A Portland-area cooperative high school hockey team will get to finish the remainder of its season after all. But they will do so with a new coaching staff.
Last weekend, the Beacon boys co-op team head coach Joe Robinson pulled his team off the ice during the first period against Old Town-Orono. The team didn’t return to the game at Alfond Arena, and based on Maine Principals’ Association rules, was facing forfeiture of its final two games of the season along with a two-year ban from varsity competition.
But the four schools involved in the Beacons team — Portland High School, South Portland High School, Deering High School and Waynflete — lodged a successful appeal to the MPA to allow the players to finish the season, according to MPA leadership.
The Beacons team can play the final two games of the regular season, according to MPA executive director Mike Burnham, but not with the same coaches.
“After due deliberation, the management committee voted unanimously to allow the kids, with a different coaching staff, to finish the season,” Burnham said on Saturday.
Burnham said the vote happened on Friday.
“The kids didn’t make this decision, that was an adult decision,” Burnham added about the team’s mid-game departure last weekend.
Robinson told the Bangor Daily News earlier this week that he pulled the team off the ice because he was concerned about the safety of players on both teams, but he would not provide specifics about those concerns.
“As a head coach, your number one priority is the health and safety of your players. Sometimes, as the adult in the room, you have to make tough choices,” Robinson said. “A hockey game is not worth somebody getting hurt. I can’t turn a blind eye to something I’m not comfortable with.”
He said earlier in the week that he would still make the same decision again, even if he ended up facing repercussions.
“I’d do it again,” Robinson said.
South Portland athletic director Todd Livingston said Saturday that he was thankful that the MPA and hockey committee officials were able to get together quickly for Friday’s emergency meeting to ultimately approve the appeal. He started exploring ways to keep the season going earlier this week after sitting at home and thinking about what the players were going through.
“It just popped into my head, these poor kids,” Livingston said. “And so I made a few phone calls, and ultimately spoke with Mike Burnham.”
Livingston said he spoke with Robinson after Friday’s decision to continue the season with a new coaching staff.
“His first comment was, ‘I’m just so happy for the kids, that they get a chance to play,’” Livingston said about Robinson’s reaction.
The Beacons will play again on Saturday night against the Marshwood/Noble/Sanford/Traip co-op. And the girls coach from the Beacons co-op, Dan Winship, has agreed to step in and coach the boys coach for the remainder of the season.
The MPA, which oversees high school sports in Maine, has a rule in its handbook that requires teams to complete their schedules. If teams fail to do so, they face a two-year ban on varsity competition — though teams can ask for a waiver in “extenuating circumstances,” according to the handbook.
After this season, the Beacons are still facing the longer two-year ban pending an appeal according to Burnham. He expects that separate appeals process to unfold sometime next school year, likely in the fall.
Livingston said the Beacons may need to bring another school into the co-op due to low numbers, and will be hoping to have the two-year ban appeal resolved this spring given that additional uncertainty.