On one sheet of ice, Kevin Hayes (Dorchester, Mass.), the Boston College star turned New York Ranger, posts up in the slot and fires one top corner.
Down the hall, Danny O’Regan (Needham, Mass.), the 2016-17 AHL Rookie of the Year, and Ryan Donato (Scituate, Mass.) of Harvard University play tic-tac-toe, beating Shane Starrett (Bellingham, Mass.), part of the Edmonton Oilers organization, glove side. And, in the star attraction, Jack Eichel (North Chelmsford, Mass.) of the Buffalo Sabres and Jimmy Vesey (North Reading, Mass.), the 2016 Hobey Baker Award winner, look like men amongst boys, skating circles around their opponents before shoveling one past Mike Condon (Needham, Mass.) of the Ottawa Senators.
They’re sequences that read like an All-Star Game, though they’re simply part of another Wednesday night in Foxboro, Mass., something that’s uniquely New England and hidden if you’re not quite sure where to look.
That’s at least how Matt Harlow, codirector of the EPS Foxboro Pro League, described the operation his dad, Scott, now a scout with the Edmonton Oilers, and Brian McDonough, owner of Edge Performance Systems, started back in 2009.
"It was a glorified men’s league when it started," Harlow (Bridgewater, Mass.) said. "You have teams showing up with five guys, drinking beers in the locker room. Brian and my dad built it to what it is now, which is legitimately the closest thing to a regular-season hockey game that you’re going to find in the summer."
That’s not an exaggeration by Harlow, either, as for 11 weeks each summer, Foxboro Sports Center hosts top professional, college, junior and prep school players from the region and beyond. With the league divided into six teams, games occur simultaneously, and every notion of a pick-up contest go out the window.
Each player pays $299 to enter the league, and McDonough (Easton, Mass.), also a co-director, said the games are but another tool for those looking to take another step in the offseason.
"We’re already here training, and that’s where Scott and I kind of saw it as a useful tool, useful part of the curriculum," McDonough said. "We never really were spending a lot of time trying to publicize it or create a family experience. It just kind of happened. As it started to evolve into that, we said, ‘This is actually a pretty good idea, great for the fans, good for the kids, good for the players.’"
Charlie Coyle (East Weymouth, Mass.) has taken to the league, as the Minnesota Wild forward started skating in it when he was 17. Since, he went on to star at Boston University, and now when he’s home for the summer, the Foxboro league is his chance to keep playing at a high level.
"You get these high school kids out there who are run and gun and they’re skilled and they’re going a million miles an hour," Coyle said. "It’s fun, though. That’s what we need during the summer. We need something like that to prepare and have that same pace during the season when that starts. It gets us prepared."
Coyle added that the only comparable league in the U.S. is Da Beauty League, which is run out of Edina, Minn., and features top-level professional, college and junior players from the Great Lakes area. Noah Hanifin (Norwood, Mass.) agreed, noting how much the summertime games advanced his own career.
The defenseman first played in the Foxboro games at age 14, only to star for one year at Boston College and be selected fifth overall in 2015’s NHL draft by the Carolina Hurricanes.
"I thought I got a lot better from the league," Hanifin said. "Even on our team, if you look at Oliver Wahlstrom (Yarmouth, Maine), he’s one of the younger guys and he’s played with us for a few years now. You can see the progress he’s made as a player. It’s pretty interesting to see. It’s a good league and there’s a lot of talent."
It’s a dynamic that helps younger guys like Wahlstrom — a U.S. National Team Development Program player and top 2018 draft prospect — progress, but Harlow and McDonough felt that the pro league created a gap of sorts. Step in the Pro Development League, which began this summer and features some of the top 1998 to 2001 birth years in New England.
Each pro team has a development team, just like a farm system, that it can pool from, and Mc-Donough said the league already has "40-plus" players committed to Division 1 schools.
"These kids are the future pro league players of tomorrow," McDonough said. "There was a huge demand; everyone’s been asking us about it, and we pulled the trigger finally. There’s looks from college coaches and guys can use it as a tool to help with their summer curriculum moving toward the fall."
Still, the heart and soul of this summer hockey oasis is the pro league, where it’s often as much about the fan experience as it is the elite level of play. Fans can attend games for free, and Harlow said it’s common for guys such as Eichel and the Hayes brothers to sign autographs for little kids after a game.
"If it takes them an hour to sign all the autographs, they’ll stay for the hour," Harlow said. "That’s just the kind of guys we have here."
As for the future, don’t expect the Foxboro league to go anywhere anytime soon, even though McDonough joked that "if anything, we lose money on it." And from that the biggest point of emphasis arises: The league is about the experience, for fans and players alike.
From the player side of things, their focus is about trying to attract a higher level of talent each year, be it from New England, Canada or across America.
Then for the fans, Harlow said the key part is making the process more enjoyable each summer, like how they added goal songs in 2017.
"It’s just a real good summer experience for everyone," McDonough said. "It’s one of the best summer leagues in North America, if not the best."
And, at the very least, not a bad way to spend a Wednesday night during the summer.
Check out rosters and schedules at www.foxborosportscenter.com/page/show/1194493-summer-pro-league.
