WORCESTER—The modern world has proven wrong some of those slogans the ancient world lived by like “Slow and Steady Wins the Race” and “You Can’t Go Home Again.”
The Worcester Railers have several players coming home again this season. That shows in their roster for their eighth training camp, which commences at 7:10 p.m. Sunday night at the Worcester Ice Center.
Practices are open to the public. Monday and Tuesday are 12:30 p.m. starts. Wednesday is 1:10 p.m. Thursday is 1:25. The Railers will play an exhibition game at 7 p.m. Friday night against Maine, also at the Worcester Ice Center.
This roster has a large number of returnees from last season and the team is beginning to establish a core of long-term players. This will be Anthony Repaci’s fifth season. It will be the fourth year for both Callin brothers, Anthony and Drew, and the third season for Riley Piercey and Ryan Dickinson.
This is not an accident.
“When I took over this job last year,” GM-coach Nick Tuzzolino said, “and even at the start of it, I mentioned that making (the playoffs) last year would have been great but the real process was a two-year build.
“I thought that having to recruit at the start of last season, then having the year we had, going into the offseason it was about that character and that culture build and being to able to return a core really leads to that mentality.”
The training camp roster is full of familiar names and some local ones, too.
They include Worcester natives Nick Pennucci and Matt Myers, son of Railers COO Mike Myers, as well as Shrewsbury connections T.J. Walsh and assistant coach Chris Rumble, who spent a couple of years there when his dad Darren played for the IceCats.
Thomas Gale, who had a great career at Holy Cross, is one of two young goaltenders in camp. Luke Pavicich is the other.
The roster also includes a pair of brothers, the Callins and Tanner and Porter Schachle.
As of the weekend, the Railers did not know how many players they will add from Bridgeport or who those players might be. They should know soon enough, though. Tuzzolino thinks it might be by the middle of the week.
The 2024-25 season was yet another disappointment in that Worcester missed the playoffs for the fourth straight year, and again on the last weekend. They never fully recovered from a bad start but were 23-13-5 in their last 41 games.
That was a .622 winning percentage. If the Railers do that throughout 2025-26 they would finish with 90 points.
Also last year they played the best team in the league, Kelly Cup champion Trois-Rivieres, 15 times. Worcester was 6-7-2 in those games, better than the league average against the Lions.
“We did our best night in and night out against the team that won the Kelly Cup,” Tuzzolino said. “If we can get overall consistency in defensive play and goaltending, if we can get that, we can push through that wall we’ve been so eagerly trying to get over.
“I think our record versus Trois-Rivieres helped us build where we wanted to go this year.”
Good goaltending does not guarantee you will win, but you can’t win without it. Last year the Railers’ goaltending was often not as good as the opposition’s. They would like to have two proven goaltenders on the roster this season.
“I’m hoping we have two consistent goalies under contract who are very good,” Tuzzolino said. Worcester is in line to possibly get veteran Henrik Tikkanen, highly regarded Tristan Lennox back from injury, or even Parker Gahagen who is on an AHL deal.
Gahagen has had a great minor league career and last year was 12-4-3 for Lehigh Valley of the AHL.
“Give me two out of three of those guys and I will be a very happy man,” Tuzzolino said.
Three of last season’s most stalwart players are gone, though. Connor Welsh, Mason Klee and Griffin Luce have all headed overseas. Combined, the trio missed one game last season.
The team is opimistic that with former Worcester Sharks standout Mathieu Darche as the New York Islanders new general manager it will get more attention than it had under Lou Lamoriello. His son, Chris, remains as GM in Bridgeport.
The Railers will also continue to work with nearby Springfield and Hartford of the AHL when the occasion arises.
“Having strong relations with all three teams,” Tuzzolino said, “will allow us to build the strongest roster.”
Half a loaf might be better than none, but half a season was not good enough for the Railers last year. A better start to 2025-26 would mean this new year won’t have to go down to the last game.
Bill Ballou covered the Red Sox for the Worcester Telegram from 1997 through 2018. He has covered pro hockey in Worcester since 1994 and currently does a weekly column for the Worcester Red Sox. Ballou can be reached at vetgoalie@aol.com
