Some endings don’t move on so quickly.

By Michelle Bonner, Mother of Hall Hockey goalie Matthew Bonner; former ESPN, CNN, and Fox Sports journalist; Vice President of Public Relations at Adams & Knight

Over the course of a career as a sports journalist, you learn an unwritten rule: some stories are better left for someone else to tell.

For years, I followed that rule when it came to Hall High School hockey. There were wins worth celebrating, seasons worth remembering, and a locker room full of remarkable young men. But writing about my own son’s team never quite felt right.

Time has a way of changing the assignment.

It’s been a month since the Titans captured the CIAC Division III state championship with a 2-1 overtime victory over E.O. Smith/Tolland. Around it, everything has already moved on. Everyone is somewhere else. Lacrosse season is underway. Fields are full. Schedules reset.

Spring doesn’t wait.

But some endings don’t move at the same speed as everything else.

Some stay.
For a while.

And sometimes, what stays isn’t just how it ended – but everything that made the ending possible.

This season, history didn’t unfold gradually. It arrived all at once. Records that stood untouched for years didn’t just fall – they fell together. Names that had held their place – rewritten by two seniors on the same roster.

Senior forward Connor McHugh rewrote the record book like few players ever have. He finished his career as the program’s all-time leader in goals (66), assists (76), and points (142), while also setting the single-season goals record (31). At the same time, senior goaltender Matthew Bonner became the winningest goalie in program history (37) in just three seasons, while shattering the all-time saves record (1,718), and logging more minutes (2,905) than any goalie to wear a Hall jersey before him.

Such statistical convergence is rare at the high school level, where records usually belong to different eras – different teams built in different ways, separated by time. This time, they shared the same locker room.

Hockey logic suggests this shouldn’t happen. A star forward going “supernova” often means the puck is living in the offensive zone more, theoretically limiting the workload for the goalie. In hockey, you normally can’t have it both ways. Possible in theory, unicorn-level in reality.

But if you ask either of them about the records, you won’t get much.

“I honestly never thought about records,” McHugh said. “My focus was 100 percent on doing what I can to help my team win. My high school hockey dream was always to be part of a state championship team.”

Bonner’s answer isn’t much different. “All I have ever wanted was to win a State Championship. You’re not thinking about records in a game – you’re thinking about the next shot and getting the win. That’s it.”

Inside the program, that wasn’t just player perspective. It was by design.

“Very little, if at all,” Hall Titans head coach Colin O’Connor said of how often records came up during the season. “Early in the season, Connor knew how many points he needed to get to 100 points and I felt as he got close, he started to think about it a little more. After that, I kind of kept things to myself until they were tied or past one. Having two players like Connor and Matt doing what they have done is amazing, but the focus was working as a team and then celebrating individual accomplishments after they happened.”

Bonner added with a shrug, “I didn’t even know about the wins record until I read it in the paper. That’s not really a goalie thing because we win as a team. I’m just glad I got to be in net for it.”

The numbers only tell part of the story.

For Bonner, they hide the injuries: a fractured spine suffered as a freshman during a lacrosse game, followed by a re-fracture the next year. Neither kept him out of the crease. The only game he missed due to injury came late this season after taking a puck to the wrist.

“I never really saw not playing as an option,” Bonner said. “I just wanted to be out there with my team. I did whatever it took – and I had the right people around me to make that possible.”

That dependability became the foundation of the Titans’ system.

“Consistency in net is everything in hockey, especially in the system I run,” O’Connor added. “The trust the team has in him allows them to fully buy into the system every night.”

McHugh’s production was obvious. But even more impressive was his Cal Ripken ironman reliability – the kind of run you rarely see at this level, where something almost always gets in the way.

“He played in every one of the 92 games in his [four-year] career,” O’Connor said. “You just knew he was going to show up and give you everything he had. That kind of work ethic pushes everyone around you.”

McHugh deflects the praise the same way he avoided the spotlight all season.

“Hall hockey is about being a family and everyone was instrumental in helping me to achieve these records. I hope for my linemate, Putty [Ben Putnam], to break them all next year.”

Putnam, a junior, has 37 goals, 56 assists, and 93 points – so the records may not stand long.

At Hall, records haven’t just been falling – they’ve been staying close. Just a year ago, that same single-season goals record belonged to McHugh’s cousin Tommy Finley – so, maybe history really doesn’t stay still for long.

“It’s funny because Tommy wasn’t even aware that he held the record until I told him that it had been broken,” said McHugh. “He was happy that the record stayed in the family.”

Moments of external attention came as the records piled up, but the locker room never lost focus.

“We never talked about that stuff,” Bonner said. “It was always just about the next game, what we needed to do to win.”

That mindset revealed itself when the stakes were the highest.

Trailing 3-0 with 12:15 remaining in the third period of the state quarterfinal against Rocky Hill, the Titans refused to fold. What followed was a stunning two-minute, 20-second comeback that will be talked about for years.

Ben Goldstein scored. Then he scored again. In an instant, the momentum shifted. McHugh and Charlie Ganey added goals, and just like that, a game that looked lost turned on its head.

“You could feel it change,” Bonner said. “Ben [Goldstein] addressed the team between the second and third period and it wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it – you could feel the weight of his words as we stepped back onto the ice.”

O’Connor sensed the shift even earlier. While both teams waited in the same hallway before taking the ice in the third – his players quiet at first, caught somewhere between urgency and overthinking – a chirp from the other side.

“A player from Rocky Hill yelled something and then all of a sudden, all the kids were yelling and screaming and feeding off the energy. That energy gave us a big boost going into that third period.”

Four goals in 2:20.

The real turning point, however, had come even earlier.

“I knew this team was special last year,” O’Connor said. “What you saw this season was the result of three or four years of work – building something, piece by piece. I knew this team could put together a run like this and win a state championship.”

If there was a defining trait, it wasn’t raw talent.

It was resilience.

“There was never any quit in this team,” O’Connor added. “No matter what was thrown at them, they fought through it. They have been through so much this season, things that no high school student should have to think about. And the camaraderie on this team was special. Whenever anything happened, they pulled tighter together and were always playing for the guy next to them.”

That bond carried them to a moment the program had chased for 33 years – its first state title since 1993.

For the players and families, it was the culmination of a lifetime of early mornings that started before the sun had even considered rising, late nights that stretched into the next day, and years of sacrifice that rarely get seen. For the community, it hit in a different way.

“I’ve been part of this program for 28 of those 33 years – as a fan, a player, and now a coach,” O’Connor said. “I’ve seen it at its lowest, from an 0-19-1 season to having to co-op just to keep the program going. This meant everything for this community. It’s been a long road back, and every graduating class has helped build the foundation that got us here.”

The records now sit there next to Bonner’s and McHugh’s names – permanent, measurable, part of the program’s history. But when you ask what they’ll remember most, neither of them starts there.

“Oh, man – the locker room,” Bonner said. “Just being around the guys every day. I’m always going to remember what it felt like to win with them. Best feeling of my life. There’s a reason they call it a brotherhood.”

McHugh added: “I’ve made lifelong friendships through this team. That’s what stays with you. I’ll cherish the friendships and bonds that I have made through this program.”

Records will be broken. At some point, someone else will come along. Another name will take their place. Another season will rewrite the numbers. That’s how it works.

Not every team, however, gets to finish the way this one did – with a championship that outlasts any record book.

At Hall this winter, the numbers told one story. The ending told a better one.

Thirty-three years later, they finally finished it.

And now, as everything else moves forward – as spring takes over and new seasons begin – what remains is something bigger than the numbers: the way these young men carried each other, fought through every obstacle that came at them, and stayed together until the very end.

Yes, some stories are better left for someone else to tell. But some – the ones that don’t let go so easily – leave you no choice.

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