.
“The rapid growth of ice hockey as an interscholastic sport in recent years, particularly in Class A, has necessitated the addition of a district level to that tournament,” said the State Association. “The reclassification will return the ice hockey tournament to a regional-final round format, with most regionals consisting of five teams.”
Twenty years later, that postseason format remains strong and nearly 150 teams – many co-operative programs with students from multiple schools – filled the MHSAA Tournament field as playoffs began last week. This season’s championships will be decided Saturday at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Jackson Lumen Christi takes on Ecorse in the 1978 MHSAA Tier II Final. (2) The Detroit Times named its all-city team in 1936, left, while Hancock celebrated its winning team in 1926. (3) James O’Reilly Enright, left, played a major role in growing Detroit Catholic Central’s hockey program. (4) Port Huron Catholic’s Phil Wittliff scored against Detroit Cathedral during a 1965 league final. (5) Houghton and Calumet square off during the 1969-70 season. (6) St. Clair Shores Lakeview, top, and Lansing Catholic Central earned the first MHSAA hockey championships in 1975. (8) Rex Luxton, far right, let St. Clair Shores Lakeview for 19 seasons. (Photos collected by Ron Pesch.)