By Tim Parry

Max Pacioretty is a college dropout. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be sitting at home wondering what to do with the rest of his life. Sure, he’s at his parent’s home in New Canaan right now, but he knows he’ll be spending this fall in Canada.

Pacioretty, the first-round draft pick of the Montreal Canadians in 2007, has given up his final three years of collegiate eligibility with the University of Michigan to sign with the NHL team.

Pacioretty will be in training camp with the Canadians this September, and is expected to start the season with Montreal’s AHL affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs.

“Max Pacioretty is a young player with a lot of skills, who has the potential to play in the NHL,” said Montreal general manager Bob Gainey in a press release. “We are very happy to have him under contract for years to come. We feel he is ready to make the jump to professional hockey, and we will make sure to provide him with all the resources which will benefit his long-term development as a player.”

As a freshman at Michigan, Pacioretty was named the CCHA Rookie of the Year, and was named to the College Hockey News All-Rookie team and the CCHA All-Rookie team. He finished fifth in U.S. college hockey among rookies in points (39) and points per game (1.05). He was also Recipient of the Mickey and Wally Grant Scholarship for Men’s Ice Hockey.

The 6-foot-2, 199-pound left winger finished second on the team in plus-minus and powerplay goals with nine. Pacioretty also scored three game-winning goals and registered 109 shots on goal.

Pacioretty was a member of the US National team which finished fourth at the 2008 World Junior Championship presented in Czech Republic.

“We’re certainly disappointed that Max Pacioretty has chosen to forgo his eligibility at the University of Michigan at this time,” said Michigan associate head coach Mel Pearson in a statement. “Max was a positive force on our team last season. We would like to wish him well in his pursuit of his dream to play in the National Hockey League.”

Will the third time be a charm for Danbury area ice hockey fans? Probably not. Instead, the joke will be on Hat City hockey fans… and the New Haven-area hooligans who travel to Danbury Ice Arena to practice their goonism.

Balloting (if you want to call it that) for a “Name the Team” contest for Danbury’s new Eastern Professional Hockey League franchise has concluded, and the moniker will be announced with a new site launch. The problem is, Danbury franchise owners Tim Kolpien, Curtis Russell, and Igor Mrotchek in March sunk their money into a brand new league, which may or may not ever get off the ground.

Then again, according to an article in The News-Times, ticket sales are going well. They also wouldn’t tell the reporter, Rich Gregory, how many tickets were sold.

So is a sucker born every minute? Or are officials at Danbury Ice Arena cashing in on rental fees lost when James Galante lost the city’s first franchise, the UHL’s Danbury Trashers, to the feds?

That’s right, Danbury’s short professional hockey lifetime is already a tainted one.

Galante brought hockey to town, kind of as a gift for his son, A.J., who ran the team at the young age of 19. The Galante’s promised family hockey… as long as the family’s last name was “Gambino,” or your family acted like trailer trash. Orphaned New Haven hockey fans made the trip of Route 34 to watch games, and became a nightmare of the civilized, and the Danbury police force (though this use of a taser on a fan in a brawl was at a New England Stars game).

Oh yeah, family hockey? Kidding. The team was all about playing dirty to win.

Once the Trashers and Galante were brought down on fraud charges which included defrauding the United Hockey League in the Trashers’ operation, the arena filled the void with a “pro” hockey team called the New England Stars. They went undefeated in a three-team North Eastern Hockey League (ooh!), which folded soon after. The Stars were billed as a pro team, but it turned out it was a semi-pro weekend-only league.

Will hockey work this time around? I’d love to think it will. But let’s face the facts. The league is not established. The history of pro hockey in Danbury is already horrid. And if you’re a true hockey fan, you already know there is some very good hockey to watch at the Danbury Ice Arena.

There’s plenty of SWC hockey, including CIAC Division I Immaculate and the D-II Brookfield-Bethel co-op that seems to have become a team to watch. Also, Western Connecticut’s club hockey team competes against some of the area’s top ACHA programs.

Not too far from New Haven, Sacred Heart fills the Milford Ice Pavilion. Quinnipiac’s team is playing in a nice new on-campus arena in Hamden. And in New Haven, of course, Yale’s hockey tradition continues.

Real hockey fans will hit those venues, as well as other local high school and college games. And the goons of Section 102 will continue to support fly-by-night hockey in Danbury.

I’ve been on ice skates once, as a 4th grader who had sprained his ankle twice in the prior year. Needless to say, I refused to let my father let go of me that day on a frozen Mill River in Fairfield, and that pair of Caldor skates lay useless in my parent’s basement forever.

My floor hockey career ended as a sophomore in high school when I jumped in front of Kevin Arrix, a sophomore on the New Canaan varsity, to block a shot and ended up with something like 30 stitches above my right eye. (Kevin apologizes to this day, even though I take the blame)

But you don’t have to own a stick or know how to skate to understand that FCIAC teams cannot compete at the CIAC Division I level. Read the full story