Local fire, hockey communities come together to support one of their own

Jack DesRuisseaux. (Photo by Dave Arnold / NEHJ)

For a 17-year-old, hockey-loving Tabor Academy junior Jack DesRuisseaux, the night of Nov. 6, 2021, started as a typical Saturday night.

With fall hockey winding down and the return of prep school hockey on the horizon, he was on the ice with his split-season team, the GBL Bruins, playing the Boston Junior Eagles in an 18-U contest at the Dorchesters Devine Memorial Rink.

The game got underway and everything seemed par for the course. Until it wasnt.

Between periods, his Coach, Bret Tyler, pulled him aside; Jacks mom, Colleen, had received a phone call that no family member of a firefighter ever hopes to get. His dad, Manchester (NH) fire Captain Steve DesRuisseaux, had been severely injured while battling a fire trying to Rescue Residents trapped in a multi-family apartment building. He was being flown to Mass. General for surgery after suffering second- and third-degree Burns to more than 40 percent of his body.

Editors note: This article appears in the January / February print edition of the New England Hockey Journal.