A Bulldog Tradition: Reflections from a CHS alum

By Andrew Staiti, CHS Class of 2010

It was January 2010, and I was halfway through my senior year at Canton High. My now-teenaged nephew Matthew was just a few months old, and my mom and I were at my oldest brother’s former home in Virginia meeting my nephew for the first time. After he went down for a nap, I checked my flip phone and read an ominous message from my friend Sam:

Did you hear about Scotty Herr?

Scott Herr

I immediately called him and heard the tragic news of Scott’s passing in a car accident up in Buffalo, where his girlfriend went to school. Scott Herr was a tremendous human being. I was lucky enough to be on soccer and baseball teams with him, and despite us never having been great friends, I was — I still am — grateful to have known him.

I remember watching Scott play at the Garden in 2009 during the boys hockey team’s loss in a heartbreaker to Newburyport. That was a very talented hockey team, and the loss was a tough pill to swallow.

After the news of Scott’s death halfway through the 2010 season, I still remember the moment of silence at the old Metropolis as they hung his jersey on the scorer’s box. You could hear a pin drop in that typically noisy, acoustics-unfriendly ice box. And I distinctly remember the resolution of the players to “play the rest of the season for Scotty.”

In what now seems to be a standard occurrence, the boys team made the state final again that season, after an epic win against a stout Nauset team with a goalie the size of Linus Ullmark. A physics-defying goal by Frank Eckler and some standing on his head play by Jon Donaruma punched their ticket to Causeway Street.

To me that team seemed to be the prototypical Bulldog team. They weren’t the fastest, or the strongest, or the best puck handlers, but they were the toughest, and they would not quit. In marquee wins over Franklin on their home ice and many others throughout the year, the team just seemed destined for greatness. Destined for something special.

So it was that during the state final, that team rallied and beat the very same Newburyport team that had bested them a year before. And sure enough, as if that revenge wasn’t sweet enough, the whole team and coaching staff, following the pig pile of their goalie Donaruma, held up the No. 5, Scott’s jersey number, as if they had rehearsed it. “That win was for Scotty,” they said.

Flash forward to 2023, and the boys and girls teams were both in the state final for the second straight year. For the boys, they’ve made four straight (with the exception of the 2021 COVID season). In what is now a tradition of excellence for both hockey programs — and after yet another state title for the boys — I can’t help but think back to 2010, the year that started it all, and the seventh man on the ice that day and that season. Judging by how Sunday went, I think Scott is still getting extra minutes to this day.

Go Bulldogs!

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=106408

Posted by Guest on Mar 24 2023. Filed under High School, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.