Jamie Kelly

Some hockey players are born with unmistakable natural talent.  Others are resigned to work at it for years until their skills fully develop.  Jamie Kelly is one of those rare hockey players who was neither born a great athlete nor did he have to work exceptionally hard at becoming one.  He willed it to happen with a singlemindedness about hockey, self-assuredness in his physical abilities, and high expectations of where the game could take him.  Every shift was an opportunity to score a goal.  Every game was a potential win.  Every season was a chance to get to the next level.  He scored, won, and celebrated often.  He’s one of the very few to bring a High School State Championship to the town of Scituate.  But he didn’t stop there.  He took it to the next level.  Enjoy reading about this Scituate native taking his game from the ponds of the West End to the highest levels of hockey.

 

Jamie Kelly grew up on Clapp Road in the West End of Scituate.  His father Richard grew up in Norwell playing baseball and was good enough to get a tryout with the Boston Braves back in the day.  His mother Mary grew up in Braintree and captained her high school tennis team.  As parents of five, Richard and Mary Kelly emphasized physical activity in their home.  The kids were told to go outside and find something to do.  Jamie has two older brothers and two sisters – one older and one younger.  His second-oldest brother Richard was a very talented Scituate High School hockey player in the mid-1970s.

 

Jamie Kelly: “My parents raised me to always be respectful to others, but I was very independent as a kid.  I spoke my mind freely, even to adults.  I did what I wanted and I think my parents understood that.  They never tried to change me.  I was four or five when I started skating.  My mother would take me to the pond at the Bird Sanctuary in the woods behind the house.  She built me a device similar to a walker that I took on the ice to help me stand up.  I pushed that device around the ice for twenty minutes several times a week and before long I was actually skating on my own.  It was a genius idea by my mother and it helped me in getting started.

 

“Before long, I was skating at Boys pond down the street with some of the older kids – including my two older brothers.  Scituate Recreation used to flood Boys pond for us to play hockey.  They put some boards up to make it feel more like a real hockey surface.  I skated on that pond from the age of seven right through high school.  My own kids learned to skate there.  Unfortunately, those days are over - the pond is now on private property and the owners don’t let the neighborhood kids on it anymore.

 

“I started playing organized hockey when I was in the sixth grade.  It was called the house league at the Cohasset Winter Garden.  This house league was made up of a group of kids my age or older who wanted to play summer hockey.  There were teams from Scituate, Cohasset, Weymouth, and Hingham.  I was the youngest on the Scituate team just like I was always the youngest on the ponds in the West End.  I didn't mind.  I felt I had to play with the older kids if I was going to improve.  There was really no competition from kids my own age.  The reason Scituate is such a great little hockey town is because the younger kids coming up were given an opportunity to play with the older kids if they were good enough. 

 

“I should point out that there was a coach in that house league that you know.  His name was Tom Flaherty.  He was good with kids and I liked him.  There was only one thing that bothered me.  I’d come back to the bench to catch my breath after a long shift and he’d be exhaling a Marlboro in my direction.  I’d say to him, ‘Tom, put that out.  I’m trying to breathe down here.’  That’s how I talked to him even though I was twelve and he was like fifty.  One game I came back to the bench and I say, ‘Tom, put that cigarette out or I’m staying out for another shift.’  He took the locker room key out of his back pocket - that little sawed-off hockey stick with the key chained to it – and hit me over the head with it.  He’d say, ‘Get off the ice, Kelly’ and I’d just stare at him until one of us blinked. 

 

“He’d try to take me off the ice when we were shorthanded and I’d tell him, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’  He wanted the defensive forwards on for the penalty kill but I would pretend I couldn’t hear him.  Or I’d tell him I should be on the ice, not them.  He’d say, ‘Kelly, have a seat right next to me and you can tell me all about it.’  I laugh about it now, but Tom Flaherty was a true original.  Joe Henderson was another coach in that Cohasset house league that I liked.  Same thing though.  I’d go down the other end of the bench from your father to catch my breath and Joe would be down there doing the same thing.  I used to kid them later about the two of them stunting my development.

 

“I joined the Seahawks Peewees with I was in seventh grade.  My first coach was Barry Resnick, a Norwell guy.  I learned the fundamentals of hockey from Coach Resnick.  He was a good teacher and I absorbed a lot of hockey knowledge from him.  It was my first exposure to real team hockey and I loved it.  We played our home games in Randolph for some reason but the Cohasset Winter Garden was becoming a second home for me.  I always went to public skating on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons.  My dad took me and I would always see a bunch of other kids my age there.  We took every opportunity to get additional skating in.  Sometimes we even got to skate after hours when public skating ended.  Someone would clean the ice and we’d go right back out there, sometimes until one or two in the morning.

 

“My Scituate Seahawks Peewee A team won the league that second year, 1980.  Then we were invited to go to Lake Placid to play in that big tournament that Scituate went to every year.  We started beating teams and for the final championship game we got to dress in the same locker room as the U.S. Olympic team that just won a gold medal.  We won that game, making us tournament champions.  So the U.S. Olympic team won it all in that building in 1980 and so did we.  That was pretty cool.

 

“I played with the same group of kids over the next several years – Chris Tatum, Mark Elbery, Jack D’Arcy, Bobby Weisslinger, and Steven Remedis – are a few that I remember.  They were my peewee teammates and we played together right through our 1985 championship season at Scituate High School.  Along the way I played with Mike and David Flaherty, Johnny Devereaux, and Ricky McCarthy.  Some of these guys are older than me and a couple are younger.  The important point is, at least from my experience playing in Scituate, you weren’t judged by your age, you were judged by your ability.  And that’s the way it should be.  If you’re twelve and you’re as good as or better than the thirteen-year-olds, you play with them.  I figured that out when I was that age, and it definitely helped me improve.  Why shouldn’t I play with the older kids if I was good enough?  I loved the game at that age and I wanted to get better at it.  I was already one of the fastest skaters on the team.  I went back and forth up and down the ice.  That was my style - up and down, right through or right around people. 

 

“I knew I was a good player and I even said it out loud a few times.  I once told my gym teacher at Cushing School that my goal was to be a professional hockey player.  What does he do?  He calls my parents in for a conference.  Can you imagine?  Like dreaming about playing a professional sport is somehow wrong.  My parents ignored him.  The day I got drafted by the Bruins I called him up and said, ‘Hey, guess what?’  You can’t let people like that stand in your way.

 

“I spent hours and hours by myself practicing and playing hockey.  Nobody had to tell me to practice.  I did it because I loved it.  I didn’t think too much about it.  I don’t know how many windows I took out in the front of this house, but it was a lot.  My father used to say to me when he heard something break, ‘What’s the matter with you?  Hit the net.  You’re breaking all my windows.’

 

“I skated every chance I could when the ponds were frozen.  One weekday morning during the school year I was skating on the pond down the street and my school bus went by.  The bus driver saw me and just kept going.  She knew that if she stopped and tried to get me to go to school, I wasn’t going.  The way I looked at it, there was no need for me to get on that bus.  It wasn’t taking me to where I wanted to go. 

 

Jamie continues: “I don’t think there was a junior varsity team my freshman year.  I think Prop. 2 ½ took care of that.  But I made the varsity team as a freshman along with Timmy Whitlock.  Greg Polito, Chris Giovanucci, Chris Luca, John Devereaux, and Ricky McCarthy were a few of the better upperclassmen on that team.  Timmy and I didn’t get a lot of playing time, maybe a couple shifts here and there but never in a tight game.  These high school guys grew up playing pond hockey.  I knew them all.  They were tough kids, rugged kids.  They were hard workers and they could really skate and shoot the puck.  They were great teammates to have in high school.

 

“My sophomore year I started to get more ice time.  I had to stand up for myself to get it though.  I let some of the older guys know that I wanted to be out there as much as them.  It worked.  I had a regular shift from that point on.  My parents taught me to stand up for what I believed in, and at that time, what I believed in was more ice time. 

 

“My junior year we went all the way to the State Division 2 semi-finals.  We lost to Christopher Columbus High School.  Again, I had a coach who fully supported me – Bill McKeever.  I loved Coach McKeever.  He was like a second father to me.  I had him as a teacher in seventh and eighth grade, so I knew him pretty well when I got to high school.  He went up to the high school too, moving from eighth to ninth grade to teach history.  When I had him for history class in high school, he would call on me and ask me to talk about U.S. history, like the Constitution, for example.  I didn’t like talking in front of the class, so I said, ‘That’s all right Coach, I’ll take the zero if that’s what my grade’s gonna be if I don’t talk in front of the class.’  Of course, if it was during the hockey season, I’d look him right in the eye on the bench during warmups and say, ‘you’ll bring that zero up to at least a seventy-five if I net three tonight, right Coach?’  And he did.

 

“Bill McKeever was my biggest supporter.  I loved him and loved playing for him.  He had high expectations of me and I think I met most if not all of them.  He treated us like adults but kept it loose and fun.  He was straightforward with me which I appreciated.  We had a good relationship.  I was more outspoken than he liked, but we had a mutual respect for each other.

 

“I should stress that, although I was bigger and stronger than every other kid my age, I never really worked out or lifted weights when I was in high school.  I mowed lawns, carried bales of hay, rode my bike everywhere, and generally stayed active all the time.  All of that activity helped in my development as a hockey player.  All of it was useful.  And it felt completely natural.  When I played hockey, I didn’t think about stickhandling or making plays.  I kept it simple.  I was up and down my lane every shift.  When I had the puck and someone challenged me, I went right around him.  It was one move and I was by him.  They weren’t going to stop me.  I was 6’5” in high school.  I used my size to my advantage. 

 

“My senior year we went 24 and 3.  That’s regular and post-season.  We won our league and then went on to play Falmouth at the Gallo Rink down in Bourne in the quarter-finals.  We beat them and then went on to play Canton at B.U. for the Division 2 South Championship game.  We won that and went on to play the winner of D2 North, Oliver Ames, at Northeastern.  After we beat them, we went to Worcester to play Westfield, the champion of D2 West.  I stepped up as a team leader in those games.  I was very vocal and not shy about showing enthusiasm for my team.  During one of these games McKeever told me to quiet down and stop talking to the refs.  I basically told him that it was too late for him to tell me to act any other way.  I wasn’t going to change because of him or the MIAA.  It was a part of my game to be vocal and it suited me and the team fed off of it.  After beating Westfield, we went to the Garden to face North Andover.

 

Jamie continues: “I wasn’t surprised that we had gotten this far.  I actually thought that we belonged there.  We were good and we were beating teams by just doing what we always did.  If Coach McKeever said anything before that game in the Garden, I don’t remember it.  Whenever anyone was talking, I kept my head down and tied my skates and focused on what I had to do to win.  I didn’t care about speeches or motivational talks.  I just played to win.  I expected to win.  That may sound cocky, but that’s the attitude I always had.  I expected to win every game I played in.  I let the other kids worry about distractions because I didn’t have any.  I didn’t think about anything before a hockey game other than ‘I’m going to score at least one goal today, I know that much.’”

 

Scituate thumped North Andover 10-5 in the MA Division 2 Finals.  Jamie had 6 points in the game – 3 goals and 3 assists.  He won the league scoring title with 66 points – 33 goals and 33 assists.  He was also the league MVP.  It was a long road, but Jamie Kelly wasn’t done.  To him, it was just a starting point. 

 

Jamie Kelly: “I had pro scouts coming to games when I was a junior and senior in high school.  They would approach my dad.  Five different NHL organizations sent scouts to games my senior year.  I graduated in June and was immediately approached by junior hockey teams from Canada.  The North Bay Centennials in Ontario and the Hull Olympiques both offered me contracts.  Hull was right across the river from Ottawa. 

 

“I liked both organizations but I ended up signing with the Olympiques.  Wayne Gretzky had just become the owner of the team.  I remember being at that press conference when Gretzky announced his purchase of the club.  Pat Burns was my coach that first year.  I had been drafted by the Bruins that June (3rd round, 73rd pick overall) and the Bruins organization suggested that Hull would be better than North Bay because it was closer to Boston if I needed to get down there quickly.  This was Quebec Major Junior hockey.  Big time hockey.  Some of these guys weren’t yet drafted and were looking to catch an eye from an NHL scout. 

 

“Training camp started the first week of August.  Bobby Coyle from Weymouth, Charlie Coyle's uncle, was up there with me.  All of the other guys in camp were from Canada.  They were all eighteen and nineteen years old but they had more hockey experience than the Americans.  They had been playing competitive high-level hockey year-round all over Canada while I was playing high school hockey for about four months.  There were thirty-five guys there and they would keep twenty-five.  My goal was to be one of the twenty-five. 

 

“I made the team and scored on my first shift of my first game playing Major Junior hockey.  Gretzky was there and he seemed happy for me.  I had three points in my first game.  I also lost two teeth and took a game suspension for fighting with the opposing goalie.  He stuck his blocker in my face when I crossed in front of his net and knocked my two front teeth out.  I wasn’t taking anything from anyone and I let him know it.  But it turned out okay.  The Bruins sent a message to me after the game and told me to get on a plane.  I had to fly down to Boston for Bruins training camp.  I didn’t even have time to see a dentist. 

 

“For the next two weeks I was in training camp with the Bruins.  Two weeks of hotel rooms, training, and skating while they tried to figure out who to keep.  The Bruins had rights to me.  They called me back to Boston to get me under contract.  I thought the Nordiques had more interest, but the Bruins wanted me to sign quickly, so I signed.  I was driven to Boston and signed a contract right there in Harry Sinden’s office in the old Boston Garden. 

 

Jamie continues: “One day, there was a press conference at the practice facility in Wilmington in which the Bruins were introducing their draft picks.  I may not have been paying attention, but instead of going to the presser, I got in a van with a bunch of other players from camp and headed to the Garden.  We’re about halfway there and the guy driving the van sees me in the rear-view mirror and says ‘What are you doing on this bus, Kelly?  You’re supposed to be at that press conference meeting the writers.’  I just looked at him and said, ‘I’m going to the Bruins locker room to pick out my locker.”  He couldn’t believe it.  Randy Burridge, who ended up making the team, was my roommate in camp.  During the pre-season, I got in a game against the Hartford Whalers and another against the Chicago Blackhawks. 

 

“The Bruins cut me and I went back down to Quebec Major Juniors for more development.  I was still only eighteen.  I played on all the top teams in my career until then.  The only time I was cut from a hockey team up until that point was when the Bruins cut me from camp.  I tell people it was the only cut I never made.  They don’t believe me, but it’s true. 

 

“After a couple years in Juniors, I came back to Scituate to work.  This was my home and I missed it.  One day I was playing a pickup game in Quincy and Sean Coady sees me and almost strangles me.  Sean says, ‘What are you doing here?  You’re too good for this league.  You have real talent.  Go use it.’  The next day I’m on a plane to Knoxville.  Sean called some guy he knew and told him he was sending me to see him.  So I played in the ECHL for the rest of the year.  I played for Winston-Salem and the Johnstown Chiefs in Johnstown PA.  Steve Carlson, one of the Hanson Brothers in Slap Shot, was the coach of the Chiefs.

 

“The ECHL was just like Slap Shot.  There was a lot of travel.  Lots of long uncomfortable bus rides.  I couldn’t sleep or even rest on the bus.  I was nervous about traveling.  After Juniors and the East Coast Hockey League, I circled back and played for the South Shore Braves.  I was the oldest one on the team.  It was good hockey though, better than anything else around here and I needed to keep playing.  I finally got married when I was twenty-three.  We eventually had three kids and moved up to Concord, NH.” 

 

Jamie Kelly is now 52 and lives and works in Scituate.  He has three grown children whom he is very close to.  He coached a bit at the high school level with Mike Breen and Kevin Duggan.  Both Mike and Kevin were impressed with Jamie’s hockey smarts and the enthusiasm for the game he instilled in the high schoolers.  Jamie would tell them, “You gotta get out there and shoot pucks.  Hundreds of pucks.  Don’t think about it.  Just shoot.  Over and over.  That’s how you become a good shooter.”  That may be a bit simplistic, but it’s also straightforward.  If there’s one word that describes Jamie, it’s straightforward.   Don’t overthink it.  Just do it.  Both Mike and Kevin think he’d be an excellent coach.

 

Jamie Kelly is a real asset to the town of Scituate.  His hockey intelligence is as high as anyone’s.  And he understands that you don’t have to be born with talent to be a great, or even a good, hockey player.  What you need is determination and a strong desire to play when there are distractions preventing you from reaching your goal. 

 

There are no distractions with Jamie Kelly.  Part of it has to do with the fact that he’s so singleminded.  There’s no gloating or boasting with him.  He’s not even comfortable talking about himself.  He’s easily one of the top five most talented hockey players the town has ever produced, but you’ll never get that from him.  He doesn’t care how high you rank him.  He doesn’t read what they wrote about him.  He doesn’t even have the dozens of trophies he’s won in his career.  He just wants the puck on his stick so he can blow right by you and then tell you you’d better step it up or he’s going to do it again on his very next shift.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2019