Frozen Fenway, Sox a love story for Hockey East Commissioner Bertagna
Playing hockey games outdoors was not a tough sell for Joe Bertagna. Long before the National Hockey League embraced the idea, and the Capital One Frozen Fenway followed in its wake, the Hockey East commissioner and former star goalie at Harvard played a full season in a 10-team league in Italy where all but two teams played their home games on an outdoor rink.
Bertagna played in Cortina, the scenic village in the Italian Alps that served as host of the 1956 Winter Olympics. He was in the nets for the S.G. Cortina d’Ampezzo squad that won the 1975 Italian championship, playing in the Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio. “It was a gorgeous facility,’’ he said. “Eight thousand seats, stained wood, the Olympic rings hanging at center ice.’’
The rink would later be featured in the 1981 James Bonds movie, For Your Eyes Only, as the place where Bonds, played by Roger Moore, encountered his nemesis, Aris Kristatos. This would not be Bertagna’s first connection to the movies. He was a freshman at Harvard when the Ryan O’Neal-Ali MacGraw tearjerker, Love Story, was filmed at the university. O’Neal’s character, Oliver Barrett IV, was a star on the Harvard hockey team.
Bill Cleary, the legendary Harvard player, U.S. Olympian, and coach, was O’Neal’s stunt double in the hockey scenes. While Harvard’s №1 goalie, Bruce Derno, appeared in the flick as the goalie for Cornell and Dartmouth, Bertagna logged some brief screen time as Harvard’s goalie. No lines, though.
“I’ve been looking at scripts ever since,’’ he said, “but I’ve been typecast as a goaltender.’’
The film, which earned O’Neal an Oscar nomination for Best Actor but was widely panned as overly soapy, is still shown annually as part of Harvard’s freshman orientation.
“I spent a year teaching high school history at Arlington before I left for Europe to play hockey,’’ said Bertagna, who had returned to the Boston suburb where he grew up to teach. “I assigned the movie as homework. I told my students, ‘Watch the first 30 minutes. As soon as the hockey scenes are over, you can put your notebooks down.’’’
While at Harvard, Bertagna had become friends with a young woman residing on the floor beneath his — Benazir Bhutto, who would later become prime minister of Pakistan. He was invited to attend a black-tie reception at the White House held in her honor years later.
“This was during the first Bush administration,’’ Bertagna said. “There were all these big shots. I’m sitting in my rented tux, wondering what’s the protocol, do you just walk up to a head of state? What if she doesn’t recognize me? I knew her as “Pinky”; I knew I wasn’t going to call her that.
“So she recognizes me, and says, ‘Oh, Joey, good to see you. Let me introduce you. Mr. Vice President, this is my good friend Joey Bertagna, He was the goalie in ‘Love Story.’
“I’m thinking, ‘That’s it?’’’
Bertagna’s passion for hockey has never dimmed; he is in his 35th year as a college hockey administrator, the last 19 years as commissioner of Hockey East. He also coached — including six seasons as goaltending coach for the Bruins (1985–91) — has run goaltending clinics in New England for decades, and has written numerous books on goaltending, including the 2015 title, The Hockey Coaching Bible.
He is the man who cut the deal with Sox president Sam Kennedy, a fellow hockey buff, to stage Frozen Fenway at the ballpark. The first Frozen Fenway, a game between Boston College and Boston University in 2010, sold out within four hours, he said.
“My recollection is I immediately embraced it,’’ Bertagna said of Frozen Fenway. “Part of what is drilled into me as part of my job description is to find new opportunities to brand the league, make money, and to get headlines. The first time we discussed this in conjunction with the Winter Classic, I had never had met Sam. He’s pretty convincing when he wants to sell you something.’’
Kennedy didn’t know it at the time, but Bertagna has always had a soft spot for Fenway Park. When he was 15, he worked as a hotdog vendor at the ballpark in 1967, the year the “Impossible Dream” Sox won their first pennant since 1946 after finishing in ninth place the year before. Bertagna recalls how he set down his metal hotdog container and sat down in the aisle as Jim Lonborg trigged a five-run rally with a bunt single in the pennant-clinching season finale.
“My mother took me to the superintendent’s office and asked for permission for me to leave school and work the World Series games,’’ he said. “I was mortified. He walked out of the room, probably to say to someone, ‘Can you believe this?’ then came back stern-faced and finally gave me permission.’’
Bertagna counts it as “one of the great thrills of my life” to become close friends with former Red Sox pitcher Bill Monbouquette, who he met for the first time at the women’s Beanpot tournament. Monbouquette had played hockey at Medford High and for the first Frozen Fenway, Bertagna asked Monbouquette and two other ballplayers who played hockey in high school, Norwood’s Richie Hebner and Peabody’s John Tudor, to drop the ceremonial first puck. Hebner was good enough, Bertagna said, that when he played for the Pirates he was invited to practice with the NHL’s Penguins.
With this year’s Capital One Frozen Fenway, all 12 of Hockey East’s members will have gotten the chance to skate at Fenway Park.
“The ballpark is as much a star as anything else,’’ Bertagna said. “The hockey’s good; we know that. But people love to come to this ballpark. Playing at Harvard Stadium might offer better sightlines, but you’re not going to get the commerce you get here. You’re not going get two weeks of people wanting to come out here. This is the financial engine for us and allows all the other games — high school, public, private, boys girls, colleges Division I, Division III — every constituent has the chance to say they played here.’’
