Addesa ’66, Annicelli ’79 and Cook ’79 Make Ice
By Karen Sharpe
For years, scoring good ice time anywhere on Massachusetts’ South Shore generated as much competition among hockey teams as the games themselves. In an area known as a haven for hockey enthusiasts, with an estimated 4,500 youth and adult players, ice rinks are few and far between.
But a year ago, a conversation between former Crusader hockey teammates Brian Cook ’79 and Peter Annicelli ’79, and their former Holy Cross coach, Mike Addesa ’66, led to the creation of a giant indoor rink and athletic facility called “The Bog” in Kingston, Mass.—a place where hockey players, teams, figure- and speed-skaters and Olympic hopefuls not only can find good ice time, but can learn under the guidance of professional coaches and maybe launch a pro career.
The Bog facility—named for the numerous cranberry bogs upon which many South Shore kids learned to skate—includes a 60,000-square foot twin rink and a soccer and lacrosse center attached to an existing 100,000-square foot tennis, health and swim complex known as the Kingsbury Club, located on the Duxbury/Kingston line. According to Cook, it will be one of the largest recreational facility to be built in New England in the last 25 years. Players and skaters will be able to hit the ice in late October.
For Cook, an attorney and a former National Hockey League player agent, hockey is not just recreation—it was the foundation of his career path. He first met Addesa at a little community rink, the Weymouth Skating Club, built on Cook family land in the town where Cook grew up.
“I guess there was rink-building in my blood,” Cook says. “That old rink, a barn really, was the center of our lives from 1969 until it burned down in 1975. And the biggest presence was Mike Addesa. Mike convinced me to come to Holy Cross and later helped me get into law school.”
Cook’s understanding of what hockey did for him—and the huge need for more rinks on the South Shore—prompted him to recruit help from his Holy Cross hockey connections.
“One of the big things about Holy Cross is the athletic tradition and the respect for that tradition,” he says. “Holy Cross hockey was a big part of what brought me and Peter there, and it’s the glue that keeps us coming back.”
Cook and his partners hope The Bog will recreate some of the community center feeling of the Weymouth Skating Club—and provide a similar platform for future student athletes.
“Right now while the sun is shining,” Cook says, “the ice is being made. The future looks bright for the Bog and for a new generation of hockey players.”
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