Kieran J. Moylan weaved between packs of skaters, shouting encouragement to the youngsters starting and stopping around him. Years removed from his days starring for the Greenfield High School outdoor hockey teams of the late 1920s, Moylan had shifted into a different role within the community by the time the 1960s rolled around.
“Kieran Moylan was a kind, patient teacher and skilled player,” former Greenfield resident Fran Kelly recalled.
Indeed, Moylan stuck around and offered his wisdom to the next generation of Greenfield hockey players and skaters. When the GHS outdoor hockey team folded in 1942 after nearly two decades of tumult, that did not mark the end of skating and hockey played on Highland Pond.
Pick-up games, some rowdier than others, found their way on the ice in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and many youngsters learned to skate there for the very first time.
“The rink back then was at the south end of the pond,” Greenfield native Charlie Olchowski said. “And it was in the shade of the white pines, so the ice wasn’t in direct sun. Highland was still a great place to skate in those days.”
Of course, without the “organization” and official sponsorship of the high school, games played on the ice could be a bit chaotic.
“It might have been more correctly termed mayhem on ice,” Kelly said.
In the early 1960s, Olchowski said Greenfield’s teenaged players were ready for something more official. While he was only 14 or 15 years old at the time, Olchowski joined up with an older crew of Tap Towners and set the wheels in motion.
“We had enough players who were frustrated that the high school didn’t have a team anymore,” he explained. “So we got a team together and scheduled some games against other schools.”
Olchowski said the squad, named the Greenfield Hockey Club, went 5-0 in an abbreviated campaign. The team featured the likes of Jay Conway between the pipes, as well as Kurt Hahn, Malcolm Jenks, Mike Babits and Rich Coughlin.
“I think we played Arms Academy, Brattleboro, Orange, maybe the Pittsfield Boys Club twice,” said Olchowski.
Olchowski went on to attend Deerfield Academy, a place that garnered plenty of attention from Greenfield residents during that era. The school had the closest rink outside of town, and on Friday nights, it was opened to the public.
“They got their rink about 1960 or so. That was a great place,” recalled Chip Ainsworth, a regular in hockey circles during that era and beyond. “Us townies, we’d sneak in through the bathroom window and get into the rink to go skating. That was a pretty regular thing.”
Back at Highland Pond, weekends were busy times on the rink during peak winter seasons. The warming hut was a popular destination, complete with a wood stove and concession stand. The hut stayed open until 9 p.m. and belted out music for the skaters and hockey players to enjoy, before ultimately shutting down in the 1970s.
“The town cleared and maintained the pond daily and I recall large town trucks driving up and down the pond after a big snowstorm, and DPW workers filling the cracks with water several times a week,” offered Kelly, who now resides on Cape Cod.
The older generation, names like Moylan, Babits and Forrestall, were among the elder statesmen of the rink. Pick-up games lasted hours, and kids would leave their homes around town early in the morning and be gone all day.
“Sometimes only one goal because the ice at the southern-most end was bad,” said Kelly. “So the games were more like half-court basketball. No referees, no periods, no penalties, and no rules. Hardly a fight but cheap shots and occasional bloodied noses and facial cuts from errant pucks or sticks. No serious injuries that I recall.”
Of course, the ’60s ticked away, and Greenfield hockey took a dramatic turn for the better when Collins-Moylan Arena, named for Ralph Collins and Kieran Moylan, was built in time for 1970. With a new local option for indoor hockey, time spent outdoors on the pond slowly moved inside.
“That rink was such a game changer,” Ainsworth said. “To have your own rink in Greenfield, that was the berth of the FCHA, men’s league, you name it.”
The rink was full in the early 1970s when a semi-pro team called the Greenfield Mohawks made their debut. The team skated their inaugural game on Jan. 18, 1970 against the Highlawn Jerseys. Admission was a dollar and children got in for 50 cents. Programs cost a quarter and the Mohawks lost to the Jerseys, 10-4, before a reported 1,200 fans. Other opponents included the Springfield Chiefs, Waltham Habitants, Hartford Huskies and the archrival Holyoke Blades, as teams came to Greenfield for battles on Sunday nights.
“They were semi-pro if only because Patsy Collins gave each of them a five dollar bill to spend afterwards at Alberti’s (now the Main Street Bar & Grille),” wrote Ainsworth in his Keeping Score column. “Perhaps the best Mohawks player was Ryan Ostebo, a Minnesotan who lettered at Dartmouth and taught at Vermont Academy.”
Bob Weiss played right wing for the Mohawks, in addition to helping mentor many a Greenfield skater on the pond.
“The place was always packed and they’d be two or three deep around the glass,” Weiss told Ainsworth in a 2011 feature about the Mohawks for the Recorder.
There was also the vaunted Greenfield Men’s Hockey League that formed around the opening of Collins-Moylan Arena. The league ran for about 25 years, evolving out of four teams affectionately known as the Red, Blue, Yellow and Green teams.
“There were no sponsors in those early days, nothing,” offered Ainsworth, who played on the Green Team with the likes of Rabbit Graves, Juice Moore and Doug Stotz. “I don’t even know how we got the money for jerseys early on.”
Eventually, sponsors came on board — the Blue Team became Andy’s Pizza, Greenfield Supply Company also joined league sponsorship.
When Ralph Collins resurrected the GHS hockey program in 1970, the team was, and has been, strictly indoors for its past 50 years of existence. Despite a gap of nearly 30 years between high school-sponsored teams, hockey lived on in Greenfield. It’s always been at the forefront of the sporting scene in a community that employs such a rich tradition.