Bogs, Ponds, and Rinks

Unofficially, hockey has been part of life at Tabor since the late 1800s. Students were interested in the sport from the school’s earliest days, but for many years their skating was relegated to the frozen cranberry bogs of north Marion and neighboring Wareham. Occasionally the baseball diamond would freeze, giving gleeful students a chance to skate across the infield—either avoiding or embracing unique topographical features such as the pitcher’s mound—but without an actual rink, it was impossible to offer hockey as an interscholastic sport.

That changed in 1927. The previous year, ground broke on Hoyt Field, an outdoor athletic complex funded by a gift from then Board President, Richard F. Hoyt. The seven-acre project, sprawling westward from the corner of Ryder Lane and Front Street, included two football fields, a baseball diamond, and an outdoor hockey rink, known as the Duck Pond due to a flock of flat-bills who graced its waters in the shoulder seasons.

“Heretofore, of course, there has been skating,” observed a writer in the January 1927 issue of The Log. “But the absence of a rink made organization impossible. This year, however, a rink has been provided; and all look forward to a successful season for the team.”

Without an experienced hockey coach on the faculty, Headmaster Walter Lillard supervised the team during its inaugural season. Their first game was scheduled to be played at Belmont Hill, but warm weather rendered the opponent’s rink unskatable. After much anticipation, the eager pucksters were devastated at the prospect of their opening game being canceled. Fortunately, they secured an alternate venue at the last minute. Boston Arena, the original home of the Boston Bruins, was available. The game was close. Tabor’s fledgling team lost a tight contest, but the result was overshadowed by the experience. The equivalent of a young pianist’s first recital taking place at Carnegie Hall, it couldn’t have been a bigger stage for the school’s hockey debut.

Ahead of Tabor’s second game, a home match against Cushing Academy, the forecast once again proved uncooperative. “The weather balked,” noted the team page in that year’s Fore ‘n’ Aft, “and this time the game had to be called off.” With temperatures hovering above freezing throughout the winter, the team only played one more game that season.

The following year wasn’t much better. Because the Duck Pond didn’t freeze until mid-January, the team practiced by playing field hockey and cobbling together a few skating sessions on the bogs and local golf courses. They played four games that season.

Decent winters followed in 1929 and 1930, with the latter being remembered as “one of those vintage years for ice.” Tabor tallied some impressive wins during those seasons, highlighted by goalie and captain Bertram “Bun” Mudge ’29 who led the team to a 2-0 victory over the Brown University freshman team. The improved conditions gave the team more opportunities to practice, and the arrival of a talented coach in Latin teacher Clayton Keith sparked their success.

Although the Duck Pond offered a scenic and serviceable rink during those cold winters, “field hockey years” ultimately returned. An alumni game in January 1931 had to be played at Humphrey’s Pond, three miles from campus, due to the Duck Pond’s slushy surface. It turned out to be an exciting matchup. “The rink was covered with a sheet of glass ice [that] made the game very fast,” according to The Log. The Tabor team beat the alumni 3-2.

With inconsistent weather, quality ice became harder to find, and the school made the difficult decision to discontinue the hockey program after the 1932 season. While the community was disappointed, a Log writer found one silver lining. “More material can be expected out for basketball and track.”

In 1949, Headmaster James Wickenden sanctioned the filling in of the Duck Pond in order to create more field space. Aside from a brief revival in 1934, when a handful of hockey fanatics convinced the school to let them and Coach Keith have a season, Tabor did not compete in another interscholastic game until 1962. The next three decades became the dark ages for Tabor hockey, but the sport never fully vanished from campus zeitgeist.

Students like Jack “Slasher” Riley ’39, who went on to become the first Team USA hockey coach to beat the Russians and win an Olympic gold medal in 1960, kept the flame burning by organizing almost daily pick-up games on the nearby bogs. The Log stoked interest by keeping students informed of these impromptu battles. “Many of the boys are expert skaters and handle the puck with fine skill,” went one report in the January 1939 issue, “while those with less experience help mix up their own defense or flatten themselves on the ice.”

The grassroots effort to restore hockey as an official school sport gained a determined leader in 1959. Rallying his fellow hockey enthusiasts, sophomore Ben Hovey ’62 mounted a successful lobbying campaign to create a new skating area. Headmaster Wickenden was sympathetic to Hovey’s cause. The school cleared a section of marshland behind Hoyt Hall, creating a natural rink. Hovey’s Hollow, as it came to be called, became one of the busiest spots on campus. As The Log noted in February 1961, “the improvised rink [is] in constant use from after school until supper, and after study hall in the evening.”

With the sport becoming an increasingly popular pastime, the Tabor hockey activists pushed for the return of an interscholastic team. They found willing allies in Headmaster Wickenden and Board President Robert G. Stone, who were already committed to building a new gymnasium. According to The Log’s sports editor, none other than Ben Hovey, the school leaders “were quick to see the need for an artificial hockey rink.” They did their homework, visiting rinks at Milton, St. George’s, and several other schools. By 1961, plans were drawn up for an outdoor rink behind the site of the forthcoming Stone Gymnasium.

With construction underway, student excitement swelled. In The Log, Hovey itemized the venue’s unique features. “There will be removable bleachers which will have a seating capacity of 450 people. There will be a ‘zambone,’ [sic] a machine that cleans and makes new ice, [and] there will be a tunnel which will lead directly from the skate house.” For the ice, the school hired Frick Company to install a mechanical refrigeration system. Robert Thomson, a noted electrical engineer, was brought in to design a lighting system that would permit evening skating. A special electrical plant was built on campus to power the rink, as well as the new gym.

The rink opened with much fanfare on February 17, 1962. Tabor’s resurgent hockey team took on Thayer Academy in front of the entire student body and many outside guests. After a post-game reception in Lillard, the community returned to the rink that evening for a special opening ceremony. Following speeches from Wickenden and Stone, the crowd was mesmerized by performances from skaters who recently competed at the National Figure Skating Championships in Boston. At a similar ceremony one year later, the rink was officially named after Roger and Parker Converse, brothers who served as lifetime trustees and supported the school and the town of Marion in many ways throughout their lives.

Although Converse Rink marked a substantial improvement from the school’s previous skating facilities, the open-air rink was still at the mercy of mother nature. Similar to the Duck Pond era, poor conditions cut into ice time. Not only did this affect Tabor’s hockey teams, but it also limited the rink’s availability for local residents who had come to enjoy the space as a community asset. By 1976, it was clear that further improvements were needed. “The rink doesn’t have a roof on it,” a student wrote in The Log that March. “If it’s too warm, the ice melts and if it rains, all the water stays on the rink, making it look like a swimming pool.”

A major gift from the Howard Johnson Foundation and Dorothy Weeks, Johnson’s daughter and mother of William Weeks ’75, enabled the school to once again transform its hockey facilities. The Howard Johnson Arena, built around Converse Rink, was completed in early 1977. Its steel frame supported a corrugated metal roof, under which hung fluorescent lights, and wooden shingles enclosed the east and west sides of the arena. A new refrigeration piping system was installed and encased in a concrete floor, resulting in a 40% increase in ice time. While the arena was a benefit to the hockey program, it also provided the school with an exciting new space to host large banquets, assemblies, and other special events.

The arena was augmented ten years later with another generous gift from the Howard Johnson Foundation. “The new plans are aimed at greatly enhancing the attractiveness and usefulness of the arena,” wrote a Log reporter in May 1986. Portable aluminum bleachers replaced the old wooden ones, a new scoreboard and public address system added modern flair, and a new lighting system that “should pay for itself with saved energy over the years” was installed.

On January 23, 1999, after construction on the new complex was complete, over 2,000 spectators packed into the arena for the dedication of the Travis Roy ’95 Rink. At Tabor, Travis Roy '95 was a beloved student and star player for the hockey team. He went on to play at Boston University. During his first shift, he crashed into the boards and was paralyzed from the neck down. Until his death in 2020, Roy served Tabor in a number of capacities. He was a longtime trustee and visited campus to speak with students frequently. On the afternoon of the rink dedication, Roy addressed the crowd before dropping the first puck.

“Amidst massive applause and a standing ovation, Travis was center ice while members of the Tabor Academy and St. Sebastian’s hockey teams circled the rink,” a reporter for the Standard Times wrote. “Few noticed the chill in the air from the ice.”

Finally the ice was cold and the facilities were state of the art. Although the scenery had changed drastically from the days of bogs and ponds, the spirit of Tabor hockey was, and continues to be, as rugged as ever.

Related article: Building a Better Tabor, Part 2: GOAL Oriented