One of Charlestown's Own Skates for U.S. National Team

The following was submitted by Joe Cody. It was lightly edited.

It’s exciting to watch professional hockey. You fill the TD Garden with a bunch of fans and you all cheer for the Boston Bruins. It’s Boston’s team representing this region of the country. I suppose following that logic, if you went to a game at say, Northeastern University, you’d expect the fans there to be cheering for Northeastern.

But not this past weekend.

A group of Charlestown Youth Hockey players showed up to watch one of their own. Eighteen-year-old Matt Grzelcyk, a member of the U.S. National Under-18 Team, returned to Boston for the weekend to play two games. The first game was against Northeastern University on Saturday night and the second against Boston University on Sunday night. His young fans, mostly ages 7-12 cheered “USA, USA, USA”. The games pitted the top twenty high school players in the country against two of Boston’s college hockey power houses. Spectators were treated to a couple of great hockey games.

Team USA won the first game 7-4, breaking Northeastern's eight-game winning streak (granted that this was an exhibition, I was reminded by a Northeastern fan). The second game ended in a in 3-3 tie. Team USA held BU to just three first period goals despite having twenty seven penalty minutes to BU’s five and despite being having twenty six shots on net compared to BU’s forty eight. 

We all have someone that we look up too, someone we want to be someday. Charlestown has a hockey tradition. It is without question that many in this group came to see Grzelyck, and some will continue to follow Matt throughout his career at BU and beyond. Someday, through dedication and hard work, they’ll be on the ice, as the next generation of Charlestown Youth Hockey players cheer for them.