WORCESTER—It can be hard to get excited about new arrivals when hockey teams add rookies to the roster in March and April.
Most are one-and-dones, so there was no indication that March 20, 2018 would turn out to be such an important day in Railers history. That was when the team signed what looked like a fairly average player from Bentley College, known more for its accounting majors than its hockey majors.
In this case, though, the rookie was Drew Callin.
Callin turned into one of the best players Worcester has ever signed and one of its most successful graduates. He spent nearly four full seasons with Springfield of the AHL and it is reasonable to say that without Drew Callin, the Railers would not have wound up with brother Anthony.
Drew, now 30, returned to play with his brother here this season. As linemates, they have been major factors in the team’s abrupt turnaround in the last week.
The Railers have won three straight games after opening the year with one victory in their first nine. Worcester will seek to extend that streak with an upcoming three-in-three weekend at the DCU Center that includes games with honorable and ancient foe Maine, and the brand new Greensboro Gargoyles.
Friday’s game versus the Mariners is a 7:05 p.m. start and will be Teacher Appreciation Night. Saturday the puck drops at 6:05 on First Responders Night; the preliminary is the annual Guns n’ Hoses game between the Police and Fire Departments with a 3:05 start.
The finale is SuperHeroes Sunday. That gets underway at 3:05. The last two games are against Greensboro.
Combined the Callins have played 241 games for the Railers, scored 69 goals and registered 128 points. Until this season, though, they had only played together once. That was last season in Springfield with mixed results, or not even that.
“It wasn’t very good,” Anthony said.
This year has been much better. Tuesday they became the first brother combination in Worcester pro hockey history to score goals in same game. It is a history that dates back to the fall of 1994 and includes the IceCats, Sharks and Railers.
Along with Anthony Repaci, they are becoming a dangerous first line.
The key acronym here is not ECHL, NHL or any HL. It is more like DNA. The Callins look a lot alike and play with the same intensity. Coach Nick Tuzzolino is taking advantage of that.
“They are complementary players,” he said, “and not necessarily because they’re brothers. Obviously, there’s that natural connection and they are very similar.
“AC (Anthony) definitely has that offensive piece, and I’m not saying that Drew does not have it, but he’s been so programmed in a certain role in the AHL that it might take him a half-year to realize how good he can be offensively.
“I think Anthony has a little more speed and plays a little different style, and I think they complement each other well.”
Anthony was suspended for four games earlier in the season after being called for a slashing major and game misconduct in the third period of a 5-1 loss to Reading on Nov. 1. The game had already been lost when it turned ugly so the penalties seemed to serve no purpose.
Worcester was 1-3-0 and outscored by 20-9 in his absence. Tuzzolino holds Callin blameless.
“If anything, I take more blame on that,” he said. “It’s not that I told him to go out and do it but my emotion, my energy, my frustration gets into my players, and I think that’s what leaders do, they sort of exemplify their head coach.”
The same time they signed Drew Callin in 2018 the Railers signed Charlie Michalowski and Spencer Trapp. They batted .333 on the deals, not bad as those transactions go. This one probably had longer terms effects than the team ever imagined.
During the Railers’ win streak it looks like the Callins have been playing on the same line forever and they probably have been, at least unofficially.
“We’ve been together our whole lives,” Anthony said, “and we’ve been skating together our whole lives.” Their lives have intersected here and now, making a big difference for the Railers.
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
