Category: The Concord Bridge

  • Cool under pressure: 10-year-old hockey prodigy keeps his focus

    Cool under pressure: 10-year-old hockey prodigy keeps his focus

    Milan Gaffron (No. 13) skates into a defensive position against the Bulldogs on Saturday, February 7. Photo by Andrew Reed

    Milan Gaffron can hear his father cheering from the stands, but he never looks up. Discipline keeps his eyes trained on the puck. 

    A defenseman for the Minuteman Flames, one of 12 teams in the Eastern Hockey Federation’s 2015 Platinum Division, and a player in the Concord-Carlisle Patriots Squirt AAA team, 10-year-old Milan has mastered the “clean kill,” a hockey term for breaking up a play without drawing a penalty. 

    Six years ago, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Milan first stepped onto the frozen surface of Nick Macone Pond with his father, Chris. Born in Germany, Chris grew up playing soccer and was looking for a safe outdoor activity during the lockdown. 

    “We went onto the pond, and he’s like, ‘I love this, I should sign up for a team,’” Chris said, “and [he] started us down this path.”

    Milan improved quickly, moving from Concord-Carlisle Youth Hockey’s learn-to-skate program to the town team, later earning a spot in the Eastern Hockey Federation, the region’s most competitive league. 

    “Milan is fast, tenacious, and has a high hockey IQ,” said Flames Coach Mark Agostinelli. “We rely on [him] in critical moments, especially when protecting a lead.”

    Milan breaks down a penalty kill after his game on Saturday, February 7. Photo by Andrew Reed

    Gold at Lake Placid

    Last January, the Flames returned from the hallowed Lake Placid CAN/AM tournament draped in gold, undefeated in four games against elite youth teams from Canada and the United States.

    A fifth grader at Thoreau Elementary, Milan anchored the Flames’ penalty kill unit during the tournament, posting a rare 12-for-12 performance and not allowing a single power-play goal.

    “I like to make players mad,” Milan said. “They get mad when they can’t score.”

    That defensive discipline has carried into league play. As of February 19, the Flames sat in sixth place (among 12 teams), with a record of 15-10-9. In 33 games this season, Milan contributed three goals and 14 assists for 17 points, posted a +6 rating, and — perhaps most remarkably — had yet to take a penalty.

    Getting his kicks

    In addition to hockey, Milan earned his black belt in karate and plays soccer like his father, who competes in an over-40 league. Chris says Milan’s sure-footed soccer play has sharpened his puck control, while the discipline instilled by martial arts has contributed to his penalty-free season.

    The Flames’ most recent game against the Billerica Bulldogs marked a return to regular-season play and tested the team’s abilities.

    “It’s going to be intense,” said Chris, watching the teams warm up. It was their fourth meeting of the season, with a dead-even 1-1-1 record. The Bulldogs sat at second in the league with the highest-scoring offense.

    While Milan prepares to defend the blue line, his father sits in the stands, taking stats and video recording Milan’s time on the ice, archiving a journey that began in 2020. 

    Milan often rewatches the footage on his own, but Chris also captures his son’s accomplishments for family members in the Philippines who may never get to see him play in person. 

    A defensive and team-minded player, Milan doesn’t play “hero hockey,” where someone monopolizes the puck and ends up losing it. 

    “I like to work the puck around,” he said.

    Chris Gaffron, phone and pen ready, captures team stats and Milan’s plays on the ice. Photo by Andrew Reed

    A balanced intensity

    Milan’s focus reflects an intensity his father has watched grow on and off the ice.

    “We always knew he’s fairly determined to do things the right way,” Chris said, “but he takes it to another level at hockey.”

    Even with school, two hockey teams, and soccer in the spring and fall, Milan is still mainly focused on being a kid.

    His favorite part of the CAN/AM tournament was, of course, the maple syrup. In his free time, he is designing his own version of Monopoly with his friends. He enjoys playing the strategy game Catan with his dad, and can easily pivot from the deconstruction of defensive power-play to an analysis of the Seven Years’ War. His favorite school subject is history. 

    “I don’t want to put too much pressure on him,” Chris said. “I wouldn’t even mind if he didn’t go to college right the second he leaves school. There are other things you can do just to experience life for a bit.”

    The game against the Bulldogs ended in a tie, giving the Flames the most ties in the league. But Milan said he felt good when he got off the ice, his mind already on to the next thing.

    “I’m excited to see my sister [figure] skate in her tournament tomorrow,” he said, heading for the locker room.

    This story was written by a journalism student in Boston University’s Newsroom program, a partnership that includes the university, The Concord Bridge, and other Boston-area news organizations.

  • Concord youth drawn to political activism — but not Town Meeting?

    The kids are concerned — but not necessarily about Concord’s municipal budget or what’s next for the decommissioned prison. They’re more worried about issues like climate change and wealth disparities.

    The younger set doesn’t often get involved in local politics or Annual Town Meeting. Some local leaders would like to see that change, but the answer may not be around the corner. 

    Concord and several other municipalities petitioned the state legislature to allow them to decide whether 16- and 17-year-olds could vote on certain local issues. 

    That measure failed last year.

    And Concord-Carlisle High School students say they’re more focused on national and global issues — and there’s little time in their packed schedules to get involved in those local politics.

    “I feel like it’s less about making a change rather than just, like, being like a citizen,” CCHS student Sadie Kokoszka told The Concord Bridge.

    She participates in four politically focused clubs at CCHS: Junior State of America, History Reading Group, Rho Kappa, and Model UN. During club meetings, students discuss sweeping, perhaps existential issues that may range from indigenous land rights to climate change. 

    Kokoszka, who has lived in both Concord and Carlisle, said that compared to topics such as local recycling policies, national issues can just feel more pressing. 

    Reaching out?

    Julie Leary, 16, said Town Meeting can seem daunting to students like her.

    “It feels like they don’t really want the kids there,” Leary said. “They’re like, ‘You can go if you want,’ but like, they’re not going to make an effort [to] reach out and bring us in.”

    Leary belongs to Junior State of America, History Reading Group, Kappa and Moot Court. Despite all that, she can feel intimidated by local politics.

    “I just… don’t really know how to get into the town politics,” Leary said. “I feel like it’s more geared towards adults — especially in Concord.”

    Overall, Americans’ views on politics are bleak, with nearly 65% of Americans saying they feel exhausted when thinking about politics according to a 2023 Pew Research Center study. Only 10% said they feel hopeful.

    CCHS student Elise McMurrow belongs to Rho Kappa, Moot Court, History Reading Group, and Innocence Club, which raises money for people who are wrongfully incarcerated. 

    She’d like to work in the community at some point — yet hyperlocal matters pale compared to national and world issues.

    “When you look at all the issues that are facing our country and the world right now, it just seems a little bit less, you know, pressing,” McMurrow said. “I don’t want to speak for everyone, but it feels almost like it isn’t necessary for us to get involved.”

    Votes that matter

    As Concord ponders ways to make its brand of self-governance more accessible, Town Moderator Carmin Reiss said there’s been a strong desire to find ways to include younger people in the Town Meeting process. 

    “Their vote would make a difference,” she said.

    The Massachusetts Moderators Association provides educational materials so schools can conduct mock Town Meetings and follow articles through local government. However, there wasn’t much interest in adding more to the students’ curriculum, Reiss said.

    “When I was first elected, I looked up one of the history teachers at the … high school and went and met with him and asked, ‘Well, can we do something here?’” Reiss said. “Everything was so packed already that there wasn’t a lot of interest in adding more.”

    While Reiss allows that not everything discussed at Town Meeting is “scintillating,” she also believes it’s the nation’s purest form of direct democracy.

    “There is a lot of self determination that we have an ability to make happen through our Town Meeting, and you often think it’s people at their best, really thinking about things and offering their points of view, and they don’t always agree,” Reiss said.

    “And a result comes out of it, and it’s a peaceful result, which is a wonderful thing about democracy when it works.” 

  • CCHS alum Nico Calabria expanding the amputee soccer world

    Nico Calabria feigns left, then dribbles right. He dashes toward the ball.

    “Yup, yup, yup,” he shouts. The soccer ball blurs as it cuts through the turf.

    With one leg, Calabria is better than most athletes with two. He regularly amazes soccer fans as captain of both the New England Revolution’s and U.S. men’s amputee soccer programs. But he’s not looking to be inspiring as most media outlets depict; he’s looking to grow the sport.

    Calabria is not an amputee, per se. He was born with one leg in 1994 in Santa Clara, California. His father, Carl, who was obsessed with soccer, encouraged Calabria to kick the ball around at a young age. 

    He continued playing soccer when his family moved from Indiana to Concord in 2003, but it came with challenges. Calabria, 9 at the time, almost wasn’t allowed to play after the Massachusetts State Referee Committee raised concerns about safety and “the beauty of the game,” he said.

    At one point, his father padded Nico’s crutches with PVC pipe to act as shin guards.

    “I have this memory of him smacking himself in the head with it in front of this group to be like, ‘Look … it’s safe,’” Calabria said. 

    His viral moment

    Calabria would continue playing soccer at Concord-Carlisle High School, first with the junior varsity teams, then varsity. Although he spent a lot of time on the bench, during one game he scored a bicycle kick that put him on ESPN’s top 10 plays of the day.

    “It kind of changed my life overnight,” Calabria said. “It was like stardom suddenly.”

    After the viral goal, he starred in a Powerade commercial, which led to a free flight to the 2014 World Cup in Rio de Janeiro. He was also able to shoot free kicks with soccer star Andres Iniesta.

    At 16, he traveled to Sinaloa, Mexico, to play in his first game for the national amputee soccer team. It was the first time he played with one-legged people. Suddenly he wasn’t the slowest person — he was the fastest.

    “My role changed significantly, from being like a supporter of something to being like a star on the field,” Calabria said. 

    His whole family had come to watch the match. 

    “The other teammates on the Mexican team loved him, and he loved it,” his mother Jeanine said, tearing up. “That’s why they call it ‘the beautiful game,’ right?”

    Similarities and differences

    Amputee soccer is similar to two-legged soccer but with smaller teams and fields. Field players can have two hands but may use only one foot — not any residual limbs they may have. Goalies can have two legs but only one hand. Players can’t use their crutches as tools to make goals or trap opponents. They do kick-ins rather than throw-ins.

    At 18, Calabria was named team captain. He said he became a “phenom” and one of the best players in the world, mostly because he had a lifetime of playing with two-legged people. 

    “A lot of people who get involved in amputee soccer, they’ve lost a leg, and they work to walk on a prosthetic leg,” he said. “Amputee soccer doesn’t allow prosthetics, so they have to learn how to use crutches.”

    Amputee soccer doesn’t have as strong an infrastructure in America as it has in Turkey, which is the current world champion. He’s had to grow the sport into something bigger than it was before. In 2018, he started the New England Revolution amputee soccer team to build programs on a regional level.

    Enlightening through athletics

    He’s been using his background as an educator to start amputee soccer programs in New England through the Bionic Project, an instructional non-profit focused on disability education through sports. 

    Dana Ross Rogers, the project’s executive director, said Calabria stood out to the president and founder Will Borden after he excelled at the Bionic 5K, a road race for adaptive athletes.

    “It turns out now that Nico was coming to try and recruit amputee soccer players,” Rogers laughed. “But at the time, Will [Borden] didn’t know that and just thought he was awesome.”

    Calabria’s education through the Bionic Project has been significant. Bionic educators will spend a day at a pre-K to college school where they aim to dismantle disability bias through adaptive sports, like amputee soccer. They recently visited an ad strategy class at Boston University.

    “He is magical in a classroom,” Rogers said. “He’s aware that everything with a child is a teachable moment, and his expertise and professionalism in the classroom is unparalleled.”

    ‘We’re doing it’

    He’s proud of his success on the soccer pitch, but he’s prouder of the work he’s done off the field. He organized the first U.S. amputee soccer cup in the states and has had his hands in programs nationwide. 

    “It was the first time in my life that I had watched a game of amputee soccer that I wasn’t playing in,” Calabria said. “I was just standing there and looking around at all these people that I’d met around the country, and been like, ‘OK, this is sweet. We’re doing it.’”

    Calabria led the Revolution to a 5-0 victory over New York FC last month. Leading up to the game at Gillette Stadium, he was unfazed. 

    “They’re itching for a win. … They haven’t beaten us in their history, and they’re tired of it,” Calabria said. “When the lights go on, I’m gonna go out and play really hard and try to put on a show, but it’s all love between the two teams.”