Globe South High School Hockey

Lyons has second

chance to shine

Lackadaisical student says,

'I learned my lesson'

By Justin A. Rice Globe Correspondent / February 26, 2009

Brittany Lyons only knows one speed: overdrive. Skating her first shift for the Winchendon School since suffering a broken fibula in the season opener in early December, Lyons found it difficult to control her emotions.

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The former Canton High scoring machine was so excited, she slammed a foe into the boards after an end-to-end chase similar to the one that caused her own injury.

"I just pinched her too hard against the boards," Lyons recalled of the play, on the last weekend of January, in the Stanstead College Tournament in Quebec. "In the [penalty] box I was like 'Come on. The first shift back and I already got a penalty.' You want to score, you don't want to sit in the penalty box."

The center's self-admonition wasn't in her mind for long.

On her next and only other shift of the game, she scored. Lyons played one shift apiece in the next two games of the tournament but managed three more goals, the final two coming on the same shift in the last four minutes of a 7-2 victory against St. Louis Selects in the championship game.

In six games since her return, Lyons has six goals for Winchendon (20-5-3), keeping pace with the 286 goals she scored over four years at Canton High. But now she is also helping set up her teammates at the college preparatory/boarding school. In four seasons at Canton, she netted 36 assists. Since returning to the Winchendon lineup, she already has 10.

She credits that sharp uptick to a supporting cast recruited to play for Winchendon's first-year women's hockey program.

But as far as her on-ice fervor has taken Lyons, including earning a spot on the U19 US national women's team, her hockey-first attitude has also come at a high cost. Lyons's grades at Canton High were so poor that she failed to meet NCAA Clearing Houses requirements to play Division 1 athletics, forcing her to spend this year at Winchendon to improve her academic standing.

"I do regret skipping out on classes and not doing work, getting work done," Lyons says of her time at Canton High. "I did learn my lesson. Having to come here, missing out on going Division 1 right away, definitely it was a kick in the butt. I learned my lesson and hopefully I'll move on from here. [It was] a little late but better than never."

Lyons, who says she skated by with Cs and Ds at Canton, is now earning As and Bs, with the occasional C, and even made honor roll while running cross-country in the fall to get in better playing shape.

"This year is going to put me in the right direction and the right path to where I want to go," said the 18-year-old, who has Olympic dreams. "Public school wasn't the place for me, without rules and restrictions. Here it's work and then play. At Canton it was play before work, or no work."

Her father, Gene Lyons, said the structure and smaller class sizes at Winchendon are better for his daughter, who he said always turned down offers for extra help at Canton.

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"The first day there she was looking out the window and a teacher said to her 'Brittany, look up here, not out the window.' I tell you, I really think it worked for her," the elder Lyons said.

More than anything, however, the injury was the bigger catalyst for Lyons to refocus her priorities.

"I don't want to get religious, but I believe God was letting her know 'You need to stop and smell the roses,' so to speak," said Dan McLean, the Canton girls' hockey coach. He took over the program a year after Lyons led the Bulldogs to a 20-0 record her sophomore year before losing in the Division 1 state championship game.

McLean said Lyons never liked missing ice time for a minor penalty, let alone a minor injury. And that's why her six-week rehabilitation, the longest period she's ever stayed away from the rink and lacrosse and soccer fields, was life-changing, according to Winchendon coach Mike Kennedy.

"When you take hockey out of a hockey player's life, they really have to rethink things," Kennedy said. "She had to start saying to herself 'What if I can't play hockey ever again? What will I do?' "

Had that turned out to be the case, Lyons's last stand would've come in the final period of the regular season opener against Cushing Academy on Dec. 5. With Winchendon trailing 2-1, Lyons had just returned from a shift at forward when Kennedy asked his captain to go back out and stalk the puck on both ends of the ice.

"I cut in going for the puck and was forced out by two defenders, lost an edge and went into the boards," Lyons said of the moment before crashing into the boards with only her left foot to brace her impact. "I tried to get up to skate back to the bench and couldn't even put any pressure on it at all."

Lyons returned to Canton to recover. By the fourth week of her rehab, she became so anxious to hit the ice she took to walking around the living room in skates. When those skates finally touched ice on Jan. 19, Lyons could hardly stand to put pressure on her leg.

"That very first practice I looked like a learn-to-skate kid," she says. "It hurt so bad putting a skate on."

In the end, however, all that pain turned out to be the kind that only made Lyons stronger.

"This year has been crazy, a lot of ups and downs," Lyons says, "but it's going to keep going up, I hope."

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.