Board of Education

‘They’re So Good, Talented, Tough’: Board of Ed Honors NCHS Boys Ice Hockey Team, State Champs

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The Board of Education on Monday night honored the New Canaan High School boys ice hockey team, which last week won its first state title in 54 years. Addressing the school board during its regular meeting, coach Clark Jones said that although the decades-long drought had “zero” relevance to him and the players, it still presented a mental challenge. “They weren’t born, I wasn’t born,” Jones told members of the Board of Ed at their meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS and via videoconference. “And so we had to get through that whole thing. And they’re so good—talented, tough, and they got through the whole mental battle.

Danny Melzer

‘It Was Nothing More Than a Dream’: New Canaan’s Gus Larson Plays in NCAA March Madness Tourney

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Gus Larson already had several years of competitive basketball under his belt—starting in the New Canaan youth league as a West School fourth-grader and playing through his sophomore year at New Canaan High School—before he even dreamed of playing Division 1 hoops. It was at NCHS, Larson recalled last Thursday afternoon, that he “started to take basketball really seriously and realized that I had the potential to do something with basketball.”

“I started to grow quite tall,” Larson, who wrapped up his collegiate career as a 6’10” center for Queens University of Charlotte the week before, told NewCanaanite.com. “I loved to play, I loved to be in the gym, and [NCHS coach] Danny Melzer was kind enough to let me use the shooting gun during some of my lunch breaks at New Canaan High School. And so at that time you start to take it seriously. But I never really dreamed of playing Division 1 basketball at that point, much less the March Madness tournament.

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New Canaan-Darien Rivalry: Turkey Bowl Game Guide

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The New Canaan Rams football team comes into Thursday’s Turkey Bowl at 9-0, ranked No. 1 in the state. 

The Rams have already clinched a Class L Playoff berth and a home game in the quarterfinals. Darien is 6-3 and needs to win on Thanksgiving to guarantee a playoff spot. If the Blue Wave loses, Darien might not make the state playoffs depending on what other contending Class L teams do on Thursday. All three of Darien‘s losses came against teams that New Canaan defeated this year—St.

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14 NCHS Student-Athletes Sign Letters of Intent To Play Sports in College

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Fourteen New Canaan High School seniors on Wednesday signed commitment letters to play sports in Divisions I and II in college starting next year. 

NCHS Athletic Director Jay Egan said during the school’s annual ceremony for the student-athletes that it’s “one of the happiest days and one of the nicest events that we have all year.”

Thanking the All Sports Booster Club and specifically its vice presidents of special events, Nancy Roeder and Meredith Sullivan, Egan told a crowd of student-athletes, friends, families and coaches gathered in the Wagner Room at NCHS that the ceremony marks “the end of the high school [athletic] career.”

“It’s the achievement of something that maybe families have thought about and dreamed about for a long time,” he said. “You think, how did you get here? You get here when you have really dedicated athletes, you have a combination of resources and great coaches and you have the parental support which is really key. So this is a day to celebrate all the time and effort that was put in for all of those years, for all of those trips to Maryland, for all of those trips to Long Island and everywhere that people went. And all of those Mother’s Days and Father’s Days and Memorial Days and Labor Days that you spent on some field or in some gym somewhere.

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Former New Canaan Baseball Player Selected in MLB Draft

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As children, we are taught to dream big; to shoot for the stars; to pursue our passions to the ends of the Earth. Yet, for most people, that simply isn’t realistic. Most won’t grow up to be astronauts, movie stars, presidents, or professional athletes — not because they lack drive or talent, but because society doesn’t allow for it. Still, there are outliers. 

On Monday, former New Canaan baseball player Julian Tonghini became one of these outliers. 

Tonghini, a pitcher out of the University of Arizona, was selected by the Washington Nationals in the seventh round of the MLB draft, fulfilling a lifelong dream. “As soon as I saw my name pop up, I had so many emotions,” Tonghini said.