LEWISTON — A year ago, Scarborough’s Matt Caron broke his collarbone in the first game of the season. He recovered in time to help lead the Red Storm to its first Class A boys’ hockey state championship.
On Sunday, Caron added to the firsts, beating out three other finalists to win the Travis Roy Award. He is the first Scarborough player to do so.
The award, given to the top senior Class A player in the state and named after Roy — who played at Yarmouth High School and North Yarmouth Academy before moving on to Tabor Academy and then Boston University, where he was paralyzed after hitting the boards in his first collegiate shift — was presented during the Class A Coaches’ Association All-State banquet at Ramada Inn.
“It’s really an honor to be named the Travis Roy (winner),” Caron said. “Freshman year I’d never think I’d ever get to this point. I’ve got to thank my coaches so much. My parents, they’ve really just guided me along the path to get here. It’s really incredible that I’m holding this trophy right now.”
Caron scored 14 goals and assisted on 20 others for the Red Storm, which had the best record in Class A South this season. He added five goals and three assists en route to the state final against Lewiston, which Scarborough lost in the final minute.
Scarborough coach Norm Gagne said Caron’s value to the team extended beyond statistics.
“He comes and he brings everything, and he puts everything on the line,” Gagne said, adding that Caron brings intensity, leadership and the will to win.
Gagne said that will was shown when Caron chose surgery to fix his broken collarbone last year, knowing that was the best path to get back on the ice. His return was a “shot in the arm” to the Red Storm to push on and win the state title, according to the coach.
“When you get to that point where you get that low, and then you can come back up and win a state championship, it’s nothing better,” Caron said.
The newest Travis Roy Award winner said the end of last year’s state final (a double-overtime win over St. Dominic Academy) was exhausting and emotional, but that he loved every minute of it. Gagne said he felt sorry that exhaustion kept Caron off the ice (he had just helped kill off a penalty) when Lewiston scored the game-winning goal in this year’s state final.
Caron beat out Edward Little’s Ben Steele, Bangor’s Trevor DeLaite and Thornton Academy’s Walsh Troiani-Gagner for the 21st award. All four finalists gave speeches before the winner was announced.
Steele echoed his fellow finalists in saying it was an honor to be alongside “dedicated and committed players” and that he was “blessed” to have encountered all the people he met during his four-year career. And like the other finalists, Steele thanked his parents, for both the long drives to tournaments and the support.
All four spoke of overcoming adversity in their careers. Steele was a gifted player as a freshman and was named an assistant captain, but he had to fight for the upperclassmen’s respect. DeLaite and Troiani-Gagner both grew up in rural Maine and had to move to bigger locales in order to chase their hockey dreams.
Adversity was the theme of keynote speaker Kevin Swallow — the head coach at University of New England and a former University of Maine player. He spoke of getting kicked out of Dartmouth for academic reasons, then overcoming that to make it at Maine for coach Tim Whitehead.
It was there Swallow met teammate Scott Darling, a talented goalie who was kicked out of Maine and fell all the way down to the Southern Professional Hockey League before working his way up to helping the Chicago Blackhawks win last year’s Stanley Cup.
The four finalists were named All-State first team players. The first and second teams for both the North and South regions were announced at the banquet.
Lewiston’s Kyle Morin, St. Dom’s Austin Roy, Cheverus’ Luke Trickey and Biddeford’s Kerry Crepeau were semifinalists for the award, and each were also named first-team All-State.
“Those are probably the kids too, for their teams, that bring a lot of what Matty brings to Scarborough,” Gagne said of the other three finalists for the Travis Roy Award. “They all share that passion and the will to win. That’s what it takes.”
Caron’s will carried him from Scarborough’s junior varsity team as a freshman to the top of Class A hockey in the state collectively as a junior and individually as a senior.
“To think that I could win a Travis Roy and a Class A championship, and get to another one, its really just fantastic,” Caron said.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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