1/20/99

Steve: Matt, this is your first interview with the Bucs, so let’s talk about your background. Where were you born and where are you from?

Matt: I was born in Boston, Massachusetts where I live now. I actually live south of Boston in Bridgewater, Mass which is about right in the middle between the Cape and Boston, Mass.

Steve: Is it a suburb like Urbandale, or more of a seperate town?

Matt: It is more of just a regular town because it is 45 minutes from downtown Boston. It is not really a suburb.

Steve: So you born there, grew up there, and went to school there?

Matt: Yes. I was actually born in Weymouth, but we moved to Abington when I was very young and that is where I started playing hockey. Then when I was six I moved to Bridgewater, which is only like two towns over.

Steve: Tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Did anybody play hockey?

Matt: I have an older brother, he is four years older than me, and he is the one that basically got me playing hockey. Ever since I can remember, my dad has always been a big hockey fan so my first memories are watching my brother learn from my dad. Then when I got old enough, the first thing he did was bring me down in the basement and start shooting off me cause he was a defense man. So before I could even skate I was playing goalie. Then when I signed up, I played forward and goalie for about the first four or five years of my career. Then when it came time to make a decision on what I wanted to do, I just went with goalie.

Steve: So the teams you played with in the past are all in the Boston area?

Matt: Yep.

Steve: Tell me a little bit about the teams you played for.

Matt: I started off just playing in our town. Then I heard about the Metropolitan Boston League, which is a travel team. I played for six or seven years in that league. I made a lot of good connections. There are a lot of guys out here like Jimmy Callahan who used to play for Omaha , Brendan Hodge who plays at Lincoln. I played with him and his dad for about three or four years, I think. That really got me going. Then I went to high school right in Boston. I actually went to the team that when I played in that Metro League that I used to watch practice after me, so I went there for my four years of high school. Then I did a prep school year up in New Hampshire.

Steve: Hockey is quite a bit different back east because everybody is into hockey back there. I have heard a little bit about the prep school thing because Chris Dube talked about it a little bit. What is the prep school? Tell me about that whole thing.

Matt: Well, there are different leagues. There is public high school, which isn’t very good out where I am from. And then there are Catholic schools. That is where I went to high school; I went to a Catholic school and played in that league. And that is all, they are in a separate division. So it is Catholic schools and public schools and they enter into a big state tournament at the end of the year. But there are private schools where you board, like boarding schools, and they get a lot of kids from Canada and stuff like that that they get down from Montreal and places like that. I mean, they are able to attract guys that are good from those leagues because they give them money to go to those schools and it’s an experience staying away. So I know when I went from my high school to prep school, it was a pretty big jump. Even coming from a prep school, like I went to college last year, it was huge. Coming from college to here is not that big of a jump.

Steve: If a prep school team would play a USHL team, it would be similar?

Matt: It depends on which school. There is a team back east called Cushing Academy.

Steve: Yeah, I’ve heard of it.

Matt: Right now they have dropped off, but for awhile there they had maybe nine or ten Division I guys, and they were just unbelievable. And then, some prep schools like the prep school I played for, our whole starting like line up went Division I. Two kids went to BU, one went to Maine, one went to BC and I went to New Hampshire and one went to Michigan. So you get a lot of recruiting out of there. I was actually drafted by Waterloo the year I went to college, and the year before that I was going to go to Omaha but I decided to go to prep school.

Steve: So how did you hear about the USHL?

Matt: I have heard about it for a long time and I have tossed the idea around. When I was a sophomore in high school, I worked with my JV coach painting in the summer. His youngest brother, who is about maybe three or four years older than me, he played for Sioux City. So he went out there when he was done with BC High where I went to school, and he came back the next year in the summer. I talked to him all summer about it, and he said it was like playing pro hockey and it was fun. So I remember running home and telling my dad I wanted to do that. At that time he was like, "Are you crazy? You’re not going all the way out there." But then as the time came around and I had to go to prep school because I was still really young coming out of high school, and a lot of colleges told me to take two years and get older and get a little more mature and stuff.

Steve: So how did you end up with the Bucs then?

Matt: At the end of my high school I was recruited by Omaha and I told them that I was going to go to prep school out east. And then when prep school was over I signed to go to UNH but I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to go there because I knew they had a starting goalie. Then Waterloo drafted me. And then when I came out here, Waterloo had released my rights. I only got in five games last year at UNH and I knew the starting goalie was coming back, and there was another goalie from the USHL, Ty Conklin, but he was ineligible last year. So he was eligible this year and then it would have been like three guys just battling to go on the road, you know. So, knowing I was young, and I still had another year, I told my coaches I would like to come out to the USHL. My goalie coach, Dave Lassonde, is a good friend with Coach Owens. They didn’t tell me where to go but they just, you know, laid down the pros and cons of either the Bucs or Waterloo. It doesn’t take anyone to decide where you would rather be.

Steve: Well, we like it here. So you actually did play a couple of games then with New Hampshire?

Matt: Yep. I never a started a game; I got in on like five.

Steve: Well, tell me what is the difference then between playing with New Hampshire and with the Bucs? Is it similar? The teams, the crowd, the competition, and the attitudes?

Matt: It is pretty similar. I mean, at our rink out at UNH we get 6,500 every game. We probably have the best crowd in hockey out east. I have seen a lot of crowds, but the Buc crowd is probably the loudest I have seen for like half that. I mean, like going to practice last year, that is where it helped me the most. We had three Hoby Baker finalists on our team last year. You know, just like messing around after practice doing shoot outs with them and stuff for like subs or whatever after practice really helped. But, I mean, it is not really a big difference really in shooters cause almost every guy on this team is going to be going where I was last year anyway. So, I mean, except for the age and kids with full-grown beards, I mean, there is really no difference.

Steve: Okay. What are your plans then for the future next year?

Matt: Next year I head back to UNH and I still have sophomore eligibility, so I still have three years left there.

Steve: Great. Do you want to end up as a pro?

Matt: I would love to but who knows.

Steve: Okay. Well, anything else you would like to tell the fans out here?

Matt: I love it out here. The fans are great. On that 18 game winning streak, I think one of the reasons we won some of those games was the crowd. It’s just a shame, there are a lot of teams in the league that don’t get the fan support. If they did, they would probably be a lot better than they are. It is hard going out there and playing in front of 12 people a night.

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